Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short
Wear shirts and boots 'cause it's okay to be a boy
But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading
'Cause you think that being a girl is degrading
But secretly you'd love to know what it's like wouldn't you?
What it feels like for a girl
As soon as I heard the familiar chirp of Charlotte Gainsbourg’s voice that serves at the thesis for Madonna’s “What It Feels Like for a Girl” playing during the Instagram livestream of Sandy Liang’s Fall 2024 Ready-to-Wear runway show, goosebumps emerged at the surface of my skin and my eyes both rolled and teared up. I could not believe that this song faded into the back of my memory, but I also can’t think of a song that precisely captures the essence of the whimsically posh world her brand encompasses. It is almost a too on the nose of a descriptor, but it's precision could not be more accurate.
This song narrates a complex women currently in their 20-30’s have been embracing more than ever, growing older yet holding on to the sweet reminders of childhood. Much has been written about “being a girl” toward the end of last year (scroll to the bottom of this post for all the articles regarding girlhood in adulthood), but a topic that has been on my mind this week is how refreshing it is to simply “be a girl” as an adult. A bold assertion that I would like to state is that “being a girl” does not have to live and die by the gender binary either. At the end of the day, we are talking about clothes and accessories that bring joy to the person wearing them. Sure they have a traditionally feminine aesthetic, but their meaning is imbued with whatever their wear wants to say with their style. The most important part of dressing is how you wear the clothes, not how they wear you!
Despite the lack of teen magazines for the young generations today, they are able to build their identities from an endless pool of inspiration. It’s intimating how limitless the access to learning about subcultures, style origins, and the histories of these matters are. There is less confinement to learning about these topics as the barrier of entry, i.e. money or physical access to this information, has been dissolved with a Google search. Back in my day *cracks back* I relied on going to grocery and bookstores to plead with my mom to buy me certain publications or allow me the time to visually peruse the issues of the given month to learn about the ways I could sartorially express myself. Although these publications were extremely formative to my personal style/ beauty/ culture development, I would be remiss to not mention that they incessantly encouraged looking at oneself from the perspective of the opposite sex. Emblazoned on glossy magazine covers in bright, bold text were coverlines reading “Guy turn ons,” “Sexy Hair Tricks He’ll Love,” “Get Your Crush to Worship You,” and countless others that are all variations on this same topic. Navigating adolescence was to hold yourself to a standard for someone else’s eyes. Thankfully, young folks today can relish in ribbons, satin, and lace in their outerwear and innerwear anywhere they want without having to live by a list of tips to “get his attention.” What Sandy has accomplished in each of her collections is capturing the collective nostalgia for sequins, bows, and cartoon-like flowers many folks have and probably wish they embraced a little more when they were young. She emboldens her legions of customers and fans of her brand to embrace the visual sweetness of youth, there is no expiration date in being a girl! For whatever reason, many of the articles written about this subject have taken issue with the embrace of markers of delicate femininity, as they are often seen as infantile and immature. But what this viewpoint fails to consider is that with these accessories and articles of clothing, the wearer dictates their meaning. Yes, you may find a similar pastel color palette on the clothing rack in the children’s section of a store, but that does not make a satiny pastel pink weaker than a slate gray. Why is overt femininity degrading to someone's sense of self if they choose to engage with it? Why is it less serious to wear bows than a severe black plastic headband?
Thankfully, in Sandy’s world she allows for all these to coexist as bold femininity can take on all these forms without a hierarchy of importance. Structured coordinating sets in textured fabrics, white blouses with peter pan collars, and a vibrant pink dress with bows that are strategically placed to compliment the frame are for the adult who isn’t afraid to dream. In the show notes written by Nicolaia Rips for the Fall 2024 Ready-To-Wear Collection, she describes the trajectory of the schoolgirl who becomes a princess, shedding the salt that sticks to her skin from a spring and summer spent along the seashore. Naturally, she is crafty and uses this salt to tie her hair “like you tie yours, in a ribbon of salt…Each subsequent collection has built out the uniform for this new kind of princess. A closet is a treasure chest and each season it holds more pieces.” However, this paragraph perfectly summarizes the brand and endears me to it as someone who continues to find inspiration in the things I loved during childhood: “New prints, like a constellation of pink stars on a jacket, are pulled from childhood planners. Inspiration comes from Sailor Moon and paparazzi photos and catalogs you'd get in the mail and page through so quickly you get a paper cut, excited to see what you might want - matching jackets with three different skirt lengths to pick. The collection is an ode to wearing your clothes, to growing up a little without sacrificing what you love. There's something so beautiful when girls match each other. In a uniform, there is fantasy and in nostalgia, there is presence.”
Silky smooth lips as sweet as candy
Baby, tight blue jeans
Skin that shows in patches
Strong inside but you don't know it
Good little girls, they never show it
When you open up your mouth to speak, could you be a little weak?
Do you know what it feels like for a girl?
Do you know what it feels like in this world for a girl?
Hair that twirls on finger tips so gently
Baby, hands that rest on jutting hips repenting
Hurt that's not supposed to show and tears that fall when no one knows
When you're trying hard to be your best could you be a little less?
However, this collection struck another nerve for me when I sat down to rewatch the music video. Madonna wears a navy blue Dickies jumpsuit that is the hitwoman’s version of the offering by Ms. Liang, which is a sleek navy jacket and pants pairing (please note the cinematic parallels of both the model’s shoulder length hair and butter yellow backdrop with Madonna’s similar crop and yellow taxi behind her).
I was an avid music video junkie throughout my youth. I lived for the VH1 Top 20 video countdown every Saturday morning. My parents happily watched this with me because they loved music and visual narratives that accompanied songs. The only must watch awards show in our house was the MTV Video Music Awards, it was practically a holiday the night it aired each year. I remember in the early aughts artists weren’t afraid to push the envelope with the scenes depicted in their videos, at times networks would air the them late at night or, in extreme cases, preface the video with a segment explaining the controversial scenes as a warning to those about to watch them (a la John Norris’ brief about Jay-Z’s video for “99 Problems.”)
I distinctly remember the video for “What It Feels Like For a Girl” being part of this group of R-Rated mini movies, but I couldn’t remember why until my rewatch on Sunday. Madge wasn’t up to her typical salacious antics, rather she chose violence. Throughout the video, she is on a rampant and seemingly random crime spree with an elderly accomplice whose relationship to her is unknown. She shows off a gun to cops, flagrantly smashes into cars, and ends her crime frenzy with a bang.
The phrase “girlhood is a spectrum” is a popular meme on Twitter, with search results serve chaotic finds like these:
The juxtaposition between the fragile narrative of the lyrics and the violent visuals is a proto example of this concept. Hard exteriors and soft centers, vice versa, girlhood to womanhood. Being everything for everyone, navigating identity, loss and regaining of self. The complications of existing become more precarious with age, why not hold your ground while decorated with bows?
Strong inside but you don't know it
Good little girls, they never show it
When you open up your mouth to speak, could you be a little weak?
Do you know what it feels like for a girl?
Do you know what it feels like in this world for a girl?
Further Reading:
Why Was Girlhood Suddenly Back In Style?
Have Bows Gone Too Far? (Yes, Bows Have Gone Too Far.)
How Celebrating Girlhood Quickly Became the Internet's Favorite Trend