I was never into Brat summer – but a Demure autumn I can do

Chances are this week you’ve come across the phrase “very demure” more than once. It’s on TikTok. It’s on Instagram, and Twitter/X, and probably in the mouths of every Gen Z employee in your office. Like most hyper-viral internet trends, it seemed to appear almost overnight, all over the world. Completely missed it so far? Very demure. 

The phrase was born from a TikTok posted on 2 August by Jools Lebron, a trans creator whose video has now amassed millions of likes and views. “See how I do my makeup for work? Very mindful, very demure,” she purrs.

Along with going to work, her advice to being “demure” and “cutesy” extends to how to behave in gay bars and exiting a plane in the correct way. Now, we’re being mindful – congratulating ourselves on replying to a text on time, using capital letters, nibbling on a snack. We’re sipping our tinny of wine in the park after work (very cutesy, very demure). Importantly, we’re also being very tongue in cheek.

“Demure is just a way of life for the girls and for the dolls like me,” she says in another TikTok. “Who is the original demure? All of us.”

What it all means exactly is still up for debate – but, really, that's the beauty of it. Demure, says Lebron, is a mindset. The coffee you grabbed on the way to work? Very demure. Brown eyeliner? Very demure, very mindful. Fangirling? We don’t, because we’re demure. The way you're scrolling gently and not hatefully through this page? Demure. 

Also very demure was Lebron’s surprise invitation to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday night, where she spoke with drag artist and co-host Ru Paul.

Nars, Anthropologie and Maybelline – who posted “Maybe it’s Maybelline, maybe it’s demure”, of course – have all adopted the trend so far. When former British Vogue editor Edward Enninful posted the phrase with a picture of himself and his husband at the weekend, even the Met office tweeted that this week’s weather would be “very calm, very demure”. 

After the descent of Brat summer, there couldn’t be a better time for Demure autumn. As soon as the flame of Charli XCX’s months-long after party was first lit back in June it gave a neon-green light to embracing chaos. For a brief second, carefully marketed “messy” hedonism was the vibe-du-jour. 

Some of it was good, to be fair. Gone was the intensely dull “clean girl aesthetic” of the previous summer; the intense girlification Hot Girl summer – where everything from walks to dinners were feminised. This year all of that was swapped for a “pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra”. Or, arguably, the Nineties. The sickly sweetness of femininity online was finally balanced out with a bit of fun until, inevitably, it all got a bit much. 

Because the thing is, Brat summer overstayed its welcome. Like all fun things on the internet, it quickly fell prey to intense over-analysis, saturation and then, finally, politicisation. 

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Pitchfork declared it dead just 80 days after its inception. “Brat summer’s condition took a turn for the worse at the beginning of the week,” the music magazine wrote towards the end of July. Joe Biden had just announced he would be ending his re-election campaign, prompting Charli XCX to post “Kamala IS brat”. 

The next day the foundations for very demure were set. I was glad. By the end of it, Brat summer had truckloads of pick-me girl energy – the self-consciously performed contradictions in femininity, the hot mess faux-hedonism that was meticulously posted on Instagram. If you have to explain it that much, it’s probably not very true. Certainly, it’s not very demure. 

For the changing seasons, then, a palate (and lifestyle, and timeline) cleanse. A very Demure autumn will see everything glazed with a bit of a positive sheen. It’s joyful, it’s queer. Most of all, it’s not to be taken seriously.

“See how I have a blowout, but I’m still wearing a boy’s shirt?” one TikToker, speaking for femme lesbians, says. “Very demure, very mindful. See how my full set comes right off? Very demure,” she adds, removing two temporary nails from her perfect manicure. 

The ultra-feminine, ultra-heterosexual core of tradwives is everything that being very demure is not. In fact, the trend is not even strongly anchored in the definition of the word itself. While demure might strictly mean shy, coquettish or modest, the point is that many of the things deemed very demure – including posting about it on the internet – are nothing of the sort.

Of course, it’s only a matter of time before this trend also succumbs to overanalysis and over-saturation. Until then, we’ll all be enjoying a bit of calm before the next social media storm. Very calm, very mindful – very demure.