If everything is chic, then nothing is.
If you’ve spent any time on the internet lately, you’ve probably encountered the phrase kinda chic.
A plastic takeout container? Kinda chic. An old hotel lobby? Kinda chic. A pair of shoes your grandmother might have worn? Kinda chic. The more unexpected, ordinary, or slightly questionable the thing, the better.
And for a while, that was the joke. “Kinda chic” was a wink—a way of finding beauty and charm in things that weren’t trying too hard. It celebrated the imperfect, the nostalgic, and the overlooked. And we loved that.
But, as the internet tends to do, it took a funny little observation and turned it into an aesthetic.
Suddenly, everything is kinda chic. Brands are selling us “kinda chic.” Trend reports are telling us what will be “kinda chic” next. "Kinda chic" is just a term being used to sell us more things we don't need.
And if everything is chic, nothing is.
We spend a lot of time thinking about beautiful things at Elsie Green. We travel to flea markets looking for objects that have survived decades—sometimes centuries—without anyone needing to declare them cool. They're just...cool.
An old stoneware crock is beautiful because of the hands that made it and the patina it has earned over time. A slightly wonky transferware plate is charming because it isn't perfect. A vintage table with a hundred years of scratches and stains is interesting because of the souvenirs from its previous owners.
The best homes we know aren't filled with things that all belong to the same trend. They're layered over time with objects their owners genuinely love: something inherited, or bought at a flea, or brought home from a trip. Something expensive, or something that cost almost nothing.
Maybe some of it is chic. Maybe some of it is a little weird. Hopefully some of it makes absolutely no sense to anyone but you.
Somewhere along the way, social media had us starting to outsource our taste. We waited for our favorite creators to tell us what is kinda chic, rather than deciding for ourselves. But having taste isn't the same thing as knowing what's currently considered tasteful.
Taste takes time. It comes from paying attention to what you return to again and again. It’s knowing that you love something even when you can't quite explain why. And it's being willing to keep loving it after the internet has moved on.
So we'll happily keep the scratched tables, mismatched glasses, tarnished silver, old paintings, faded linens, and strange little flea market finds.
Call them kinda chic if you want.
We just call them beautiful.
