Grunge Girl

Dramatic Natural Gamine

Is Dramatic Natural Gamine the coolest style type?

Essence blends containing both Natural and Gamine tend to read as conventionally cool, because these two essences form the basis of modern mainstream fashion—think jeans, tees, and sneakers.

The casualness of Natural and Gamine makes it easy to embody an effortless, not-trying-too-hard aesthetic.

And adding Dramatic can amplify the cool Natural Gamine vibe, because Dramatic fashion epitomizes edginess.

With Dramatic Natural Gamine, you get an edgy-casual-trendy aesthetic that simultaneously fits in perfectly in modern day and gives your look a standout, rebel feel.

Dramatic Natural Gamine celebrities

Dramatic Natural Gamine celebrities are on Pinterest here and listed below:

  • Alana Haim

  • Alexa Chung

  • Anna Chlumsky

  • Ashley Tisdale

  • Ashton Kutcher

  • Awkwafina

  • Brie Larson

  • Cynthia Erivo

  • Demi Lovato

  • Eva Marcille

  • Geena Davis

  • George Clooney

  • Halsey

  • Hilary Swank

  • Kelly Marie Tran

  • Khloe Kardashian

  • Kylie Jenner

  • Lacey Chabert

  • Lea Michele

  • Liza Weil

  • Meghan Markle

  • Millie Bobby Brown

  • Ming-Na Wen

  • Missy Peregrym

  • Mollie-Mae Hague

  • Nicki Minaj

  • Orlando Bloom (with Classic as 4th essence)

  • Zawe Ashton

  • Zayn Malik

Dramatic Natural Gamine fashion

Dramatic Natural Gamine fashion inspiration is on Pinterest here, largely featuring Kylie Jenner’s street style.

Previously I’ve talked a bit about why I think Kylie’s a gorgeous DNG. The biggest piece of evidence is definitely how amazing she looks in the quintessential edgy-casual DNG aesthetic.

DNG: How to get the look

The simplest way to achieve Dramatic Natural Gamine style is to rely heavily on Natural Gamine pieces, which are ubiquitous in modern fashion. Choose relaxed-fit or skinny jeans (see the many jean styles that flatter Naturals and Gamines here), loose sweaters, graphic Tees, sneakers, and ankle boots.

Then you can layer over Dramatic pieces, like angular edgy blazers or jackets.

You can also incorporate Dramatic in your hair (think long, sleek and straight or slicked back) or makeup (think dark matte lips and elongated, angular liquid liner).

But if you have a lot of Dramatic and Gamine essence, you might instead want to make your fashion highly Dramatic Gamine:

Above, an edgy, very Dramatic Gamine outfit, with lots of faux leather, cropped silhouettes, and chunky combat boots. The slightly loose knit leg-warmers bring in some Natural.

Dramatic and Gamine have the boldest, most figuratively and literally “edgiest” fashion of all the essences. So wearing a lot of Dramatic and Gamine together tends to create a rebellious and conventionally cool vibe.

And to many people, part of the essence of “cool” is also to seem like you’re not trying too hard. Natural communicates this effortless vibe better than any other essence, with its emphasis on oversized and loose silhouettes, distressed textures, and a generally undone feel.

What if you have primarily the Dramatic and Natural essences? You can focus on elongated silhouettes and mix avant-garde, extremely edgy pieces with extremely distressed, casual ones:

A distressed denim jacket or shirt is iconically Natural, while faux-leather tall platform boots add intimidating Dramatic. Long sleek braids add to the Dramatic feel. The model also appears to be wearing a cropped dress that adds Gamine with the shortened silhouette.

Because DNGs have such an edgy vibe, wearing all black, or all black paired with distressed blue denim, can be a ftting color palette.

But Gamines are also flattered by bold, electric color and color-mixing. So if you’re highly Gamine, some of your best looks may be the opposite of monochromatic.

This creative ensemble is extremely Gamine, with vibrant color-mixing, a cool graphic design on the top, and a fun hat that lets you obscure most of your face, in case you don’t have much Gamine essence but are determined to look harmonious in this outfit.

The oversized, very wide silhouette also adds Natural, and the avant-grade feel adds Dramatic.

For more Dramatic Natural Gamine fashion inspiration, you’ll likely want to explore Grunge style, which tends to be heavily Natural with its emphasis on distressed denim, oversized silhouettes, and an overall undone aesthetic. Grunge also has commonly has some edgy and bold elements that work for Dramatic and Gamine.

As a DNG, you can also get a ton of inspiration from street style in general, although of course street fashion can have elements of all seven essences. Searching for “casual street style,” “edgy street style” or “casual edgy street style” will likely bring you inspo more specific to your Dramatic Natural Gamine look.

Dramatic Natural Gamine faces

Famous Dramatic Natural Gamines include (l to r) Awkwafina, Missy Peregrym, and Alexa Chung:

Like DNG fashion, Dramatic Natural Gamines often have a captivating, approachable-yet-edgy quality.

Their faces often literally have sharp angles in their bone structure, noses, and other features, and can sometimes have an intimidating feel.

