Move over, It Girl. It’s the era of the Lit Girl: Have books become the new fashion trend?

SINGAPORE – Reading has never been more in fashion. Or so the fashion industry in 2026 will have you believe.

In March, Coach dropped a collection of mini book bag charms. First glimpsed on the runway at the American brand’s Spring 2026 show, these micro-books with embossed leather spines fit in the palm of your hand and bear Coach’s signature dog-leash clips.

And they go beyond mere bag charms, opening up to reveal actual legible pages from the classics.

The brand worked with multinational publishing conglomerate Penguin Random House and Hollywood actress Reese Witherspoon’s Gen Z-focused book club Sunnie Reads to curate the 12 titles.

Whether you choose Jane Austen’s Sense And Sensibility or Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, the message is clear: It has never been easier to publicly signal your taste in literature.

It seems to be the era of the Lit Girl now. The new “it” girl has gone beyond good taste in clothes. She reads, has original thoughts and opinions, and prefers book clubs to nightclubs. She can recommend in equal measure a branded bag and what books should go inside that bag – or outside.

If cultural commentators on TikTok and Substack have theorised correctly, in a society fatigued by material goods and overconsumption, intellect is the new status symbol.

Fuelling a resurgence in book clubs globally is a rise in celebrity book clubs from stars outside the usual profiles.

Joining long-time book club founders Oprah Winfrey and Witherspoon are the “it” girls of this decade: British Grammy-winning pop star Dua Lipa with Service95 Book Club, Icelandic-Chinese singer Laufey with The Laufey Book Club and American model Kaia Gerber with Library Science.

In the luxury world, brands including Chanel, Miu Miu, Prada, Dior and Valentino are hosting book clubs and salons to cultivate community and build cultural cachet.

And for its April 2026 issue, fashion publication Vogue staged a photo shoot bringing together models, actors, writers and dancers – all pictured reading – for an editorial the magazine called “fashion’s new book club”.

What is driving the increasing convergence of fashion and literature?

The aesthetic of reading

The writing has been on the wall – or the runways.

It began perhaps most explicitly with Dior’s creative director Jonathan Anderson. For his Spring-Summer 2026 debut at the French luxury house, he turned its iconic book totes into literal ones.

Titled Book Covers, the reimagined Dior Book Tote trades its usual oblique print for the covers of literary texts – a book tote to actually carry your books in.

Designed in collaboration with French publisher Les Saints Peres, these tributes bear embroidered renditions of classics from Bram Stoker’s Dracula to Ulysses by James Joyce.

The Lit Girl found her next accessory in Coach. Its readable book charms took the internet by storm, launching in February 2026 with a book-themed campaign.

While Dior’s visuals were set against the iconic open-air bookshops that line the Seine River in Paris, Coach’s “Explore Your Story” campaign placed its star-studded cast in a library, tomes in hand. Just like American actress Elle Fanning, you, too, could channel girlish and preppy with your Tabby bag and book charm in your school library, it seemed to say.

Netizens were divided. Some argued that any trend that gets people reading again is ultimately positive. Others called it a ridiculous attempt at class signalling and positioning reading as a status marker.

Performative intellectualism, or the adoption of intellectual behaviours, had found its scapegoat.

This may all feel new, but it is not, says seasoned Bookstagrammer Olivia Ho, 34. The PhD candidate in English literature at University College London has run Bookstagram account @ohomatopoeia, which posts book reviews that match her outfits to book covers, since 2017.

On the one hand, there are many recent crossovers between the book and fashion or celebrity worlds, she says, raising as examples fashion glossies highlighting what runway models are reading behind the scenes, and how libraries and bookstores (namely the Bodleian and Waterstones) like to match Met Gala outfits to book covers on Instagram.

But fashion moves in circles, she posits. Books as bag aesthetic have existed since French fashion brand Olympia Le-Tan’s book clutches were released in 2009, while Winfrey’s and Witherspoon’s book clubs have had “enormous impact on the publishing industry”.

“Maybe the technology changes – social media like BookTok amplifies reach – but the book and fashion worlds have long been in conversation. The former has the intellectual cachet, the latter has the broader cultural reach, and they both have something they want from the other,” Ms Ho says.

“There has been a lot of backlash against this (trend): the usual literary gatekeepers evincing shock and disbelief that people who make their living based on their looks – most of the time, a young woman – might also have a deep abiding interest in reading literature.”

Ms Ho started her own account to be a bridge between the aesthetic and the actuality of reading, after wondering why books did not receive the same attention as content about clothes and make-up.

She adds: “I actually consider the OG Lit Girl to be (Hollywood screen siren) Marilyn Monroe, who was famously photographed reading Ulysses by James Joyce. A lot of people accused her of what we would now call ‘performative reading’, but why is it so hard to believe that she just loved literature? She had a personal library of more than 400 books.

“She was no doubt aware of how she was seen as one of the most beautiful women in the world. So, if she was reading performatively, she was using the power of her image to make a point.”

A return to analogue media

In tandem, there has been a noticeable rise, or return, of physical media – paper books and magazines, print newspapers and leather-bound journals in which to put pen to paper.

