Food as a vibe – how culinary aesthetics are inspiring fashion and beauty

Beauty brands have long incorporated food ingredients, but now they’re embracing foods as a full aesthetic. It’s no longer just a ‘cherry red lipstick’, but now there’s glazed donut-flavored lip balm and on TikTok, influencers are showing their followers how to create a strawberry girl makeup look with sun-kissed blush that mimics the freshness of just-picked berries. Beauty brands are launching products that mimic the look, feel and scent of favorite treats. The Sweet Tooth perfume by popstar Sabrina Carpenter looks like a bar of chocolate and smells like cherries and chocolate.

Food evokes comfort, nostalgia, indulgence and joy. Emotions that align perfectly with the aspirations of beauty and fashion brands. So opting for food-inspired branding through an espresso lipstick or birthday cake nail polish is a surefire way to impart feeling and emotion to a beauty product.

Food is a huge source of inspiration for the fashion industry, too. Style platform Byrdie wrote ‘food-inspired fashion is the tastiest new trend on our summer style menus’, referring to dresses with Italian pasta-themed prints and charcuterie board earrings. But food-inspired colors such as matcha green, blueberry milk or cinnamon spice are also big in fashion. On Refinery29, ‘gastro chic’ is coined as a key fashion trend for 2025. “Think: matching outfits with pastries, color-coordinated café shots, or luxurious dining spreads that double as the perfect backdrop for your looks,” explains TikTok trend expert Sara Ouardi.

It is easy to portray this trend as whimsical and light-hearted, but experts see it as a reflection of Gen Z and millennials craving for social gatherings that revolve around food. But groceries are also becoming a new status symbol, now that these younger generations such a large part of their income  on groceries. "The reason we’re seeing so much food in fashion, in my opinion, is that the younger generation, specifically Gen Z, have been romanticizing everyday life post-pandemic in their depiction of food," stylist Afi Maita says in Byrdie.

The lives of young generations – Gen Z and Gen Alpha – take place primarily online, particularly on social media. For Gen Z, TikTok even functions as their search engine, where they find where to eat and what to buy. Social media aesthetics are very important to this generation. A fact that brands cannot ignore. If their products and content are not visually engaging, it won’t capture attention. 

But aesthetics is more than things being beautiful. In fact, Gen Z social media users are more inclined to share ads that they find ‘funny’ (59%) or ‘creative and cool’ (57%). Grabbing their attention and making them love your brand is about having the right vibe. Vibes are the new marketing metric for Gen Z, which is defined as the atmosphere, mood or aesthetic qualities of an experience, space, product or person. A vibe is rooted in sensory appeal and aesthetic coherence, often expressed through curated visuals, music or ambiance. 

In a digital-first world, consumers are bombarded with endless streams of content bits and stimuli on Instagram and TikTok. “There’s no time for deep explanation, logical thinking or high-concept storytelling”, writes creative strategist Joe Burns. “What hits, and what sticks is the feeling, the tone, the mood. Vibe is a way to invoke something very big, even in the smallest of spaces.”

The popularity of food in beauty and fashion can be explained by this focus on vibes. Food is a perfect vehicle to create a vibe, because it’s tangible, sensorial and deeply tied to memory and emotion. It can elicit the right emotional response in a digital piece of content in nano seconds. The scent of freshly baked bread and the creamy texture of a perfect latte are instantly recognizable and universally comforting experiences. In a world where aesthetics drive engagement, food provides a rich, multi-sensory language that transcends visuals alone. 

As brands strive to create stronger emotional bonds with consumers, the fusion of food, fashion, and beauty will only deepen. Expect to see more flavor-inspired makeup collections, pastry-themed fashion capsules, and fragrance lines that mimic artisanal desserts. How can you use this as an opportunity? By partnering up with brands from different industries. Think of the Wonderskin x Chipotle "Lipotle" lip stain kit, Auntie Anne's pretzel-flavored perfume or Dove’s Confetti Cake body wash in collaboration with Crumbl. The fashion and beauty brands can tap into the sensorial qualities your brand has to offer, while you benefit from the exposure to a whole new audience. 

Young consumers are also asking food and drink brand for these partnerships, as half (52%) of Gen Z says cultural relevance is important to them when choosing a food and drink brand, and a third (34%) states they want to see more partnerships with music artists, according to the Spring 2025 Pion Predicts report. 

Forget creams, 2025 is all about consumers eating their way to glowing skin and healthy hair. Discover how beauty foods packed with collagen, antioxidants and probiotics are redefining skincare from within.