FASHION
“It-Girl” Trend Cycles: A Retrospective Look at The Mob Wife Aesthetic
By: Grace Stecher, Senior Writer Edited by: Elliana Gallagi
I wrote the article below in Spring 2024. In it, I discuss the rapid circulation of niche fashion trends on TikTok and the problems that arise from it. Specifically, I mention the Mob Wife Aesthetic, a trend circulating on social media at the time. Just like the extreme fashion cycles I comment on in the article, the Mob Wife trend is nowhere to be found in September 2024, and dozens of other“it-girl” aesthetics have since come and gone. In just a few months, the trend so many people spent hundreds of dollars to embody has been completely abandoned and replaced a thousand times over.
As we approach the Halloween season, we need to be aware of the overconsumption that these microtrends encourage. Now more than ever, people, especially college students, are buying one-time-use clothing items to achieve what TikTok is calling “Cool Girl Halloween Costumes.” These Halloween style guides feature “must-have” clothing items and accessories (often from fast-fashion websites), and just like the title suggests, help convince young girls that by buying certain pieces, they too can be “cool.” From the mob wife aesthetic of this past spring to the it-girl Halloween style guides of this fall, TikTok trend cycles continue to promote overconsumption and loss of personal style.
Coastal grandmother. Strawberry girl. Twee. Granola girl. Eclectic grandpa. Soft girl. Cottagecore. Coastal cowgirl. Balletcore. Quiet luxury. For the past few years, TikTok has been the mecca of circulation for new fashion trends almost every month, controlling which aesthetic users, primarily younger girls, view as the most desirable.
As new “it-girl” ideals flood our screens, people are encouraged to buy new products or clothing items to achieve “the look” and replace their old pieces when they no longer fit the current trends. While on the surface these quick trend cycles seem like a fun way to keep our closets interesting, we need to think about their impacts on the progression of individualized fashion senses and young girls’ self-image.
Emma Hughes, Associate Wellness and Beauty Social Media Editor for Who What Wear, told Fetch she’s gotten a firsthand look at the development of these trend cycles. “I believe that TikTok can amplify and disseminate niche fashion and beauty trends at a much faster pace than other social platforms and traditional forms of media, which might explain why we've been seeing so many internet aesthetics crop up over the past couple of years.”
Emma Hughes, Associate Wellness and Beauty Social Media Editor
In recent months, the iconic clean girl trend consisting of slicked-back hair, dewy makeup, simple silhouettes, and dainty jewelry, disappeared in favor of the mob wife aesthetic, which took center stage this past winter. Encouraging a glamorous, put-together look, this aesthetic’s furs, leather, and maximalist jewelry were a complete shift from the simplicity of the clean girl vibe, causing people to ditch their clean girl accessories to follow the newest trend.
Sarah Arcuri, the self-proclaimed Mob Wife Aesthetic CEO with over 128k followers and 2 million likes on her TikTok account @thesweetpaisana told Fetch, “I started posting about the mob wife aesthetic in 2022, long before it was a viral fashion trend. At the time, my social media was starting to take off, and I was getting a lot of questions about my outfits and fashion sense.”
After her video detailing how to dress like a mob wife went viral in October 2023, the look took over the Internet. Celebrities like Dua Lipa and Kendall Jenner hopped on the trend, captured in paparazzi photos wearing oversized fur coats, kitten heels, and dramatic jewelry. Videos engulfed our For You pages breaking down what clothing items were needed to achieve this desirable look. The trend was inescapable.
However, no style is without critique. Concerns about the aesthetic romanticization of violent groups and lifestyles, like the mob, began to arise just as quickly as the trend did.
Sarah Arcuri says the trend she started doesn’t have any deeper meaning than its surface aesthetic. “Every fashion trend draws inspiration from something, somewhere, or someone, and in this case, it happened to be fictional and real-life mob wives. Wearing faux fur coats, lots of jewelry, and leopard print does not glamorize organized crime in any way, and in fact, I think when you take a look at the lives most of these wives and daughters lived, what they went through wasn't glamorous by any means.”
Arcuri's 2023 video, created to share her style with her followers, turned into an Internet phenomenon garnering heavy critique and backlash with the addition of just one simple title: Mob Wife. TikTok trend cycles have led to the destruction of individual fashion sense. Rather than wearing what you want, styles are now conformed to fit under a certain theme or title for content-making purposes.
“Some people express fatigue over what they see as a constant re-packaging of beauty and fashion-related practices that have been around long before the ‘trend’ most recently emerged, while others believe that internet trends are a fun way to encourage playfulness, experimentation, and expression,” Emma Hughes noted.
These cycles aren’t just affecting the integrity of individual style. Young girls are constantly bombarded with videos detailing the newest clothes they need to buy, the no longer trendy pieces they need to throw out, or the it-girl style they need to achieve for the upcoming month. Samantha Warfel, a freshman at Yale University, noticed this uptick in trend content on her TikTok For You page in recent years. “Literally 75% of the content I see on my TikTok is aesthetic-related. The captions are always something like “how to achieve x/y/z look or vibe.” It’s really tiring.”
As TikTok’s influence on the fashion world grows, it is important to recognize how users, especially young girls, are impacted by the need to fit into pre-packaged aesthetics. The constant circulation of new trends can easily lead to people losing sight of their style or eliminating certain clothing items in their usual rotation to fit into whatever the most desirable look is.
Kayla Allen has recently been focusing on TikTok fashion trends and their impacts through her work as Who What Wear’s Associate Social Media Editor. She told Fetch, “I see overconsumption and ever-changing beauty standards as the biggest points of concern when it comes to aesthetic conformity. My philosophy around personal style has always revolved heavily around identity and the idea of combining influences, so I believe some of this could be avoided by approaching trends from a more personal perspective.”
So how can we do that? Rather than throwing out your entire closet for the latest fashion trend, Allen recommends intentionality. In other words, pick aspects of trends that feel the most compatible with you, and ignore the rest. “Saying ‘no’ to the aesthetics that feel inauthentic to your style and only pulling elements that resonate with you when leveraging a trendy aesthetic into your closet can foster experimentation and self-expression.”
Emma Hughes still has hope for the future of TikTok fashion trends. “I hope that the content surrounding these internet aesthetics will continue to encourage people to express themselves through beauty and fashion using products they already own and in ways that align with their unique personal style and preferences.”