The year 2026 began with a siren call heard around the globe to adopt an “analogue lifestyle”, and choose hobbies and tangible products to reduce screen time and doomscrolling.

Coach’s campaign was inspired by a renewed cultural embrace of long-form storytelling.

“Gen Z lives in a short-form, fast-paced digital world, and yet they are increasingly turning back towards books as a way to explore identity, self-expression and possibility,” the company said in a press statement.

Brands have been quick to catch on. The newspaper has become a promotional prop – be it La Gazette in Chanel’s viral Metiers d’Art 2025 show that took place in a New York City subway station, or the numerous one-off dailies that e-commerce brands have been photographing their wares against.

In March, French leather brand Polene debuted Longue Vue, its first annual publication, and launched the coffee-table book with a series of pop-ups across Paris, London, New York and Tokyo.

Named “Leather Stationery”, the pop-up store in Paris showcased the handbag label’s leather expertise in a different light. It included a workshop-style space where visitors could watch an artisan assemble a notebook cover and hand-weave its edges out of leather offcuts from Polene’s bag production.

You could purchase these leather notebooks – from US$120 (S$154) for an A6 Neiti Notebook Cover – and have them embossed, alongside crafty bag charms in the shape of painter’s glue and mini notebooks.

It was good timing, for it wisely capitalised on the renewed, supercharged craze for journaling and personalisation.

In January 2026, The New York Times profiled the buzz around Louise Carmen, a Parisian boutique gone viral for its €129 (S$190) leather notebooks, and how young women were flocking to it as a new status symbol.

Ms Ho says: “What I have observed is a greater appreciation of materiality, or the book as a physical object. The Coach bag charms are an example, as is the pursuit of beautiful editions from (book subscription companies) Illumicrate or FairyLoot, or even the rising interest in bookbinding.

“I do think a large part of that is in response to the proliferation of AI and how you can no longer be sure if what you see online is real. Materiality has become a refuge from that uncertainty. We want to be able to hold something in our hands and tell ourselves it’s real.”

Books as anti-AI, to forge community

For two weeks in March, Singaporean womenswear label Rye turned its New Bahru boutique into a bookshop.

Working with print gallery STPI and publishers Ethos Books, Epigram and Afterimage, The Rye Bookshop kicked off with a panel comprising three local female authors – Carissa Foo, Nisha Mehraj and Sunita Sue Leng – and a community book swop. Guests and the public were invited to fill an antique rotating cabinet in-store with their favourite titles by female authors.

Rye founder and designer Bessie Ye, 35, had been inspired by Singaporean librarian Hedwig Anuar, a former director of the National Library, who believed that a nation can be shaped by the books it reads.

That idea, and the desire to create space for narratives of femininity to be heard, stuck with her, says Ye.

“I believe most brands reach a point in their growth where they begin to see their brand beyond the product. Fashion rarely exists in isolation. It reflects a way of living, thinking and seeing. The bookshop became a way of imagining the Rye home – what sits on its shelves, what stories are held within.”

Both fashion and literature are enduring forms that carry memory, identity and expression across time, adds Ye. “Where fashion works through material and silhouette, literature works through language. Both shape how we understand ourselves, and how we present that understanding to the world.”

She rejects the suggestion that reading is becoming “fashionable”.

“It’s more about it becoming popular out of necessity. Over the last decade, our lives have become increasingly surrounded by screens. With the growth of AI and algorithms, much of what we encounter has shifted towards being pre-curated or impersonal, creating a kind of echo chamber when we only consume content online. Many of us have begun to feel the absence of something slower, more deliberate and more human.

“Books help offer exactly that. They are intentional, authored and rooted in the effort and people it takes to create them. Reading being ‘in fashion’ again feels like part of a broader desire to reclaim agency – to choose what we read, rather than have it chosen for us.”

Asked what makes a literary endeavour genuine, given the current trend of performance, Ye chalks it down to intention.

“For us, the most meaningful events and collaborations are the ones where people can actually engage. What meant the most was seeing attendees truly connect – with the authors, one another and the texts themselves. The bookshop as a static space was only one part of it.

“The real depth came through conversation, exchange and shared experience. Sincerity lies in creating space for connection.”

Echoing the sentiment, Ms Ho recalls being “pleasantly surprised” at the community that has expressed real interest to “not only read books, but also read them together”.

“I’ve been to lovely ticketed events by the National Library Board or hosted by Book Bar that are just packed to the gills. There doesn’t even have to be an author present. People just want to hear about books and share their own thoughts. That goes beyond performative reading; there’s a very real connection being forged there.”

And if a trend will get people reading, then that is worthwhile enough of a start.

Adds Ms Ho: “As an educator, I have grave concerns that young people are no longer reading literary texts in their entirety and would prefer to feed them into AI to be summarised. So, I welcome any effort to encourage reading, even if it’s just the aesthetic to begin with. We need to make reading books cool again; asking ChatGPT to read for you should feel like the most embarrassing thing ever.

“Fashion trends come and go, but reading has to be a habit people return to constantly because they want to. Come for the aesthetic, by all means, but I hope you stay to turn the page.”