In the world of post-pandemic dressing, one word has taken social media by storm: cheugy (pr: chew-gee). As awkward as it is to pronounce, it is the latest entry on a long and expanding list of identifiers that allow people to differentiate and group themselves and others into categories for social segmentation. Coined by a group of students in a Beverly Hills high school in 2013, the term is as passé as it sounds and as its definition suggests. Simply put, to be cheugy is to be outdated; that a cheug is a person who follows outdated trends, or in other words, is not fashion-forward.

With over 50k followers on Instagram to date, @cheuglife, which is managed by some of the very first adopters of the term, is the main arbiter of cheugy style. The ubiquitous ‘live, laugh, love’ t-shirts , chevron-patterned maxi dresses, and tassel earrings made of brightly colored thread are just some of the items they have attributed to cheugs recently. The definition even extends to food: baked feta pasta is one of the most talked about dishes right now, but its predecessor, lasagna, is considered cheugy. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the in-your-face girlboss, popularized by Nasty Gal’s Sophia Amoruso nearly a decade ago (yes, it’s been that long!), has also been called out by the cheugstagram.

Pinterest-inspired quotes, drinking Rosé and watching reruns of 'Friends' all fall into the “cheugy” category. (Photo: pinterest.com)

While many things that are called cheugy today overlap with what were considered the ‘basic’ style that was characteristic of millennials a few years ago, not all cheugy things come from the millennial generation. As fashion changes over time, it logically follows that cheugy style does as well, making virtually everything susceptible to this ungraceful moniker at some point in time. Skinny jeans may be the latest victim of changing trends, but as the cyclical fashion system has shown us time and again, slim-legged denim will dominate our shopping carts again in the future. After all, some version of this silhouette has been in regular rotation for ages; the 1970s had the teddy boy, and as far back as the 18th century, there was the Macaroni.

In this regard, cheugy is quite a versatile phrase. Even though there are some things that have been labeled as cheugy by a seemingly critical mass of people, the term can easily be interpreted to mean different things to others. To the 30-something millennial who started wearing skinny jeans in college, the pair lingering in their wardrobe may signify the freedom that came with living a newly independent lifestyle. And even though knitwear in general is currently topping the market, the Gen Z-er who bought the latest patterned knit dress may feel the need to replace it after just a few weeks because it gained cheugy status after being in one too many TikTok videos (where microtrends are proliferating) in a short period of time.

The fact that the term has been around— at least in some circles, for over a decade— but did not peak in popularity until recently speaks volumes about the deeper psychological implications of a society that is not only fascinated by it, but is also so willing to embrace it. Aside from those who may be cheugy without realizing it, there are those who are openly using it to describe themselves. The hashtag #cheugyandproud and its plentiful variations point to a fixation on the past and a seminal part of the users’ life during which fashion made a strong impact. As French philosopher Roland Barthes states in his book The Language of Fashion: “Clothes live in tight symbiosis with their historical context.”

The clothes we wear at any given point in our lives are informed by our surroundings, and are part of the tools we use to communicate. By wearing so-called cheugy items purposefully, we are signalling that we identify with the time period during which they were fashionable. In that regard, purposefully choosing to identify and dress cheugy is similar to dressing in vintage clothes. Psychologist Jennifer Baumgartner, Psy.D., notes that “the love for nostalgia and sentiment may prompt us to buy the representation of it, as the vintage piece becomes the embodiment of a bygone era.” Even those who still have plenty of their old, unfashionable clothes in their closets right now may be tempted to buy more of the same styles for the very reasoning that Marie Kondo uses: certain items from your past have the ability to “spark joy” in a way that the latest trend may not. While a designer has to work hard to make new collections with storylines that successfully speak to buyers, those dresses and pants from seasons past already reference and embody our personal histories, making them hard to give up for new things to which we are, as of yet, unattached.

Although the idea of being ‘unfashionable’ has existed for as long as fashion itself, this specific variation on the concept is relatively new, and also inextricably tied to recent events. The fact that cheugy gained its maximum traction at the tail end of the global crisis that was the Covid-19 pandemic indicates that the two are connected. Production was paused at many of the world’s major factories, and overall sales took a deep dive due to the closure of physical stores. Much of the fashion industry was quite literally on hold, effectively also putting a pause on the movement of clothing in and out of personal wardrobes. Finances may have been a reason why some were reluctant to spend money on trends, but mental blocks also seriously affected our relationship with clothing and fashion. Our time-tested and trusty cheugy clothing, especially those soft, well-worn pieces, may have comforted many of us on the most difficult days, but they may very well now be hindering our ability to move on as the pandemic restrictions are finally being lifted from our lives.

In the community of vintage fashion aficionados there is a saying that could be applied here too: “vintage clothes, not vintage values,” or in this case, “cheugy clothes, not cheugy values.” In other words, many of us are dressing cheugily, or making lasagna, and a lot of us may be doing so proudly by choice. But we should not stay psychologically stuck in the past while doing so.

Doris Domoszlai-Lantner is a New York-based fashion historian and archivist with a Master's in Fashion Studies: History Theory, Museum Practice from FIT, and a B.A. in History and East European Studies from Barnard College, Columbia University. She is the Co-Founder of Fashion Forward, a think tank established to challenge the conventional discourse on fashion.