Make Way for the Paper Bag Princess
- Lauren Lexa Brown
- 3 minutes ago
- 7 min read
On the runway, Whimsicraft — ephemeral design with a bric-a-brac, Boy Scout feel — has taken over. Now, it’s showing up everywhere else.
When you see the phrase "coming of age," your imagination might drift towards themes of purity or rebellion: Lady Bird or "1979" by Smashing Pumpkins. For decades, conceptualizations of teenage experience have been squeezed like a natural wine bar on Galentine's — the well is dry. In an attempt to reconcile with the spiritually-beaten dead horse birthed by media, depicting alabaster young virgins learning tough life lessons via mentally ill men, a new phenomenon is now being wrung out by fashion designers, stylists, and artists at large. This coming of age is not the run-of-the-mill Lolita story we all know and (mostly) love, but rather stems from the specific, awkward process of identity formation and the construction of a personal worldview that occurs from early adulthood to middle age. Instead of feeling longing for our childhood, our nostalgia has only naturally shifted towards our early twenties. Our love for childhood whimsy is taking the form of a more mature fantasy story — one that suggests scarcity and a primal drive for survival, à la Moonrise Kingdom.
This pertinent cultural shift is being embraced by an aging Gen Z, as it trickles down from trend-setting fashion houses like Prada and Loewe. Whimiscraft is huge on the runway this season, with ephemera all pointing to a bric-a-brac, Boy Scout feel. This harkening to wistful crafting stands in the way of the clean girl, reminding them it's okay to get a little mud on your dress. Lately, the Miu Miu show has ushered in mossy tones, muted stone grays, and hints of fur that suggest Dr. Zhivago. Most notably, actress supreme Gillian Anderson walked the show in what one might call a bejeweled paper-bag princess dress. Calvin Klein also featured a canvas dress that looks like it could be made of paper, further cementing our desire for analog materials rather than chrome and plastic. It still involves repurposing old industrial materials, but the materials we consider “old” and “industrial” look very different because history shapes our perception of the meanings behind words.
In speaking about materials, the tangible is key here — what we experience with our five senses: how linen feels in our fingers, the noise of industrial projects, how our eyeballs absorb visual culture, the sets, the sound stages, the costumes, the physicality of actors interacting with their surroundings. It’s a post-literate world, where there is no reading between the lines, because there are no lines. As visuals of dystopia wherein we hand our agency over to computers seem to be almost mass-produced at this rate (from Hollywood, but also other cultural engines like universities and other institutions), a collective paranoia seems to have our desires defaulting to organic matter; deep down, we know that what waits in our “future” is essentially steampunk, minus the satirical digs at capitalism. This is because we will have swallowed the toughest pill of them all: that we would be nothing without the capitalist machine. Perhaps there is no way out but through — we are somewhere in the process of mourning the privilege we once had to question the ethics of AI, as depicted in Blade Runner and other classic sci-fi productions. Sheet metals, plastics, glass, and rubber are now our old materials. In garment production, natural materials like wool, cotton, bamboo, and silk are a luxury. They are the new.
“It is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.” — Mark Fisher
The first bouts of this phenomenon were seen in a sudden influx of paper crowns, the kind one would pull out of a Christmas cracker. Historically, they were first worn by peasants during Saturnalia, an ancient holiday when the lower class essentially cosplayed as the bourgeoisie, and vice versa. The servants were fed delectable grand feasts by their lords, just for one day. The paper crown craze borrows from that mythology, appropriating it in a personal style as a means of subverting power. I’m not saying that Adela on the cover of NYLON wearing a crown and nude tights is a profound act of protest, but it is a significant part of setting this trend. Enya Umanzor, a trend-setting elder and co-host of Emergency Intercom, also posted a selfie not too long ago in an adorable crown hat. More crowns are being created by artists like Maddy Dudu, who was the unfortunate victim of an all-too-common large-scale copycat production by corporations, via the distribution of her work on Pinterest.
Key elements of runway Whimsicraft for 2026 include satchels, smocks, scarves, capes, jumpsuits, princess dresses, pajamas, and a general breadth of inspiration drawn from young adult fiction like Le Petit Prince and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, to name a few. The Valentino Resort 2026 collection was presented with the models all lying on a salmon-pink, silk-sheet-clad bed. I must stress that this shoot is completely non-sexual — the models are seen lying in natural sleeping positions, and they look like they’re having the best nap of their lives. One image shows the model hugging a large pillow on her side for back support, while another shows her clutching her keys, still in hand. The whole production feels like a tranquil respite from the three H’s of entering your thirties: heartburn, high blood pressure, and hemorrhoids. The visuals also borrow cues from what the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute (CARI) terms "soft colonial wanderlust." This is a boilerplate millennial art style — think the album cover of In The Airplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel; compasses atop yellowing, decaying maps; and monarch butterflies landing on grandfather clocks with Roman numeral faces. Shinyakozuka’s recent Spring 2026 collection showcased many pajama silhouettes and cozy socks that barely clung to models’ feet. Simone Rocha also embraced bedtime, with models in princess dresses clutching fluffy pillows.
