Over A Year Later, 'Brat' Green Is Still On Fashion's Mood-Boards

Pinpointing trends in fashion is as easy as one, two, three — that is, once we see something three times, it’s officially a trend. But how do all these designers decide on something without consulting one another? Something is often collectively in the air, whether with wide-leg jeans, bloke-style sneakers, or grandma-leaning beachwear. This season, Charli XCX is clearly still on the mind of many a designer, consciously or not. The specific, sickly hue of her Brat cover has been on several major runways already, and Milan Fashion Week is still well underway.

When Charli made her album cover that disturbing lime-puke-slime green, she told AD “it just felt like the most WRONG out of all the options we had,” as she aimed to put people off and talk via the music to those who were brave enough to stick around. (This obviously didn’t work, as it’s become by and far her most successful work.) Like anything in fashion, something that’s once seen as weird (like skinny jeans) will trickle down and suddenly be everywhere. We spotted it Brat green in New York, at Diotima via crochet two-piece sets and at Tibi, but Milan has hammered home Charli’s wacky, so-wrong-it’s-right choice as the color of the season.

This was most evident at Prada — perhaps the one show that sets the season’s trends in motion — with their Day-Glo take on housewife couture. A standout boat-neck A-line dress with breast pockets showed a Hulk-esque take on it, with the perfectly Brat-green frock paired with purple gloves. Blumarine showed a Charli-inspired tattered dress (not only is her color everywhere, but also her personal style), and MM6 Maison Margiela did a leather mini smock dress in the same shade. Even Erdem, as proper and prim as their dresses are, couldn’t help but indulge in a little lime-green action.

The most intriguing part of this color trend is that Charli rarely, if ever, wore the shade. The closest she came was at Primavera last year, when she wore it in her hair. The hue was inspired not by her direct style sense, but by a feeling in the air of brashness and in-your-face fashion. The world is burning down, so why not indulge in a Play-Doh-color dress to step out in the morning? Fashion has a funny way of picking up on these cues (see: horny-girl summer) and running with it. Clearly, it’s not going to be a muted spring when these clothes hit stores, and we are eagerly sat to see who in Paris is bold enough to be Brat. Charli has said goodbye to the era with almost every music festival outro she’s done this summer, but Brat can’t die. It can only be reborn.