On Pinterest, Instagram and TikTok there’s one kind of girl that almost everyone seems to want to be, the effortlessly cool girl. But I’m not sure she actually exists.
Her hair is tousled, like she’s just got out of bed, but it somehow still looks good. She wears thrifted outfits that seem to be just thrown on but still stylish. Her makeup is barely there yet she’s glowing, it’s slightly smudged like she put it on in a rush but it doesn’t look out of place. She’s not even trying, she just is cool.
She’s all over my social media and that’s because I eat it up every single time. The effortless cool girl is an aspiration for a lot of us, because we all want to be low maintenance and not seem to care about how we’re perceived, despite the reality being the exact opposite for a lot of us. Girls like Ruby Lyn, Olivia Niell and Eva Meloche have become symbols of the effortless cool girl that lots of us ‘normal’ people aspire to be. But taking a closer look, I can’t help but question how effortless it actually is. In fact, I’m not sure she really exists, even if she might seem to online.
Olivia Neill posts an Instagram picture wearing stylish black striped trousers and I run to find out where I can get the same, in an effort to emulate this chic look myself, only to find they cost £150 to buy. They’re sold out because they’re from a small business that does ‘drops’ of clothing every few months. Annoyed, I close my browser and go to my ASOS app in search of ‘dupes’ but the singular similar pair I find have one star reviews saying things along the lines of ‘material see through, do not buy.’ Now, I’m even more frustrated and I give up my hunt completely. If only I were as effortlessly cool as Olivia, and just stumbled across this brand organically.
When you actually think about it, Olivia has probably curated that outfit. Scouring outlets online for those trousers, spending a lot of money on them (or had them sent to her by the brand) and posed in the right angles to give the impression that she’s not tried at all. Her entire brand of being the effortless cool girl wasn’t by accident, it was curated. She has a team of people around her helping her to maintain this image, whereas I’m just a girl with limited funds, studying, with a job on the side. It’s not exactly the same.
But why is it so desirable to be effortless? To pretend to not care about your style or your makeup or your hair, when really, you spent time putting the pieces together and enjoyed doing it. It might not be as easy for us to be ‘effortlessly cool’ like the influencers on our screens but the thing we should remember is that it probably isn’t as easy as it seems for them either, and they have access to a lot more than we do. The idea that ‘trying too hard’ isn’t cool is dumb, how can it be unauthentic to want to present the best version of yourself? In reality that’s exactly what our cool girl’s are doing too.
To me, being effortlessly cool is wearing something you truly like and feel comfortable in. Figuring out what it is that makes you feel good and just going for it, not trying to be something you’re not. It can be hard to build that confidence in yourself and what you like, especially when there are so many posts online telling you different things. We love these influencers for their personality but also because they promote an aspirational lifestyle and aesthetic. We love to want to look at something as attainable and work towards it. We’ve just been fooled by the idea that these girls are effortlessly cool. Cool, yes. Effortless is the debatable part.
