"The goal is to look like you just threw together your outfit last minute, plucking discarded clothes from your bedroom floor or from the back of your jeep..."
Now, anyone here with a young-ish daughter or niece has come to realize the word “aesthetic” has an entirely new meaning in this modern age. In old times, it simply referred to the particular principles connecting an artists work back to itself or that defined a whole artistic movement. Now, it means style and is quantified by a descriptor. Girls can be VSCO, cottagecore, fairycore, dark academia, baddie, pastel goth or the newest and hottest, surfer nephew.
What is the surfer nephew aesthetic?
Per Fashion:
Think about what one of the girls from 2002’s surfing movie Blue Crush might wear today for a casual dinner with a hunky out-of-towner — perhaps a white tee layered over a slip dress with Tkees sandals and a raffia bag? Quintessential surfer chick Ivy Sullivan from 90210 is another good reference. The goal is to look like you just threw together your outfit last minute, plucking discarded clothes from your bedroom floor or from the back of your jeep, and they just happen to look phenomenal together. It could be your situationship’s oversized button down! Your brother’s old graphic tee! The only criteria is it has to look casual, coastal and oh so chic.
The phrase was coined by stylist Allison Bornstein and is related to the desert aunt aesthetic though the desert aunt is into dogs and cats, surfer nephew just dogs. The desert aunt also says “wonderful” while surfer nephew says “awesome.”
Observing the obsession with different aesthetics is, I must say, fascinating. Girls will get in knock down drag out fights if their aesthetic is either mislabeled or misidentified.
A wild sort of localism we surfer uncles/fathers can only dream of.