The West Village Girls and Our Aesthetic Identities
Reflections on the paradox of seeking uniqueness through curated aesthetics, only to arrive at a rehearsed identity.
I’ve kept diaries since I was eight. Composition notebooks, mini journals, legal pads — each one packed with scribbled entries, magazine clippings, new vocabulary words, and goals like say hi to two strangers today. They’re a self-portrait in fragments.
Today, they linger in a plastic bin carelessly stacked in our dusty garage. It’s a banal resting place for all the things that have shaped me inside and out. Those journals hold who I was, am, and might want to be.
And I’ve been a lot of people — I’ve tried on and evolved different versions of me. I chased understanding — first in my family, then in friend groups, and now through strangers online.
I wasn’t prepared for endless evolution. I assumed at some point, I’d just know who I was fully and wholeheartedly. This sense of longing only amplifies as I scroll social media rife with curated aesthetics and ready-made personalities. I could be a beige, granola, or hot mess mom — the formula is right there to own, should one speak to me.
But instead, they all leave me with the question — What role do aesthetics play in identity, and are they helping us with self-discovery or disguise?
I grew up with three younger sisters; we were told to be unique and have distinct personalities. At times, it felt we were in a competition over who could be the most obscure. But, even nonconformity can be uniform.
In the pursuit of the weird — be it an affinity for indie music, arthouse films, or a specific fashion sense — we inadvertently suppressed the more spontaneous, eclectic aspects of our personalities. The drive to fit within a particular aesthetic, like vintage girl, overshadowed genuine preferences and diverse tastes. It’s why I didn’t watch cartoons and then later all TV for many years. It didn’t fit the person I was crafting.
It’s likely all of us have tried at some point to craft a certain narrative or external view of ourselves. Social media has put the possibilities and micro-trends on overdrive.
Recently, I read an article about the new class of “West Village girls” — defined by a location, aesthetic, and lifestyle. This cohort of young women cultivate lives of pilates, light wash jeans, pearl-colored puffers, and espresso martinis, all carefully documented on social media in the softest light.
They’re marked by a certain frivolity and uniformity. They’re not chasing the obscure or creating a rebellion. But it’s a mistake to see them as two-dimensional. Their collective embrace of a specific aesthetic creates a community by shortcutting connection. They’re signaling: this is who I am, and here are my people.
I’m a smidge jealous of the West Village girls and their carefree exuberance — they like what they like and they’ve found each other. But I think we have a problem.
And the problem isn’t that we care about aesthetics. It’s that they’ve become the shortcut to identity, instead of a reflection of it.
I’m not arguing for conformity or obscurity. I’m suggesting that instead of unexamined adoption of trends, styles, or vibes, we live in constant discovery of what our normal, natural, true state is.
It’s not an easy suggestion; social media tangles up our livelihood, status, and ego. Aesthetics help us fit in, but they also worm their way into our lives. To appear “authentic,” we lean into the curated identity — filtering ourselves through how we’ll be perceived. It doesn’t allow for strangeness or surprise.
Because the realest self is hard to package — it means freedom to contradict yourself and willingness to not make sense to others.
In a way, I’m grateful all the youthful versions of me are held in notebooks, blurry photos, and forgotten nights of the 2000s and 2010s. Some versions had aesthetics, some didn’t. It didn’t matter — there was no pressure to be a brand.
I would love for us to shed the notion of a brand to get to the core of who we are, what we like, and who we want to become next. It has to be deeper than a preset aesthetic.
If you do an inventory of past, present, future versions of you, what remains core?
As for me, I’m still the girl combating shyness by writing in my notebook — say hi to strangers. It’s a lingering nudge to put myself out there.
Hi, I’m Courtney. I’ve spent over a decade in tech companies as a Head of People and startup fixer, working directly with founders. My founders have been featured in Fast Company, Fortune, Inc., People, and more.
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