Last month I was waiting in line at Whole Foods Capitol Hill and found myself experiencing a distinctly uncomfortable moment of clarity. There were three women ahead of me dressed almost identically, in how-to-break-up-with-fast-fashion denim, classic white sneakers, oversized wool coats, and small gold hoop earrings—the exact same earrings that I have no idea how much cost but seem to be $300. They all had that “money haircut”—nicely textured bangs you can’t quite tell are-highlighted-but-probably-are.
Are all young professionals in Capitol Hill just innately aware of this lifestyle brand-based aesthetic? I tried telling myself it was nothing. It was fine.
I wasn’t analyzing the outfits of strangers. I was just standing in line at Whole Foods pretending to read the labels on vinegars while waiting for my husband to pick out almond milk.
But then my brain went into clickbait headline mode where suddenly I’m internally writing Trendwatching exposés about how Americans signal “woke” consumer choices through clothing.
Because while yes, those Whole Foods women had on 3 basically the same outfits, there is a system in place that helps determine not just that those women probably buy similar things but also that those women have signifi cant disposable incomes. Which is why I’m coming to you today to report on what I’m calling Conscious Casual(45). Put simply: The ultra-subtle style of dressing like you just threw something on before running to Trader Joe’s, but in reality every piece of clothing you own is from someplace that’s clearly expensive but not too trendy, slightly oversized but not too baggy, and costs approximately a week’s worth of grad-student wages.
It’s why everyone who shops at farmer’s markets, drives Teslas, and interns at FreeRangeChronicles seems to wear Eileen Fisher-esque clothes everywhere they go but still always manages to look pulled-together. It’s a hot takes level of bullshit but stick with me as I try to unpick this paradox of maximalist minimalism. I recently became obsessively fascinated with this aesthetic because it represents the very best and worst of ethical/sustainable fashion.
The “best” being that in theory anyone can dress like that and it’s built on solid values I can get behind: Buy less! Quality over quantity! Pay attention to where your stuff comes from!
Buy from smaller ethical companies instead of supporting ridiculous/fastashion! The “worst” being you have to be rich as fuck to actually pull off Conscious Casual. Let’s break it down.
First of all, there are so many foundational Conscious Casual pieces, yet they all secretly cost a small fortune. Like $200 organic cotton t-shirts from Kotn or Everlane, $300 jeans from Reformation or Citizens of Humanity, $400 sneakers from Veja or Allbirds. But the key is they all have to look low-key and decidedly unexpensive.
No big logos or blaring design details or loud colors. Just, like, a basic white t-shirt. However, trust me when I say that there is a difference between Target $10 version and the one that costs $200 and every influencer with an opinion knows the difference.
I learned that lesson the hard way when I first started trying to shop more ethically a few years ago. I remember coveting someone’s striped cotton shirt and thinking I could totally find something similar at Buffalo Exchange or an ethical brand that wasn’t $200. So then I went searching for my own vaguely Parisian-striped shirt and could not for the life of me figure out why every option I liked was still over $100.
The sleeves were wrong, the material wasn’t quite it, the stripe wasn’t muted enough. It took me months to realize that there was literally a $30 and $180 ethical brand equivalent of that shirt and they look nothing alike because GANNI, A.P.C. Another quick note on color—it matters.
We’re talking expensive beige(16) here, not just beige. Cool gray, not just gray. White, but cream, or ivory, or this particular shade of off-white that looks great in natural lighting.
Navy, not black. Olive, not green. Light brown, not red.
It has to look like you didn’t try at all but also literally no other color combinations work. Ah yes, knitwear. Where the money is literally put.
If you have sustainable fashion money, you spend it here. Everlane cashmere sweater = $200. Cuyana cashmere sweater = $350.
Toteme or COS cashmere sweater that looks identical to both of the above = $500. And yet the $500 sweater will always look slightly better than the $200 one. It won’t pill as much.
It will keep its shape longer. It will have that perfect awkward slightly-bagged sweater fit. I have spent way too much money learning this the hard way.
I bought a sweater I thought was similar to said Cashmere sweater from Toteme from a smaller ethical brand for $150. I wore it like twice before it started to look sad and neglected. My friend bought the $350 sweater two years ago and still wears hers all the time and it looks brand new.
I could also talk about how the Conscious Casual-ist wears white sneakers, but they’re never just Vans. They’re Veja V-10s ($150) or Common Projects Achilles ($400) or heck Golden Goose if they’re feeling extra splashy with their Benjamins. In the summer it’s likely to be white minimalist leather sandals from Everlane or Ancient Greek Sandals .
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In the winter they’ll be wearing ankle boots from Acne Studios or Ganni , or if they’re extra Pacific Northwest-y maybe Blundstone or Dr. Martens. My problem with the shoe situation is always that they look worn-in but not dirty.
