Men all the time say that because the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a ghoul girl. Being the ghoul girl means you might be a sullen, sultry, vampy woman who adores skinny brows, jet black hair and a Kubrick stare. 

The cool girl is dead. The ghoul girl killed her. When you’ve been scrolling through social media recently you is likely to be aware that the women have gone goth. Not trad goth, but a really specific, high fashion, bleached-brow version of goth. It’s bad girl Angelina Jolie in her blood vial era. It’s Wednesday Addams if she grew up, got a job in Milan and picked up a coke habit. It’s Arca’s long, jet-black hair, with a 90s skinny brow and a succubus smoulder. Cheeks are hole and cheekbones are distinguished. There’s not an oz of buccal fat in sight. 

The important players of this it-girl recent aesthetic are Gabbriette and Amelia Gray. Noah Cyrus, Dove Cameron and model Amata Alp are doing it, and two days ago Kylie Jenner got in on the craze, bleaching her eyebrows and perfecting her killer stare. Mia Goth is adjoining to the aesthetic, but doesn’t quite meet the dark hair requirement, while Ethel Cain is the Southern Gothic version. Three important components make up the look: dark, if not black, hair; brows bleached off or plucked to inside an inch of their life; and hole cheeks.

The succubus chic look is so specific, even all the way down to the pose: a bowed head and a dead-eyed Kubrick stare that’s each a siren call and a deadly warning. It’s not surprising that the similarities have been acknowledged and capitalised on by Sonoraboots in a campaign that forged Gabbriette and Amelia Gray with a tagline, “Which one is the evil twin?”

The unique blueprint for this look is, indisputably, Angelina Jolie within the early noughties. The last word sexy bad girl, she looked, in any respect times, like she just hopped off a motorbike and was about to hustle some Hell’s Angels at pool. “Born to be wild” is the title of an Elle magazine editorial from 2000 which features Jolie staring down the camera with the look that’s now develop into the signature for the ghoul girl aesthetic. Together with her skinny brows, high cheekbones and pouty lips, the leather and the tattoos, she’s clearly the spiritual godmother of the succubus chic gals.

While Angie is the OG, Gabbriette can be credited as a more moderen blueprint for the look, which she has sported since no less than 2019. Gray, however, only joined the club in May when she bleached her brows. Since then she’s alternated between no brows and thin brows and seen her profession in high fashion skyrocket, being forged in shows like Diesel, Balenciaga, and Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood. In response to comparisons being made between Gabbriette, Gray and Alp, many commenters were adamant that Gabbriette is the unique. “Gabbriette is literally the blueprint because why are they like stealing her face???” said one commenter. “Gabriette should sue,” [sic] wrote one other to 1.2K likes.

This aesthetic comes as we’ve been seeing a gradual shift away from the give attention to wellness, skincare and the ‘clean girl’ look, towards a messier, Indie Sleaze vibe. Last 12 months, Trend forecaster The Digital Fairy predicted we’d soon be within the “post-wellness party girl” phase of beauty, while recent popular make-up trends like accentuating eye bags and smudged, messy eyeliner suggest persons are uninterested in looking clean, polished and healthful. It also ties into the siren eyes and ‘dark feminine energy’ trends which were dominating on TikTok.

Ghoul girls represent a darker side of the it-girl. Their prevalence shows that perhaps the Wednesday Addams craze wasn’t a fluke, but an indication of a wider shift on the a part of culture and fashion towards the goth. Given the present terrifying state of the world, it’s perhaps unsurprising that folks are taking solace within the macabre, leaning right into a darker energy that may be each deadly and seductive.