Why We’re All Obsessed With The Sofia Coppola Aesthetic

There are plenty of movies made for men, by men. The John Wick quadrilogy comes to mind. And we love that for them. What we have to look a little harder for, at times, are movies made for women, by women. Because while we love a Michael Bay action flick as much as the next testosterone-fueled consumer, sometimes we want something different. Sometimes we want a movie that is visually beautiful, with a soft and ethereal score, that captures the feminine essence. And that’s where Sofia Coppola comes in. 

Astral Rise                                                           

Despite being raised in the filmmaking world as the daughter of famous writer and director Francis Ford Coppola (of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now), Coppola didn’t always envision a career in film. She came to it in a roundabout way, dabbling first in photography, music, and fashion (she interned at Chanel as a teenager). There was a time when Coppola wondered if she would ever find her place. Of her wandering path, Coppola asked her father, “Dad, am I going to be a dilettante forever?”

An epiphany came, however, when she wrote a short film called “Lick the Star" in her late twenties. According to The New Yorker, it was about “a clique of teenage girls who revere, and then violently ostracize, their queen bee.” Speaking later of the experience, she told The New Yorker, “I knew a little bit about photography, a little bit about clothing design, and a little bit about music. I was annoyed that I could never pick one thing. And then, when I made my short film, I realized it was a way to work with all of it.” And thus began the career of a woman who would soon make girls everywhere feel seen, and whose aesthetic would stand the test of time. 

Let Them Eat Haze

What is the Sofia Coppola aesthetic? For one, Coppola fully leans into beauty. She told Vogue, "Looking at beautiful things calms me down." She fills her films (like Marie Antoinette, The Virgin Suicides, and Lost in Translation) with as many beautiful things as possible. When asked if she completely fleshes out the aesthetic before filming, she said, “The visual world is always my starting point. I focus on the color palette first. Then, who the characters are. Thinking about their clothing style helps me with this. When I consider what the characters would wear, I learn more about their personalities. Ultimately, though, it's many small details that make up my characters' world.” Details like lace, ballet flats, puff sleeves, floral wallpaper, dainty jewelry, and slips and nightgowns in soft, pastel colors. Ultrafeminine details are everywhere in her films, as is a hazy, dreamy quality that further softens the scene. In a phrase: atmosphere is queen.  

In a culture highly focused on aesthetic, her films feel like living inside a mood board. The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette are full of girlhood and coquettecore, before those were even a thing. The New Yorker described Marie Antoinette’s set design as “almost obscenely beautiful; every shot has the composed lusciousness of a box of petits fours. The bracing opening sequence—Coppola has never missed on an opening shot—was inspired by a Guy Bourdin photograph of a model in repose: lounging in a petticoat, with an attendant massaging her feet, (Kirsten) Dunst’s Marie swipes her finger through the frosting of a layer cake and then delivers the camera an insolent stare.”

In the Mood

Substackers and TikTokers alike can’t get enough of Coppola’s decadence. But it’s not just e-girls that have caught feelings; artists are taking note as well. According to Yahoo Entertainment, “Sabrina Carpenter’s latest video for “House Tour,” is inspired by Coppola’s 2013 film, The Bling Ring; singer-songwriter Laufey’s self-described “lover girl” persona has a distinct Coppola-esque flair; and the director herself shot Gracie Abrams for Chanel last year.” 

The internet is also clocking Olivia Rodrigo’s new album, “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,” as being highly inspired by Coppola’s films. Calling Coppola “the patron saint of teenage girls,” Yahoo described Rodrigo’s Coppola-inspired affect as “hyperfeminine… the ethereal pastel pink and white of the visuals, the dreamy nature they evoked, the melancholy beneath the surface of a seemingly perfect life.” Rodrigo is, apparently, obsessed (just like the rest of us). 

Rodrigo's embrace of a youthful hyperfemininity has spilled into her wardrobe, as well. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the internet lost its mind when Rodrigo performed in a babydoll dress and knee-high boots for Spotify’s Billions Club. She looked amazing, and people could not handle it. They screamed infantilization and a glorifying of the “Lolita” persona. And maybe that’s what was happening. Or maybe clothes that are youthful and pretty and fun are just what she likes. And why wouldn’t she?

Girl’s Girl

But it’s not only Sofia Coppola’s visual rendering of the female experience that audiences are relating to at the moment. Coppola’s films also feel like a journey into the female ethos via the heart and soul, and not just the pretty parts. Coppola isn’t afraid to explore “the alienation and isolation that many women feel,” as The New Yorker puts it. “Teenage girls in suburban isolation, queens trapped in Versailles, women alone in hotels, women overshadowed by famous and powerful men.” Coppola joked in an interview, “I can’t resist a trapped woman.”

The bored melancholy of adolescence in The Virgin Suicides is something many girls can relate to in particular. It’s a period of discovery, and of waiting. Waiting for independence, for womanhood, for a life that’s been mapped out but not yet realized. Trying to develop autonomy within the confines of a strict authoritarian household, like the one in Suicides, is not an easy task. Coppola’s comfortability with uncomfortable emotions is refreshing. Everyone has moments of melancholy and Coppola isn’t afraid to portray them.  

Sofia Coppola gets women because she is one, in every sense of the word. Of her coming up, Coppola told The Guardian, “Maybe growing up with so many strong men around me meant I felt, I don’t know, closely connected to being feminine. I mean in my first movie I felt like making something for teenage girls. I looked at the movies they made for teenage girls and thought: why can’t they have beautiful photography? Why shouldn’t we treat that audience with respect? That was something I missed when I was that age: I wished the movies weren’t so condescending. So I guess I’ve always just made the films that I’d have wanted to see.”

A lot has been made of the adoption of the Sofia Coppola aesthetic, especially in regard to its wardrobe. And societal critiques are allowed. But maybe, in this case, no one is making a statement about anything. Maybe we’re drawn to feminine, girly things simply because it’s what we are at our core. Maybe Coppola just makes the films she wants to watch, and Rodrigo just wears the clothes she wants to wear. And maybe that’s perfectly fine. As Liz Plank of the Boy Problems podcast said, “you’re allowed to do things just because it’s cute.” We couldn’t agree more.