FRESH IS A FEELING BY KATHRYN MADDEN
WORDS: Kathryn Madden
There’s a box under my bed stuffed with relics from the past. Overexposed photos capturing blurry nights and best friends pressed together; faded ticket stubs and cheap jewellery; birthday cards and scrawled notes; and a stack of CDs that soundtracked the era. So Fresh: The Hits of Spring 2004. So Fresh: The Hits of Summer 2005. These quarterly album mixes were once the defining compilation of cool; a generational touchstone coveted by the kind of teens who danced to top 40 pop and occasionally cried to emo alt-rock. Decades on, the discs are scarred by scratches and fingerprints, which may deem the likes of Anastacia and Hoobastank unplayable – perhaps a negligible loss. But they’ll stay in the box for sentimental reasons, for recalling what it once meant to be fresh.
What does it mean to be fresh? The Cambridge Dictionary defines the adjective as “new and therefore interesting or exciting”, while Urban Dictionary terms it “cool, or how someone carries themselves”. Fragrance houses use ‘fresh’ to evoke lightness and brightness: the scent of leaves misted with dew, a breeze drifting through citrus trees, sun-dried white sheets, the quiet thrill of something just awakened. In food, ‘fresh’ means recently picked or prepped: the crisp snap of vegetables, the first pull of just-baked bread.
Across fashion and pop culture, ‘fresh’ is used interchangeably with ‘new’, often misleadingly. Because while new is about time, fresh is about a feeling. New is chronological – something recently made or launched – fresh is alive to the moment, relevant without urgency, often unexpected and always innovative. The distinction is subtle but significant. New is a luxury maison tapping Hollywood’s latest ingénue for a campaign; fresh is Simon Porte Jacquemus announcing that his grandmother and inspiration, 79-year-old Liline, is his brand’s first ambassador. New is a pop star’s annual album drop, seemingly spat out of a conveyor belt; fresh is Harry Styles taking a three-year hiatus to live “the human experience”. He ran marathons in Tokyo and Berlin, and partied in Berlin and Ibiza, before returning with the giddy, dance floor-leaning “Aperture”. Also fresh: the Prada Collapse sneakers he wears in the video.
New is TYPTI, the just-launched racquet sport backed by high-profile investors hoping to usurp pickleball; fresh is watching Canadian ice hockey, then consuming queer hockey romance in all its formats. New is McDonald’s and Ritz releasing hot-honey product ranges, because what’s a viral TikTok trend if Big Food can’t ride its wave? Fresh is cooking with cabbage, the culinary world’s unlikely It-ingredient. Kimchi mac and cheese, anyone? New is Kylie Jenner unveiling a third soon-to-sell-out scent; fresh is Kylie Jenner making a cameo in Charli xcx’s mockumentary with surprisingly sharp comic timing. New is the Timothée Chalamet x A24 x Nahmias Marty Supreme windbreaker, retailing for $366 and reselling for up to $31,670; fresh is finding your own un-branded version in a thrift store.
The literal connection between fashion and freshness has its roots in 1980s hiphop culture. Back then, ‘fresh’ signalled style and originality, and became embedded in the vernacular. The look of the moment was street-smart, slick and pristinely clean: box-fresh white sneakers, tracksuits, preppy Polo Ralph Lauren logos and bling. For artists rising from humble beginnings and hardship, looking polished was a form of self-expression and elevation. As record executive Damon Dash said in 2015 hip-hop/ fashion documentary Fresh Dressed, “If you go home and you got roaches and 10 people living in an apartment, the only way you can… feel some kind of status is [with] what you have on your body.” Fresh was aspirational.
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Today, though, linking fresh with clean can oversimplify the equation. Fresh can be dark and brooding, like auteur-provocateur Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights. In 2026, it’s less about the aesthetic and artifice of a bleached-white fragrance ad, and more about being authentic and unpolished, like a Lily Allen lyric or an artfully dishevelled Miu Miu girl, cardigan slipping off her shoulders, hair slightly mussed.
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Who would win in a knockout battle between fresh and new? In a culture where every day delivers another drop, another micro-trend and more breaking headlines, we’ve become not just hyper-fixated on newness, but hardwired for it. Our social feeds pulse with the next viral moment; ideas cycle through before they have time to settle, and yesterday’s news is no longer even today’s fish and chip paper – it’s like it never happened, buried by an algorithm that rewards recency and velocity. At the time of writing, Sydney Sweeney has just illegally scaled the Hollywood sign to hang bras for a lingerie promotion… but red stinging jellyfish are invading Melbourne beaches… and did you see Margot Robbie in vintage John Galliano? We’ve become addicted to quick hits of novelty; a fleeting reward that leaves us greedy for the next. But in this closed loop of check, scroll and refresh, we start to fatigue. We’re left not wanting more, but more meaning – things with texture, history, depth and a point of difference. Suddenly, freshness holds currency.
Fresh can also represent a counterpoint to new. How else do you explain the cultural clutch of nostalgia? We’re cosplaying 2016; counting down to the release of the Chloé Zhao-directed Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot; and yearning for all things analogue. A paper diary feels fresh because you’d probably forgotten such things exist. A Chloé Paddington bag does, too. It’s not new, but it’s novel.
Compact discs also deserve a spot on the fresh list. Sales for CDs and Discmans are on the rise, driven by a new generation’s desire to own and hold physical media. Streaming gave us convenience, but there’s nothing quite like the satisfying ‘click’ as a CD pops out of its case, the whirr of anticipation before the music spills out. My old collection might deserve a spin after all.
