Noticing: Emilia Petrarca | Can I Boom Boom?

Falling for, and fretting over, the gilded and greedy new aesthetic.

- Emilia Petrarca

IN DECEMBER, the trend forecaster Sean Monahan-best known for his role in putting the term normcore on the map in 2013 and for predicting the vibe shift of 2022-announced the arrival of a new aesthetic: He called it boom boom. While the vibe shift was a return to the late-aughts looks now called indie sleaze, shaking elder millennials to their core, the new aesthetic, another "fetishization of the past," he wrote, took up the in-your-face glamour and visible hierarchy of the 1980s and early '90s. Think flashy cars, power suits à la American Psycho, tanning oil, furs, and the dark wood of uptown restaurants like Le Veau d'Or. Boom boom is looking like you've spent money for the sake of looking like you've spent money. Once again, Monahan's proclamation felt upsettingly on point.

"There's something sleazy about the simplicity of saying something is 'very boom boom,'" he told me with a laugh about a month after hitting PUBLISH. (Monahan makes his pronouncements on his Substack newsletter, 8Ball.) "Also, it's fun to say." The term was also inspired by the Boom Boom Room, a golden-hued club at The top interior of the Meatpacking District’s Standard Hotel that opened in 2009 and was itself inspired by Windows on the World, the restaurant formerly perched at the top of the North Tower of the old World Trade Center. According to Roman and Williams, the Hollywood-adjacent architectural firm that designed the space, the club was supposed to feel “like a honey-covered Bentley.” In this context, boom boom brings to mind not only what might take place in the coat closet—it’s booming economies, Champagne corks flying, the "Boom! Nailed it!" of deals being closed.