Dramatic and Natural together tend to read as extremely strong and powerful, and you tend to get that impression from DNGs, too. The reason that DNGs are able to pull off such cool, edgy fashion is that their faces embody this same simultaneously edgy-and-carefree vibe.

The confusing part: as will be discussed more below, while Dramatic, Natural, and Gamine are characterized by straight (or straight-ish) lines, a person can still be a DNG even if they have notably curving shapes in their face. In fact, many Dramatic Natural Gamines have full or semi-full lips, because the Natural essence is often characterized by large shapes, including the contours of the lips.

For this and other reasons, it can be extremely difficult to tell whether someone is DNG just by applying the principle that “they’ll have straight shapes in their face.”

The only way to be sure whether a person is a DNG is to determine whether their best fashion is a combination of bold and carefree grunge.

Why Dramatic Natural Gamines are hard to type

DNGs are hard to type for many reasons. Here’s some of the main ones.

1.The intensity of Dramatic combined with the shortness and spunkiness, and sometimes flirtiness, of Gamine can resemble other essences, especially Romantic.

Dramatic and Romantic actually have more in common than is often acknowledged. Of all the essences, they tend to feel most intense—and Gamine can feel quite intense, too, though typically in a much more playful, way, whereas Dramatic and Romantic tend to have a more serious, deeper intensity.

So Dramatic Natural Gamines may often be mistaken for having Romantic.

2. DNGs can also be hard to type because Dramatic and Gamine, out of all the essences, tend to have the easiest time pulling off styles outside their guidlines.

This is beacuse both of these essences have a rule-breaking quality—Dramatic looks so intimidating, the essence (arguably) embodies the type of challenging, imposing quality that can allow people with intense, initimidating personalities to sometimes bend the system to their own will and get their own way, even if it means breaking rules. And Gamines look playfully rebellious, making it look (arguably) somewhat authentic even when they’re wearing styles that don’t suit their faces.

3. A final reason DNGs are hard to type is that many people, myself included, often use simplified language when we talk about the faces of the different style types.

I often say things like “Dramatics have sharp, angular features”—and while it is true that we typically see some sharp, straight lines in Dramatic faces, observation suggests that a person’s facial features don’t have to be literally composed of straight lines to read as Dramatic. For example, Awkwafina, Missy Peregrym and Alexa Chung all might have some Dramatic essence in their eyes. Their eyes aren’t literally composed of straight lines, but there’s an intensity and narrowness to them that fits the Dramatic vibe better than any of the other style essences (arguably; I haven’t formally analyzed any of their eyes to determine that they definitely have Dramatic, but it is a definite possibility).

This is true of all the other essences, too—the shapes in your clothing that flatter you won’t necessarily be identical to the shapes in your face. Finding clothes with shapes that are harmonious with the ones in your face doesn’t mean finding clothes with shapes that are identical to the ones in your face.

Similarly, in music, different notes can harmonize together, in that they sound good played together, despite not being the exact same note.

So the fashion, hair, and makeup that flatters your facial features is harmonious with your features, in that its beauty is complementary to and reminiscent of yours. But the shapes that flatter you in fashion, hair, and makeup aren’t always literally identical to those found in your face.

Yang beauty?

Dramatic, Natural, and Gamine are sometimes referred to as the “yang” essences. This can be a useful shorthand, but I also think it’s important ot note that this characterization can be reductive.

Most importantly, it’s clear to me that style essences largely don’t determine whether a face looks “masculine” or “feminine” in a literal, testosteronized or estrogenized sense. For example, actor Cillian Murphy appears to have much rounder, heavier-lidded eyes and fuller lips than the average Caucasian female, and these features are commonly associated with appearing feminine. His nose is also rather soft, and he has notable volume in his cheeks—Cillian has a ton of Ethereal essence.

So if we’re going by stereotypes about Yin essences, like that Ethereal makes a face look feminine, then this should mean that Cillian looks more feminine than most women. But he doesn’t—he is instantly recognizable as male and masculine.

Based on studying Cillian and many other male celebrities with highly “yin” faces, and on studying many females with highly “yang” faces, the obvious conclusion is that style essences aren’t the main determinants of whether a face looks masculine or feminine.

Many males have a lot of yin essence but are instantly recognizable as very masculine, and many females have a lot of yang essence but are instantly recognizable as very feminine.

In my view, it’s likely that subtle differences in facial feature shapes, sizes, and placements, as well as a person’s grooming and styling (e.g., hairstyle, eyebrows, and facial hair or lack thereof, plus makeup or lack thereof) are the primary things that contribute to a face being perceived as masculine or feminine.

That’s all to say: being a Dramatic Natural Gamine does not make you inherently unfeminine, or less beautiful than someone with “yin” essence.

You also don’t have to use the terms “yin” or “yang” at all if you don’t want to—again, they can be misleading, because style essences aren’t the main thing that makes a face appear masculine or feminine.

Extreme cool

With their unique essence blend, Dramatic Natural Gamines can embody the strength and intensity of Natural and Dramatic, and the playful flirtiness of Gamine.

And while the type of fashion that reads as the “coolest” is ultimately a matter opinion, Dramatic, Naturals, and Gamines get to rock grungy fashion that exemplifies our modern conception of cool.