It’s embodied by big, buggy sunglasses, medallion necklaces, wide-brimmed hats and semi-sheer organza dresses worn in combination to deliver maximum drama. It’s represented by Belle Burden’s bestselling, breakup-with-your-husband memoir Strangers. It’s often wine-fueled and documented with abandon on Instagram. Do you feel that? It’s officially a hot divorcée summer.
The Guardian first wrote about this cultural temperature in March, on the heels of Reformation’s February Divorce Collection campaign, which featured divorce attorney Laura Wasser and included a sweatshirt emblazoned with “Dump Him” (a portion of the proceeds were donated toward legal services for women leaving marriages). Hot divorcée summer, crucially, is not just for divorcées — it’s an attitude, one that centers around “decentering men”, and in turn, not dressing for them, says designer Mishka Ivanovic, founder of her label Buci.
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“We love men, and they’re great, but they don’t need to be in the center of our ecosystem,” says Ivanovic, who reports an increased demand for high-quality eveningwear in a mature color palette, and for sexy wedding guest dresses that are, decidedly, not for the bride herself. In response, Ivanovic created a divorce campaign of her own, featuring a mysterious, seductive woman dressed in black as a counterpoint to her pristine bride.
“Women are reframing separation as a moment of transformation, individuality, and agency,” says Hannah Elderfield, US insight director at Canvas8. “Hot divorcée summer is an attitude more than a subculture,” adds Krista Corrigan, senior retail analyst at EDITED. The attitude in question is less to do with divorce, and more the byproduct of a culture that has started to celebrate being single.
Corrigan traces the cultural attitude back to an ongoing psychological shift in which “the consumer is treating herself as the main character, leaning into maximalist apparel and high-glam accessories”. It’s not just about the clothes. The past few years of wellness culture were about self-improvement practiced in private through solo hot girl walks, Pilates, and clean girl optimization. Hot divorcée summer is about women investing in their appearance to feel hot while out and about in the world. The fantasy, as Cate Khan, CEO of trend forecasting firm Trendalytics, puts it, “feels less ingénue and more ‘she has incredible taste, a beautifully curated apartment and definitely gives intimidatingly good advice over martinis.’”
Zoe’s post-divorce style was sexier, but it didn’t mean dressing like a teenager again (she’s always felt that “less overt sensuality is more attractive”). Instead, she started wearing bralettes instead of tanks under her leather jackets and fur coats. Zoe wore garments that are “more sheer and easy”, and that might suggest her silhouette. This new look, for her, was emblematic of her “freedom era”.
Like Zoe, many of Bornstein’s clients feel liberated by sheer fabrics (All Three’s T-shirts and skirts are an example), which Bornstein says is a strong pivot from the stiff, boxy tees that her clients were asking for just last year. Leaning into luxurious fabric and texture — she name-checks silk shantung, velvet, and taffeta — Bornstein says, is key: “We want to feel luxe and expensive, but we don’t need a tight bodysuit.”
Maggioni has tracked a wider return to glamour, and a “renewed appetite for polish, occasion-inspired dressing, as well as a more expressive femininity”. Her list of trending aesthetic codes includes “rich textures, lace, glossy finishes and a kind of controlled maximalism that feels confident rather than overtly flashy”, alongside a “return of more body-aware silhouettes, discreet shoulder structure, strategic cutouts, and bolder colors (even just accents)”.
Khan points to Alaïa, which, according to Trendalytics, is up 196% in social engagement following its recent Hailey Bieber campaign, as a label that fits the mood. In terms of individual styles: high-vamp heels (+2,380% surge in searches) and funnel-neck trenches (+1,773%), which are “part glamour, part privacy, like the fashion equivalent of quietly getting your life together,” she says.
Both Bornstein and Zoe reference Khaite as an example of a brand getting the hot divorcée right, as did Brigitte Chartrand, chief buying and merchandising officer at Net-a-Porter, who notes the positive performance of a recent Net-a-Porter-exclusive Khaite capsule (which the brands recently celebrated with a wine-fueled weekend in Florence). Zoe also highlights that the brands she sees as getting this moment right — Victoria Beckham, Khaite, Gabriela Hearst, Chloé, Stella McCartney — are all helmed by female designers.
The shift to opulence extends to jewelry and accessories. Jean Prounis, founder and designer of Prounis Jewelry, says her clients are now wearing high-carat diamonds casually, instead of reserving their best pieces for events. One client, newly separated from her husband, recently approached her with a seven-carat diamond engagement ring, which Prounis re-set as a necklace. Another has been wearing her “museum-quality” Tahitian pearls on the daily. “That client was a very subtle jewelry wearer, but this is a big gold and pearl chain necklace now. And she’s like, ‘I love wearing it just to get coffee,’” says Prounis.
Statement jewelry is up 42% among key influencers, according to Trendalytics, which points “to a return to glamour that feels bold rather than delicate”, says Khan.
Dressing the divorcée
Stylus content director Emily Gordon-Smith calls Gen X the “the most lucrative and reliable customer segment growth opportunity that exists.” However, the demographic remains underserved. “Fashion brands keep chasing these consumers who are the most cash strapped,” she says.
The key to capturing this consumer, according to Gordon-Smith, is a stylistic emphasis on “feeling young at heart”. It’s worth noting that “Matthieu-mania” — the tagline for consumer frenzy for Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel — is in part driven by enthusiasm for the joyful “lightness” of the garments. Gordon-Smith used the rise of 50-plus clubbing as another telltale sign that youthfulness is ‘in’, as well as the festivals filled with “old-school ravers who don’t want to hang up their dancing shoes”. A great example, for Gordon-Smith, of this young at heart merchandising is Burberry’s 2025 summer festival campaign, which featured 59-year-old jungle music star Goldie, as well as 52-year-old Liam Gallagher with his adult children.
“The greatest missed opportunity in retail right now,” says Corrigan, “is the failure to realize that the mature customer isn’t only interested in ‘age-appropriate’ clothing.”
Brands might choose to look to Sylvie Grateau, the fictional marketing boss in Netflix’s Emily in Paris, as inspiration for dressing the hot divorcée. Bornstein’s clients, in particular, are requesting her style. Others who came up: Elsa Peretti, Zoë Kravitz in flats and oversized diamonds, and pre-Kennedy-era Carolyn Bessette.
“Many of these consumers are navigating divorce, menopause, dating later in life, or post-parenthood identity shifts, and fashion is increasingly being used as a tool of celebration rather than correction,” says Maggioni. Self-gifting, she adds, is one growing signal in this demographic, as is a rising focus on buying pieces that mark life transitions beyond traditional weddings or engagements. “Alt-celebrations” (which include divorce parties) fit naturally into the cultural landscape that includes aspirational midlife and fashion-over-50 creators.
The “fashion as celebration” narrative is why the maximalism we’re celebrating now comes with softer, comfort-led undertones. For Maggioni, this aesthetic inherently has adaptability and body confidence in mind — think fluidity and draping as opposed to restrictive tailoring, and self-assured embellishment as opposed to the nihilistic ‘boom boom’ aesthetic.
Embracing post-divorce life in a louder way aligns with the call for fashion to see generations older than the next young thing. Ramírez recalls a trend report segment at a recent industry panel, in which “an older woman said, ‘Why don’t you talk about me? I have money. I’ll give you my money, but give me something.”
