The trend of dressing like a ‘frazzled English woman’ emerged on TikTok a few years ago, coinciding with rise in other trends celebrating femininity like ‘girl dinner’ & the ‘coquette aesthetic’. I was introduced to it in 2023 when I came across a TikTok describing how to dress as one, and found, to my dismay, that the outfit described was almost exactly what I happened to be wearing that day. It turned out that, quite without meaning to, I was a ‘frazzled English woman’.
If you’re wondering what this trend looks like, think English romcom heroines of the early 2000s, like Kate Winslet in The Holiday, or Keira Knightley in Love Actually. Of course, it’s impossible to discuss this without mentioning the epitome of the frazzled English woman: Bridget Jones herself. Because of these films, this trend is also tied up with the recent resurgence of Y2K fashion, as well as the winter season, with the need for thick coats & chunky scarves during an English winter.
A proper frazzled English woman outfit includes short skirts, denim or maybe patterned tights (preferably colourful and/or laddered), and a pair of knee-high boots. The importance of knitwear cannot be understated either: whether it’s scarves, jumpers, cardigans, or even maybe legwarmers if you’re especially daring. You could try putting your hair up in a claw clip, but the main point is that it needs to be just messy enough to show that you were in a rush leaving the house. Minimal (but just enough!) make-up will also emphasise this. There is a focus on artfully layering clothes, and the inclusion of mismatched colours and patterns, and of course, you get extra points for awkwardness in conversations and liberal use of British slang, even if its authenticity is questionable.
However, at the core of this aesthetic is the un-polished, loveable-yet-slightly-erratic look. You need to look dishevelled enough, but not actually too bad; you just need to be effortlessly beautiful. It isn’t overly prepared, it should look like something you just threw on (because you slept through your alarm, thanks to drinking one too many glasses of rosé last night, as you are wont to do) as you raced out the house, so the idea of meticulously planning it undermines the frazzled aesthetic. But, as our main examples to look up to are from movies, where the costume department likely will have planned every single detail, so just the right number of hairs are out of place, maybe the style we are aiming to imitate is impossible to achieve.
Furthermore, what the above films and this trend offer us is seemingly an Americanised idolisation of a quintessential ‘Englishness’ that doesn’t exist in actuality. And it is a very middle/upper class ‘Englishness’ at that: all the characters previously mentioned have posh accents and live in London or Surrey. It is not exactly a representative picture of the English female population.
But perhaps the rise, and continued prevalence, of the ‘frazzled English woman’ trend echoes a desire in all of us to be accepted for our imperfections, to not have to be completely put together all the time. That is something we can emulate, even if the specific aesthetic might be harder to grasp.
