Tomato Style: The Sweet Spot Where Your Favorite Salad Topping Meets Fashion and Beauty
Recently, juicy heirloom tomatoes made waves on social media and you’d never guess why. An X user posted a photo of a hefty, textured tomato, prompting all sorts of responses, including a fashion-forward take. “This tomato is Loewe I can’t explain it,” wrote user Connor Downey.
A Loewe namedrop can be expected when talking about quirky design and avant-garde styling. However, tomatoes have been on the fashion, beauty and lifestyle radar for quite some time. Loewe, for instance, offers a range of candles and home spray with tomato leaves scent. We’ve also seen a fair share of tomato red on the red carpets and resort runways in the last couple of months.
With the spotlight on tomatoes, many of us are wondering if we’ll experience yet another summer of TikTok-fueled trends and red color palettes. Below, EnVi recounts all the times the juicy fruit and the adjacent tomato red color — or any allusion to it — appeared in fashion and beauty in recent months.
This tomato is so Loewe I can’t explain it https://t.co/0zS7HjHxGv
— CONNOR (@homocowboi) June 3, 2024
Tomato Style
In the world of fashion, the summer of 2023 was “tomato season.” Tomato Girl Summer was on the rise, runways delivered the wardrobe to match and everyone ate the trend up. Coming off the Barbiecore craze, consumers pivoted towards rich shades of red and natural fabrics. The Italian Mediterranean atmosphere served as inspiration for a relaxed form of dressing best embodied by red and neutral color palettes, gourmand-infused prints and romantic silhouettes.
But months before the world embraced Tomato Girl Summer, fashion brand JW Anderson anticipated the quirky trend with its Fall Winter 2023 menswear collection. Models walked down the runway in minimal garments and maximalist tomato-motif body paint adorning the models’ legs and necklines.
The Tomato Clutch 🍅
Coincidentally, JW Anderson’s founder, Jonathan Anderson, is also Loewe’s creative director, who bringing it back to the 2024 tomato moment, recently shared a short video of a tomato clutch. Captioned, “🍅Loewe🍅 meme to reality,” the video clip was a nod to the viral tomato post on X.
Though the timing left fashion enthusiasts wondering if Anderson took inspiration from the online post, the creative director confirmed that the item had already been in the making for the next fashion season.
Tomato Red Season
Hinting at the possibility of yet another Tomato Girl Summer for 2024, several brands have sent tomato-leaning color palettes down the runway during the latest Resort season. Making a case for the bold color, Hermès, Diesel and Jacquemus have incorporated total red looks in their off-season collections.
Jacquemus, for example, delivered a memorable red tomato moment by the hand of pop star Jennie Kim. Ahead of her runway debut at the Jacquemus “La Casa” cruise show, the singer appeared in a crimson towel to tease the big event, which marked the brand’s 15th anniversary. In the sneak peek shared on Instagram, Jennie embodied relaxed Mediterranean essence as she cruised in Casa Malaparte, Capri. Jennie reprised the same red color for an afterparty look.
Elsewhere, red was also a popular color on the red carpets. The latest Cannes Film Festival, which officially kicks off the summer season on the French Riviera, saw stars and festival attendants embracing red for the red carpet and giving a taste of what Tomato Girl Summer 2.0. could look like. Actors Selena Gomez and Hande Erçel, Norwegian Somali model Rawdah Mohamed, and singer Kelly Rowland were some of the biggest names donning chic red tomato dresses.
Tomato Beauty
Where there’s tomato girl fashion, there is tomato girl makeup. Last year, Tomato Girl Summer also prompted a relaxed aesthetic of diffused red cheeks, dewy skin, and a juicy bitten lip named — yes, you guessed it — Tomato Girl Makeup. The beauty routine aimed to give wearers a faux sun-kissed flush fresh from vacation, aesthetically pleasant and effortless in equal parts.
In 2024, beauty enthusiasts are sporting a variation of the trend called boyfriend blush. The makeup technique consists of applying the blush in a long, triangular shape, from the ear, going under the cheekbone, and toward the nose. The boyfriend blush technique adds fullness to the cheeks so it’s a great proven option for those with angular faces. The editorial look bestows a sunkissed glow without lifting the face and instead adding volume to the face.
Another way of interpreting “tomato beauty” is the tomato manicure returning to our recommendations and fyp (for you page) since early spring. Renditions vary according to personal preferences, but the general idea is to paint your nails in a bright shade of red and then add a green shape to imitate the fruit’s sepal and pedicel.
Red Bold Hair
The red hair renaissance taking over beauty in 2024 can also fit within the Tomato Girl Summer agenda. From cherry cola to cowboy copper, redhead transformations have been trending since last winter, with celebrities such as Hande Erçel, Dua Lipa and BamBam hopping on the red hair bandwagon.
As summer unfolds, stars don’t seem to get enough of this bold color makeover. Case in point: K-pop star Ahyeon — member of Baby Monster — recently changed her hair color, opting for a bright Sardinia red shade. Similarly, other K-pop singers such as (G)I-DLE’s Yuqi, ZEROBASE’s Ricky and RIIZE’s Sohee have experimented with red hair in the last couple of months
Ditching kitschy illustrations and neutral color palettes, this year’s Tomato Girl Summer is shaping to be a bold but sophisticated rendition of the trend. Vivid red, actual tomato-shaped items and bold beauty statements… we’re looking ahead to the many forms fashion and beauty will take for Tomato Girl Summer 2.0.
Want more 2024 beauty and fashion trends? Check out the resort beauty trends dominating the front row at Prada’s Spring Summer 2025 show here.
