There are things in this lifetime that are universally chic: Gabrielle Chanel, dirty martinis, the Olsen twins, the color black, older women with a lifetime of collected clothing, a cigarette after a meal or sex (I quit, but no one can deny their cultural effect), Cate Blanchett.
The word "chic" was once reserved for a select few things. But this year, we've seen it used more than ever, and in ways that completely defy its original intentions. Everything is "kinda chic" and so therefore nothing is. But isn't that the irony of using a word that is in the eye of the beholder? Chic is, in its purest form, a subjective descriptive. So why can't everything be chic?
Of late, AI slop has been ruling the discourse around taste. What is real, what is curated, what is generated from our algorithm, and what is actually considered tasteful? In many ways, this threatens our discernment about the choices we are making for ourselves versus the choices we are making because they are being subliminally fed to us via our algorithms, and this seems to be where chic met its death knell.
Chic used to have a high bar and was used sparingly, reserved for moments displaying the highest level of taste, curation, and effortlessness. Now, it is being used to validate the action of things that feel inherently unchic—like being a slave to the trend cycle or acting chalant at all times. Where the word was once synonymless, it has now become the new byproduct of style, just like the "cores" and "aesthetics" were in 2023. Has chic lost its meaning, or has it simply transcended it? Is chic ephemeral or eternal?
According to fashion data account @databutmakeitfashion, the positive sentiment associated with the word "chic" has decreased by 14 percent month-over-month since March 2026. It is, however, reaching an all-time high on Google search traffic for the first time since 2004. So despite it inching from beloved to reviled territory, we're all still saying it.
With this in mind, it affirms something we've all suspected for a while: nothing is too sacred to become a meme, and the memeification of one of the fashion lexicon's most sacred verbal cow only continues to democratize an industry and subculture that desperately wants to remain gatekept. But Tabis nor a Birkin nor the word chic are a match for the algorithm in today's world, and as much as I could not hear the word for another 3-7 years and survive—maybe even thrive—the sooner we descend from our high horses, the better off we're bound to be.
To embody chicness in its essence is to reassign our attention to the things that make us happy, interested, and fulfilled, rather than focusing on how things look or are presented. Kinda chic to not care about how much people are using the word chic. No?