SALEM - DieWithMe
posted January 12, 2025
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Although she looks like a spectre haunting an abandoned Las Vegas wedding chapel, the Liminal Baddie is very real. Like other fashion subgenres, her online presence is her art—self-mythologizing, surreal, a Vaseline-lensed blur of baby animals and edged weapons. It asks more questions than it answers, which is what makes it so intriguing. The juxtaposition of her soft, feminine beauty and frilly clothes plays against the bank of dirty snow she’s lying in for the picture. Pure but soiled; pious but sexual; unstable but aspirational.
Her carefully considered persona is a quiet study of life’s in-betweens, though the performance of it often obscures reality. Her photos are uncanny, their captions non-sequiturs. So much about her exists as rumor or question mark, like the word allegations auto-populating after her name on Google. All you know is that she seemingly grew up in an eccentric family, has either been kidnapped or gone missing at least once, and had her credit card and entire aura stolen by her ex-best friend. She gave acting a try, but likely realized being a pseudo-socialite was easier. All of her best looks are from about ten years ago, yet they remain uncannily prescient.
Like many of us, I have a persistent fascination with this archetype. I think because so much of her is hidden, and what she’s chosen to expose has been on her own terms. The embarrassing, shitty, awful things may still exist somewhere online or in peoples’ memories, but they’re generally scrubbed. As much as I love dainty ruffles and prairie dresses and muted colors, I worry my attempts feel hollow, like there’s no hidden story or cryptic message underneath everything. Besides, I don’t have the dynastic wealth and/or slinky allure. I still not only completely get what the Liminal Baddie is going for, but I feel seen by it.
Candles, a webcam, a vintage nightgown, and a distant but knowing look in my eyes...
Instead of specific brands or labels, the Liminal Baddie is drawn to secondhand statement pieces. Lingerie and nightgowns, vintage sportswear, and fundamentalist silhouettes all evoke a nicotine-stained folklore. Imagine having a dream about a woman who goes on Rumspringa and ends up in a David Lynch film. Accessories are peculiar but idiosyncratic, like bonnets and pillows and antique stuffed animals, but they somehow always add a perfectly off-kilter cohesion. She reads as a discerning, tasteful collector of trinkets and garments. Meanwhile, I’m the kind of person who is too car-less to go garage saling in random neighborhoods looking for hidden celluloid treasures. Hell, I’m too lazy to sort through all of the random crap in Mother of Junk. It’s hopeless.
Honestly, I almost always take the easy way out and find stuff online. Search for Edwardian antique garments like corset covers, blouses, and skirts, ‘70s revival prairiecore like Gunne Sax, used designer (because bougie but not too bougie), and of course, kitschy accessories like barrettes and charm bracelets. Tend towards sun-bleached pastels like shell pinks, pearl blues, and cream yellows that play against inky blacks, pea greens, and blood reds. Makeup is usually simple, with pinched-cheek blush, rosy lips, and maybe a dash of natural undereye shadows. Usually hair is usually on the longer side so it can be braided into quasi-cult hairstyles, or shoulder-length with a messy part.
Her carefully considered persona is a quiet study of life’s in-betweens, though the performance of it often obscures reality. Her photos are uncanny, their captions non-sequiturs. So much about her exists as rumor or question mark, like the word allegations auto-populating after her name on Google. All you know is that she seemingly grew up in an eccentric family, has either been kidnapped or gone missing at least once, and had her credit card and entire aura stolen by her ex-best friend. She gave acting a try, but likely realized being a pseudo-socialite was easier. All of her best looks are from about ten years ago, yet they remain uncannily prescient.
Like many of us, I have a persistent fascination with this archetype. I think because so much of her is hidden, and what she’s chosen to expose has been on her own terms. The embarrassing, shitty, awful things may still exist somewhere online or in peoples’ memories, but they’re generally scrubbed. As much as I love dainty ruffles and prairie dresses and muted colors, I worry my attempts feel hollow, like there’s no hidden story or cryptic message underneath everything. Besides, I don’t have the dynastic wealth and/or slinky allure. I still not only completely get what the Liminal Baddie is going for, but I feel seen by it.
Instead of specific brands or labels, the Liminal Baddie is drawn to secondhand statement pieces. Lingerie and nightgowns, vintage sportswear, and fundamentalist silhouettes all evoke a nicotine-stained folklore. Imagine having a dream about a woman who goes on Rumspringa and ends up in a David Lynch film. Accessories are peculiar but idiosyncratic, like bonnets and pillows and antique stuffed animals, but they somehow always add a perfectly off-kilter cohesion. She reads as a discerning, tasteful collector of trinkets and garments. Meanwhile, I’m the kind of person who is too car-less to go garage saling in random neighborhoods looking for hidden celluloid treasures. Hell, I’m too lazy to sort through all of the random crap in Mother of Junk. It’s hopeless.
Muses: Lauren Alice Avery, Julia Fox, Mai Toyoshima
Honestly, I almost always take the easy way out and find stuff online. Search for Edwardian antique garments like corset covers, blouses, and skirts, ‘70s revival prairiecore like Gunne Sax, used designer (because bougie but not too bougie), and of course, kitschy accessories like barrettes and charm bracelets. Tend towards sun-bleached pastels like shell pinks, pearl blues, and cream yellows that play against inky blacks, pea greens, and blood reds. Makeup is usually simple, with pinched-cheek blush, rosy lips, and maybe a dash of natural undereye shadows. Usually hair is usually on the longer side so it can be braided into quasi-cult hairstyles, or shoulder-length with a messy part.
Of all the subgenres, Liminal Baddie is one of the most atmospheric. It carries the girlish preciosity of a Sofia Coppola film, but filtered through something more degraded and uncanny—the eeriness of Shaye Saint John, the sense that you’re watching a performance slightly out of sync with itself. Her world is dimly lit and overexposed at the same time: empty fields at dusk, abandoned barns, motel rooms with the curtains drawn all day. Everything feels touched by water or smoke or memory. You get the sense that she is always arriving or just about to leave, never quite anchored to a place or a timeline.
The images linger because like discovered ephemera, equal parts unsettling and tender, a polaroid pulled from the wreckage of a burned-down manor. You’re not sure what happened before the picture was taken, or what happened after. Only that something did.