Tomato girl summer: giving la dolce vita a gen Z makeover | Fashion

Do you get pleasure from procuring at markets on vacation? Do you personal a raffia basket bag or pair of espadrilles? Have you ever downloaded the Duolingo app to study French, Spanish or Italian? In case you answered sure to the above, congratulations. You might be on pattern for tomato woman summer time.

After scorching woman summer time in 2019 (taking selfies in swimwear), cinnamon woman autumn in 2020 (consuming pumpkin spice lattes in cosy jumpers) and brief king spring in 2022 (being a person who isn’t tall) comes tomato woman summer time to assert the zeitgeist.

Tomato woman summer time started on TikTok, the place a video collage by @girlthings57, that includes leather-based sandals on vibrant tiled flooring, soulful portraits of sundress-wearing market buyers and pizza slices dripping with tomato, has racked up 157,000 views.

Extra a vibe than a pattern, it has however been borne out in shopper habits. There was a 644% and 289% improve in searches on the web vogue market Depop for linen trousers and woven baggage respectively for the reason that begin of August. Shifting even additional into the mainstream, M&S has launched a line of basket baggage and espadrilles “impressed by” the tomato woman summer time aesthetic.

Tomato woman summer time is an exuberant and technicolour rebuke to the quiet luxurious pattern. Tomato woman summer time vogue embraces brilliant fruit and vegetable prints, with lemons and cherries vying for house with tomatoes. It has cross-generational enchantment, embracing the retro attract of full-skirted sundresses, linen shirts knotted on the waist and silk scarves tied within the hair, whereas giving la dolce vita a gen Z makeover with jazzy seaside co-ords of high-waisted shorts and matching bra tops.

Model icons vary from Sophia Loren in off-the-shoulder white lace, photographed with an armful of artichokes, melons and, sure, tomatoes on the duvet of her 1971 cookbook Within the Kitchen With Love, to the actor Blake Vigorous, who final week posted a summer time selfie in a brilliant crimson bikini, with matching manicure and heart-shaped sun shades.

Jane Birkin strolls down a street in London in 1973 holding a wicker basket
Jane Birkin strolls down a avenue in London in 1973 holding a wicker basket. {Photograph}: David Thorpe/Getty Photographs

Barbiemania painted July pink, however tomato woman summer time is popping August pomodoro crimson. Drawing on the Mediterranean summer time aesthetic that has made Dolce & Gabbana a vogue powerhouse for 4 many years, tomato woman summer time celebrates a world of Vespa scooters, handwritten blackboard menus and lazy lunches.

The scene was set for tomato woman summer time by the second collection of The White Lotus, filmed on location in Sicily. The present’s costume designer, Alex Bovaird, advised Vogue that she “needed to infuse a little bit of Italy” into the garments. Bovaird mentioned Jennifer Coolidge’s fragile, tragicomic heroine, Tanya, “fancies herself as an Italian Brigitte Bardot” and is “attempting to be probably the most romantic model of herself” on vacation. Each sentiments earmark Tanya as a tomato woman. However it was her co-star Meghann Fahy as Daphne – in high-waisted, gelato-swirl Pucci bikinis for the seaside and an elegant nautical-stripe Prada skirt with matching bra prime for sightseeing – who showcased tomato woman fashion at its most fascinating.

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Meghann Fahy as Daphne in White Lotus.
Meghann Fahy as Daphne in White Lotus. Photograph: Fabio Lovino/HBO

If quiet luxury is awed worship of the lifestyles of the ultra-wealthy, tomato girl summer is a little more accessible. The taste level is resolutely aspirational, a soft-focus dream of picturesque village squares and aperitivi with a view. But the essentials – tomatoes from the market, coffee at a pavement cafe – are significantly more affordable than cashmere hoodies and private jet travel.

Tomato girl summer appears to be taking place in a temperate Mediterranean climate where it is sunny enough to be carefree, but cool enough for comfortable strolls. This could be read as the first shoots of cultural nostalgia for a region where idyllic summers are endangered by the climate emergency. In a year when Sicily has reached temperatures of 45C (113F), tomato girl summer reminisces about an era when a heatwave might have required an extra ice-cream, rather than medical aid.

Tomato girl summer has expanded beyond its TikTok origins and found devotees on Instagram, where the actor Elle Fanning recently triggered what could be seen as the beginning of the backlash. Fanning’s selfie, pale-skinned and dressed for urban rather than beach life, was accompanied by the caption “potato girl summer”.



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