The large fashion houses aren’t the only players in this game — in fact, they are just catching up. Castenada, a Paris-based house, has recently rolled out its crafty, analog collection of garments that point to illustrations in short novels for teens. The plaid balaclava with petite horns would have Max from Where the Wild Things Are salivating. The company aims to encapsulate self-expression and to encourage playful imagination to thrive through clothing. I think it’s only a matter of time before they come out with a paper crown.
“Elizabeth, you are a mess! You smell like ashes, your hair is all tangled and you are wearing a dirty old paper bag. Come back when you are dressed like a real princess.” — Robert Munsch, author of The Paper Bag Princess
In an interesting turn, Whimsicraft is all about fashioning androgyny in a practical, utilitarian way instead of performatively. It calls to mind the people’s American Olympic princess Alyssa Liu removing her they/them pronouns from her Instagram bio. We’re optimistic towards the future; we’re grasping at meaningless determination; we’re taking elements of fantasy fairytales and grounding them in a more natural reality, like we’re Boy Scouts rebuilding millennia after the world has ended. It’s a survival challenge, but there is no imminent threat. There are no giant robots and flying cars; there are tents made of old landfill Shein clothes fastened by jute-woven rope. Looking back at this 2020 Vogue article on embracing technology in fashion feels like warping through a time machine — the once-novel practice of designers bringing tech to the runway now feels like such well-trodden news.
Though I am fatigued — many are — of dissecting Gen Z’s proclivity for whimsy, it’s hard to ignore when it's incessantly reflected back to us on our iPhones. The whimsy in this iteration of Whimsicraft takes the shape of something more harrowing: we won’t be gluing paper stars onto recycled plastic bag tunics to signal counter-culture or incendiary values; we’ll be doing it because the opossum-fur loincloth we’ve been donning for three months is falling apart. There are simply fewer and fewer things to look at, not only in terms of widespread environmental destruction, but also in traditional ephemera we use daily, going to our 9-5’s, like printers, paper cutters, fax machines, pencils (pens, even), all becoming part of the singularity. While technology helps us solve countless problems, an underlying sense of worthlessness ensues — the whole world being “solved” fundamentally erodes the formation of identity and the potential for agency. Putting questions of class and labor aside, Gen Z is living in a time when we are challenged to balance our use of personal style to signal maturity and authenticity with individuality.
Just recently, Maison Margiela showcased its Fall 2026 collection in a shipping container yard in Shanghai — models in extravagant organza gowns wove between towering Temu containers. The stark contrast between waste and recycling certainly served its purpose here, with outfits made of ceramics, cashmere, paper, leather, and other upcycled novelties. A 90-kilo porcelain dress was the showstopper, with onlookers reporting the sound of the glass chiming and clunking down the runway was both eerie and inspiring. The model struggling to walk (and breathe, probably) emphasized the haunting, Silent Hill nurse-esque spirit of the show. What’s really fascinating is the reception — on social media, commenters express how it feels apocalyptic, like the dresses are intergalactic, essentially a horrifying reflection of the “times we’re in.” The garments are certainly aligned with paper-bag chicness. One comment states, “It's giving futuristic royalty / anime / horror movie.” I would love to know what about it specifically feels futuristic, and why horror. If the models weren’t anonymous, would these sentiments change?
“Reality has turned a bit too sharp around the edges, and with the world growing less hospitable by the hour, who isn’t tempted to bury their head under a pillow and call it a catnap?” —Vogue critic Tiziana Cardini on Valentino Resort 2026
Though it may not appear so, paper bag princess chic stands apart from any notion of “trad”. When we think of “natural” materials and minimal frills, cottagecore or its various offshoots might come to mind. Tradwife style upholds a subservient form of femininity, while the femininity we see here is reminiscent of playing dress-up as a child — it’s pretend, unassigned. The power hierarchies signaled by the costumes are muddled; the garments call back to cultural scripts like gender and class, but it’s more like we’re cosplaying as a society that upholds those norms. Just like the festival of Saturnalia, the mythology behind clothing pieces is deceiving.
So ladies, get out your burlap sacks and strap yourself in. Part of maturing in this era is biting the bullet and accepting that a lot of things suck and that there is not much we can do about them, so we should focus on taking care of ourselves. Chin up, princess, your paper crown is falling.🌀
Lauren Lexa Brown is a Canadian writer, cyber-anthropologist, hardcore perfume enjoyer, and admirer of any and all vintage ephemera. She can be found adding things to her cart and singing to her pet guinea pigs. You can find more of her work on her Substack.
