It happened, like most things, slowly and all at once. It only became clear that the trickle-down effect had fully actualised when I passed a new matcha green Blank Street Coffee façade not once, not twice, but three times in a week. And each time, a massive queue of slicked-back ponytails and white baby-Ts was wrapped around the block.

She’s here, I thought. The West Village Girl. Only, it’s not really the West Village Girl. It’s the monoculture girl. The archetype that’s been brewing in North America for just over a decade has finally implanted itself in the most unlikely place – Glasgow. I never thought it would happen, and I don’t know how I feel about it.

The West Village Girl, dissected by journalist Brock Colyar in the latest cover story for New York Magazine, is a new generation that has taken over Manhattan’s West Village, the old stomping ground of Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw. There are attributes that set her apart from her Glasgow sister, but they are minor (there’s no Aritzia in Glasgow from which to buy a Super Puff). The rest of her defining characteristics are shared, so let’s hereby refer to her as the West End Girl: Blank Street, dachshunds, Pilates, sweatshirts from Adanola, Sambas, slick ponytails, Aperol spritzes, Sabrina Carpenter, contrast therapy, TikTok, queueing for croissants. You get the gist.

Thanks to social media, it may seem like I’m describing the well-heeled Gen Z girl. The “I’m not an influencer, I’m a content creator” girl. The gym-instead-of-pub, no-makeup-makeup girl. But the stereotype that has flooded Byres Road and beyond has roots. Millennial roots, actually. Does it really belong in Glasgow, though? Will it last?

Is this Glasgow culture now? (Image: Gordon Terris, Newsquest)

You see, a decade ago, when I........

© Herald Scotland