Welcome back to After School Weekend Edition, a not-so-brief trends debrief for paid subscribers. Your support keeps this newsletter going! 💫
This one is very, very long and absolutely jam-packed with trends. I’d recommend clicking “view in browser” for ease!
Today we’re talking about:
Gen Z and dating (again! still!)
The milkmaid dress going viral on TikTok
Are you ready for the return of boho?
The color of the summer is…
The $40 TJ Max purse Gen Z is obsessed with
The it girl bikini of the summer
Glossier’s lip liner launch
The glow down is the new glow up
Calico hair
No launch is the new soft launch
The “you said normal girls were boring” meme
“Girl wtf that’s not Peter Pevensie from Narnia”
Plus everything else that happened this week in style, beauty, and culture and what I’m buying/reading/listening to. But first, my favorite TikTok of the week (help I’m obsessed):
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Some thoughts on Gen Z and dating…
Earlier this week, I was on a panel on the state of dating hosted by Eventbrite tied to their latest report called “Niche To Meet You.”
It was me, a professional matchmaker, a Gen Z speed-dating entrepreneur, and the founder of Bedford Cheese Shop, which began hosting meet-cute cheese-tasting events post-pandemic and was where the panel took place.
Speaking of meet-cutes, just before the event kicked off, Alec Baldwin walked in to buy cheese and all I could think about was that we were standing mere steps from the old Pure Food and Wine, the infamous restaurant where he met his wife and future reality TV costar.
An invitation to attend the panel was extended to him, though he politely declined. Had he decided to join, Alec would have learned a lot about the state of dating, something he likely could have benefited from, seeing as he has seven Gen Alphas at home.
Next time, Alec.
Back in January, I talked to a bunch of Gen Z readers about the state of dating, and they told me things like “dating apps are literally hell,” “it’s trendy to meet people irl nowadays,” and “people want something different now — real and genuine connections.” (You can read the whole thing here.)
These same sentiments came up again and again on the panel. The apps are worse and they’re no longer serving their purpose. Young people want to meet in person, and they want to make meaningful connections, not just a drink at a bar.
According to Eventbrite’s research, nearly half of Gen Zers say connecting with others who have shared interests is one of the biggest challenges of online dating. I’ve written a lot about the rise of hobbies among Gen Z, from birding to mahjong to book clubs to knitting. Gen Z wants to do stuff and they want to meet others who do, too.
Eventbrite is obviously an events platform, not a dating site, but they’ve found themselves serving as an app alternative for young singles, with attendance at dating and singles events increasing 42% from 2022 to 2023. Further, from May 2023 to April 2024, the platform saw more than 1.5 million searches for dating and singles events.
Young people want to meet other young people, and while speed dating events and professional matchmakers certainly help, no one is making it easy to do it at scale. Whoever can figure out how to do this is going to be rich.
Also: We’re absolutely going to see Bumble/Tinder/Hinge pivot into IRL in the next few months, right? I’m predicting a campaign tied to cuffing season.
And some thoughts on Gen Z and spending…
“Gen Z is unprecedentedly rich.” “Gen Z is sinking deeper into debt.” “Gen Z is getting used to living on a financial cliff.” “Gen Z is struggling financially more than millennials did at their age.” “Gen Z is wealthier than other generations at the same age.”
These are all headlines published in the last few months. The finances of Gen Z are complicated, partly because generational generalizations are tricky — Gen Z falls between the ages of 14 and 27, and the finances of a 27-year-old and a 14-year-old are very different. The headlines are all over the place because there’s a lot that we don’t know. (And also because the media loves a clickbait headline.)
One thing we know for sure: Gen Z represents $450 billion in spending power, despite not having reached their full economic potential, and boy are they spending.
According to Morning Consult’s latest report on how Gen Z shops in 2024, despite being broke…
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