Lit Girl Summer – You Are What You Read
This summer, it girls and fashion icons have donned a new accessory – and it isn’t a new makeup look or designer shoe. Rather, it’s a book. This season’s latest cultural trend – appropriately named “lit girl summer” – involves showcasing your love for literature, and everyone from supermodels to fashion houses to your friends on Instagram are following the trend of combining books with glamor.
This summer Miu Miu launched their Miu Miu Summer Reads program, where they gave away pieces of curated classic literature at select pop-up locations. Avid readers could indulge in fashion and gossip while treating themselves to a new novel. Additionally, Nylon announced their “It Girl Summer Reading List” with their return to print this year, which included a wide variety of genres and stories. Everything from Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna’s biography to intriguing tales of murder to sapphic pulp fiction could be found in Nylon’s recommended list.
A number of celebrities, like supermodel Kaia Gerber, have launched book clubs in recent years and fashion houses like Valentino have used quotes from literature in their runaway shows. But why is lit girl summer suddenly turning pages now?
Jad Esber, the founder of Shelf, believes there are a few reasons as to how we’ve come to this cultural occurrence. Shelf is an app designed for users to showcase a visual summary of their current interests. Whether it’s the music you’re listening to, what you’re currently reading or what you plan on buying soon, Shelf links to other platforms you already use and love so you can track what you and your friends are into at the moment.
“From sharing our interests to capturing our collective love for nostalgia and documenting what’s in your bag content, taste is becoming the currency of cool,” Esper says. “We’re seeing this in the rise of trends like the thought daughter, lit girl summer and the transition from posting selfies to posting shelfies – content featuring what people are consuming whether that’s what they’re reading, a pile of their latest thrift finds or their Letterboxd review screenshots.”
In a fast-paced world, Esper says that books in particular are also a way for people to slow down and look within themselves for a while.
“And specifically, books and reading are just cool,” he says. “Today’s online experience is dictated by momentum, instead of discrete moments. Books give us the space to slow things down and go back to something that we can hold and spend time with. They’re symbolic of our ability to reject the speed of the internet and life in 2024.”
Books have always been a means of escape for readers, but this trend could perhaps be a direct result of post-pandemic romanticization. Following lockdown and isolation, many Gen Zers sought out to romanticize their life. After this, fashion saw maximalism and bold aesthetics take over. Alternatively, we also saw minimalism and “tomato girl summer” take over our feeds.
Lit girl summer is yet another trend that expresses how Gen Z show love for the little things in life, and with the harsh realities our world is currently facing, a lot of us want to escape into a world where the only things we have to worry about are love triangles, murder mysteries and charming poetry.
The sudden wave of lit girl summer could also be credited to the “bookshelf wealth” TikTok trend that occurred earlier this year. The bookshelf wealth trend consists of showcasing what seems to be your entire life and soul right on your shelves. Shelves filled with endless books, collected trinkets and photos are the epitome of bookshelf wealth – a design trend that ultimately encapsulates everything that you are in the most intellectually appealing way possible.
Whether it’s Shelf, Letterboxd or “bookshelf wealth,” people love showing others what they’re into and, in turn, people love seeing what others are into. By staying up to date with what our friends or favorite influencers and celebrities are consuming, it allows us to feel closer to them and learn more about them, Esper says.
“In many ways, there's an increasing realization that we are the things we’re into – the things we consume, the culture we affiliate with,” Esper says. “Together, they end up shaping our perspectives, our tastes and our identities. And there’s a deep interest in cultivating that part of ourselves. Seeing all the things we’ve consumed laid out in front of us not only gives us the ability to self-reflect – we all love Spotify Wrapped – but if we share a slice of it with others, we’re able to bring people into our inner world.”
It could be said that this phenomenon first began to take shape during early 2020, when dark academia took the world by storm. Young Gen Zers dreamed of running down marble hallways with a book in hand and fingertips stained with ink. Dark academia romanticized losing sleep over taking notes, expanding your knowledge to its fullest extent and scribbling in the margins of your favorite novel.
Lit girl summer isn’t too far off from dark academia. If anything, she’s her older sister who’s already graduated from college and always carries lip gloss in her handbag. Or, perhaps lit girl summer, bookshelf wealth and dark academia are all one person – three pages from the same book.
The question is, why are lovers of fashion also drawn to reading? Essentially, these two worlds have several similarities. Fashion and literature are both cultural artifacts, and they are two different creative outlets that one may form a personal connection with.
“You can consume fashion and books on the surface, or you can go deep,” Esper says. “We can flex our taste by wearing something, or by reading something – whether you’re carrying the book in public as a fashion statement, putting the book up on your bookshelf so everyone can see it, taking part in a book club or talking about the book with your friends.”
Currently, many celebrity “it girls” are dominating the lit girl summer trend. When the it girl is broken down, it’s defined as a woman who has risen to fame due to her life as a socialite. The it girl is magnetic, attractive and everybody wants to look and act as she does. What she reads, others will read. Where she chooses to dine in New York, others will follow and reserve a table. And throughout history we have adored and admired these women, everyone from Clara Bow (the OG) to Lily-Rose Depp.
Similarly, we are drawn to literature for the same reasons we are drawn to it girls. Tales of adventure and romance, characters that are so perfect they seem unattainable yet they are right there, either between the pages or on our Instagram feeds.
However, while becoming a muse on the front pages of magazines is difficult, it’s proven to be easier to attain this life through reading. Pick up a book and you can be anyone you want. In the words of George R.R. Martin, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” So if you think about it, by reading, you could become your very own it girl one thousand times.
Whether it’s music, fashion or any other artistic expression, trends do move on with time. Regarding what might become of lit girl summer Esper says that, ultimately, we will always be more than the books we read.
“We’re the clothes we wear, the music we listen to, the movies we watch, the games we play, the places we go to [and] the people we hang out with,” he says. “Showcasing our taste – in all the ways that it can be presented – will continue to be a fundamental way of expressing ourselves, and finding overlaps with other people out there.”