You have to really baby these shoes to get them to look this way. I’ve watched people with these white sneakers take them off and literally clean them with shoe cleaner after every.single.wear. Meanwhile my pair of Vejas that I bought specifically to fit into this aesthetic look dirty and worn out after half a year because I refuse to treat them like actual shoes.
Then there’s the jackets. Which will vary slightly by region but always fall into one of two categories. If you live in Seattle it’s gonna be an outrageously priced perfectly fitted wool coat from COS or Ganni , or alternatively a really nice rain jacket that doesn’t look too techy but is actually like the Stutterheim Hunting Jacket or something from Rains.
If you live in California it’s linen blazers from Reformation or oversized denim jackets from Madewell. If you’re from New York everyone will have the same black wool coat from either The Frankie Shop or Toteme. But really the true indicator of how deep into Conscious Casual(45) you are comes down to the details.
Jewelry is always going to be real gold. Never plated. Never a silver/metal mix that looks trendy.
They’ll probably get their jewelry from Mejuri but the Jord-guide-to-white-girl-wearables will be wearing Ana Luisa or Missoma or anything minimalist and simple but made of gold from Sophie Buhai that looks like a plain gold circle but cost $300. Similarly, their bags will either be very small and overpriced like a Mansur Gavriel mini bucket bag or very large and decidedly utilitarian like one of those canvas tote bags from LL.Bean or Baggu that cost $60 but will last them until the apocalypse. Which brings me to hair and makeup.
If they wear makeup it always looks minimal but takes forever. I’m talking $300 haircuts that actually grow out perfectly, hair color that looks uncolored but was $400. Skincare routines that include $100 potency-testing serums.
The entire vibe is “I woke up like this” which is extremely expensive to maintain. The thing about Conscious Casual is that from a sustainability point of view it can genuinely be amazing. These people are buying less.
They’re choosing quality over quantity. They know their brands. They’re not buying fast fashion or anything trendy.
They’re shopping small companies with better labor practices and production methods and thinking about where their stuff comes from before buying it. But it’s also super elitist. Who has time to keep searching Facebook marketplace for the sweater that costs $200 but will last them 10 years?
Not most people. And also not most people can drop $300 on that sweater. Fast fashion sucks, but at least with fast fashion you can actually afford a sweater.
I’ve tried hacking this look by buying secondhand and waiting for sales at ethical brands. It can be done! But it takes way too much time and mental energy—you have to constantly be refreshing Craigslist and Poshmark and ThredUp searches for the exact thing you want in your size and in your price range.
Sometimes you have to wait months for that one item to pop up. It’s a part time job. The pandemic actually benefitted the Conscious Casual wardrobe in many ways because let’s be real, they were already wearing sweatshirt($400) and leggings($150) as “everyday” clothes.
Whereas the rest of us were frantically scavenging our closets for suitable work from home outfits that didn’t just consist of sweatpants. Spending all this time at home presumably also gave people more time to work on their “I don’t even go to the gym, I just look like this” FITNESS. Instagram accounts like @emilisindlev and @sylviahaglr have upwards of 50,000 followers dedicated to dissecting their outfit posts as if they were PhD dissertations on how to look super trendy and expensive at the same time.
Brands like Ganni and Staud have built entire companies around selling this aesthetic. Entire closets full of clothing that all look sort of boring and simplistic on the surface but have those subtle details that scream EXPENSIVE. I’ve come to actually respect how hard it is to dress like that.
Because trust me when I say it’s way harder to dress like that than to just follow trends. There’s no TikTok telling you what hats to buy this summer.
You have to really know clothes to spot the difference between an authentic Scandinavian shirt and the JCP version.
You have to understand the cultural context of where brands come from and why Stella McCartney is seen as the nana of brand-yet-still-quirky fashion while Edun is just some brand your hippie aunt wears. And to a certain extent I think it’s very American. There’s something specific about the idea of wellness + environment= CONSCIOUS CASUAL that doesn’t translate to European minimalism or Japanese=Wear-Only-Black.
It’s very “people who go to SoulCycle and have huge opinions about aout almond milk.” If I had to guess I think it originated in San Francisco. Isn’t the irony of dressing like “I just threw whatever was clean off the floor” that it actually takes way more effort than trying? I think that might be the entire point.
I stood back at Whole Foods the other day and found myself studiously observing the women in front of me trying to figure out where their hiking socks were from. This girl wearing the classic vintage jeans and probably-$200-but-definitely-not-$60 white t-shirt wasn’t just dressing comfortably. She was communicating her politics, her financial situation, and her general worldly knowledge all through channels that looked aggressively unstitched-together.
I respect that. Edit: (Fixed typo)
