🟠 TREND RADAR #2 :: SOCIAL DRIVERS
Temporal Realness & Hopecore
This week, I’m continuing the new series of Trend Radar posts. Today’s edition will share a few of the 121 recent database signals influenced by the Sociopolitical drivers space in the framework, which includes four macrotrends: Regressive Nostalgia, Radical Realism, Collective Kinship, and Sovereign Systems.
Regressive Nostalgia
Boom Boom is in full-force, with historically-inspired maximalism infusing luxury travel & hospitality as well as visual branding & marketing trends.
We’re seeing a strong prep revival this summer, as I shared back in February (For Spring/Summer, we can think about how classic 50s prep elements were remixed during the 80s with pop color. While definitely at odds with quiet luxury, it’s still chasing ‘old money’ aspirations). Country club aesthetics are indeed everywhere, from golf collabs, to boat shoes, to two of the most highly anticipated Spring-Summer 2026 fashion shows — JW Anderson for Dior and Michael Rider for Celine. Max Berlinger does a great job breaking down all of this preppiness,1 and even draws a connection to hopecore (more on that later), but I just had to add this gratifying side-by-side…. (!)
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has been illegally co-opting ‘trad’-coded paintings for its social media accounts, in an apparent attempt to visualize the conservative ideals of an American ‘golden age,’ and posting them alongside aggressive anti-immigration memes. Dazed reports that the artists’ estates are not happy.
Dazed also examined the regressive backslide in beauty ideals, while Rachel Seville Tashjian explored whether feminine florals are conservative-coded.
Last week, Amy Odell interviewed Jo Piazza, the author of a new novel set in the world of tradwives. Piazza suggests that the lack of counter-movement in the current moment is likely “because women are massively burnt out and exhausted.” This ties directly into Anne Helen Petersen’s essay on The Great Feminist Exhaustion, published just one day prior.
MAHA traction continues to grow, with a New York magazine feature on ‘the Milk Guy,’ who smuggles raw milk to NYC customers. Snaxshot reported on Trad Wife Grocers, including the Ballerina Farm store, “which can only be described as a MAHAish Erewhon,” and which recently launched a collaboration with NYC’s Happier Grocery.
Apparently, Dimes Square contrarianism isn’t dead, it just moved to LA.