The Brat Girl Has Won Summer. Already (2024)

It seems universally unfair that Charli XCX, a woman who has single-handedly dictated the vibe of summer while releasing the best reviewed album of 2024, has been pipped to the number one chart spot by Taylor Swift, after she released another needless edition of The Tortured Poets Department the same week. Does Charli care? Probably not. To be a brat girl, as her sixth studio album states, is to be a cult classic, not a neatly-packaged, mass-media hit. It is to go viral in an underground Boiler Room kind of way, to rip up The Row, to shout out Julia Fox, to befriend Chloë Sevigny, to only need “a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra” to serve a look and have a good time. It is not wearing the same glittery Roberto Cavalli skater skirt and mismatching Christian Louboutin boots night after night.

The beauty of the brat-girl summer is that Charli is too busy attending six parties in one night and plotting out September’s Sweat tour with Troye Sivan to engage in pop rivalry, but she is keenly aware of the cultural impact her lurid-green album and all its It-girl in-jokes has had. This was always the strategy. Even the musicians she has been pitted against, to quote Lorde, are honoured “to be moved, changed and gagged by her work… There is NO ONE like this bitch.”

Charli’s team initially stopped in their tracks when the Essex-raised raver text creative director Imogene Strauss and declared “the most unappealing shade of green” her latest LP concept. “No Charli to dress on the cover!” cried stylist Chris Horan, who came on board to mould Mainstream Popstar Charli XCX for her previous album Crash, and was already mapping out her move from major label girlie to gritty, catty clubber – the kind of firecracker party starter who likes her YSL leather jackets f*cked up and leaves her scratched Givenchy sunglasses strewn around town.

“The brat campaign has transcended anything we thought it could be – everyone from Duolingo to corporate brands are jumping on board to get a piece of the viralness,” shares Horan, who says Charli’s Pantone prowess (65 colours were considered before they finally landed on that “offensive, off-trend shade”) unlocked the whole rebrand of Charlotte Emma Aitchison (the name she swapped for Charli XCX, because the latter sounded cooler and catchier).

Nowadays the brat crew, which includes visuals pro Terrence O’Connor, don’t even have to communicate what defines that “smart, bitchy, hot, scary” attitude and aesthetic, but in the beginning hundreds of tear sheets and references – including many featuring ’90s Chloë Sevigny – were scattered over Charli’s dining room table. “We always play with contrasts,” shares Horan, who initially caught the artist’s eye thanks to his work dressing Barbie Ferreira and Rowan Blanchard. “[Charli’s style is now] either very boyish and baggy or streamlined and simple; it’s a hoodie and hotpants; amazing jeans and a messed-up T-shirt; it’s effortless, but it’s always from YSL or The Row; that’s the essence.”

If brat demanded an image that was the antithesis of Crash’s cut-out Mugler bodysuits and sequin Valentino bralettes, hitting her thirties played a big part in the performer’s personal image overhaul. “Charli is the first to admit that it wasn’t until she was older that she started caring about the fashion game,” explains Horan, who staged a test shoot last summer to nail down her everyday wardrobe, as well as that of the fiery, dishevelled chick gyrating on aeroplane wings in the “Von Dutch” video. Rails and rails of Marni, Acne Studios, The Row and Saint Laurent signalled “a woman who knows what’s up”, and gave Charli the confidence to pull looks together herself. Nowadays, when you see her taking club-rat chic to the streets, it’s all her.

“The biggest part of our job is being a salesperson for our client,” explains Horan. “It’s exciting to see brands that didn’t really get our vision a year ago want to do something with us. Now, it comes down to what a brand has to offer.” While previously the magpie stylist was scouring the runways for “shiny fabrics, crystals, popstar things”, he’s now focusing on movement. Crash was about super-sexualised, skin-splicing bodies, but brat is a wispy, undulating tendril sailing behind Charli as she moves on stage. “Floaty dresses might seem different to everything else brat, but it’s the layering and accessories tied to the aesthetic that make it so.” The exaggerated white Dilara Findikoglu button-up and capris she wore to recently headline Primavera, for example, became brat thanks to an Alexandra Sipa miniskirt.