It’s a Hot Divorcée Summer. How Can Brands Tap In?
Women of a certain age are facing down life after marriage with abandon, and they want their clothes to keep up.
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.
“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.
Isabella Carr in Buci Opera dress in black.
“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.’”
Being middle-aged is “not about being covered up” anymore, says Jessica Ramírez, co-founder of consumer trend platform The Consumer Collective. “It’s about looking hot.” When the greater financial stability found later in life converges with the onset of both GLP-1s and all sorts of medical aesthetics, she says “you will be wearing a see-through dress”. Sara Maggioni, head of womenswear at trend forecasting firm WGSN, also argues that the rise in GLP-1 is already leading a wealthier segment of this cohort toward a more form-fitting, trend-led silhouette. Additionally, women over 50 are “traveling more, dating more, and embracing visibility more publicly”. Stylist Allison Bornstein points to her own clients (women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s) who are “almost embarrassed” to tell her they want to look sexy. They’re not deliberately seeking attention from men, but “they don’t want to disappear in their clothes”.
This is also a cohort with cash to spend. Nearly half of Gen X (45%) are luxury consumers, per GWI. In the US, women over 55 control more than 73% of total household wealth, and the average Gen X American spends roughly $18,000 more, yearly, than other customers, according to Stylus. According to NielsenIQ, the Gen X beauty market will grow to 1.3 times its current size in the next five years. So with money on the table and a new energy infiltrating our Instagram feeds from women of a certain age, how can brands tap in?
A handful of brands are nailing the grown-up customer with spending power and a desire to dress in a way that feels sexy. Bornstein’s clients are drawn to Colleen Allen’s long velvet coats, a popular drawstring taffeta pant from Chan Luu, Kallmeyer’s eveningwear that feels “sophisticated, still a little academic”, and silk chinoiserie jackets — Rohé’s frog-closure jacket is a crowd favorite.
Stylist Rachel Zoe wore a glittering, backless, slinky gown with a cowl neck and a mermaid train, accessorized with statement flower-shaped earrings and a matching cuff on her first public appearance following her divorce last October. “I just remember everyone being in this full uproar, like ‘revenge dress’, and no, it actually wasn’t,” says Zoe, of her Academy Museum Gala look.
Rachel Zoe attends the fourth annual Academy Museum Gala.
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.
Gemma Chan in Net-A-Porter x Khaite exclusive Tia Satin-Twill midi dress.
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.
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.
