Breaking news—cool girls carry a water bottle. Not the giant Stanley Cup, that’s so last season, but a regular glass water bottle. And who set the latest trend? Well, it’s all thanks to pop star Dua Lipa.
The newlywed was recently spotted outside a recording studio drenched in luxury. A Chanel Maxi Flag bag worth $9,300, an 18K yellow gold and diamond watch worth $38,200 and a Bulgari Serpenti Seduttori. However, it was a $4.99 glass bottle that grabbed everyone’s attention.
Now, this wasn’t a one-off appearance. Her street-style era, post-marriage, has found a perfect companion in a simple water bottle.
The bottle is basically a prop that announces “I take my health seriously” without saying a word. It is a more serious flex than a green juice or a selfie from the Pilates studio.
We live in a wellness epidemic. After spending a decade convincing ourselves that drinking water was a personality trait, somewhere along the way, the water stopped mattering entirely. Only the bottle survived. Now, Lipa, being the icon she is, has got everyone pouring the water right back into the bottle.
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S’well, CamelBak, Stanley Cups…
This bottle trend didn’t just pop out of nowhere.
If you step back, though, and look at the bigger picture, it has been building through several bottle-of-the-moment brands. It was S’well who was one of the pioneers of this trend as the stylish alternative to plastic, toted by stars like Julia Roberts, Kaley Cuoco, and Rosario Dawson.
Then came the Hydro Flask and CamelBak era. Matt Damon has talked up his CamelBak Groove for its built-in filter. And, recently, the gigantic Stanley Cup took over the social media aesthetics. Even the Kardashian-Jenners have had their own bottle moment. From Kendall Jenner with a Takeya Actives bottle to Kim Kardashian using a borosilicate glass bottle after backlash over single-use plastic.
Carrying a water bottle is something the stars want to get photographed. Olivia Wilde told Vogue she makes a point of carrying a water bottle everywhere.
Even during courtroom appearances, celebs like Gwyneth Paltrow didn’t forget her giant glass water bottle.
The water bottle functions as a fitness accessory, an emotional support object, and a sort of social currency. However, stars like Lipa and Dakota Johnson are pushing for a glass bottle.
Maybe the answer lies in how the fancy branded bottles and tumblers made the messaging or the act of drinking water performative. The chatter is largely about which actor is carrying which brand or how aesthetic the bottle looks.
Carrying water bottles soon became a marketing gimmick, and brands made the most out of it. The proof lies in the many fashion and entertainment stories along with titles such as “Celebrities love their oversized bottle” or “Best five water bottles”; it captures how deliberately this became a talking point.
Ask your girl friends who bought the Stanley cups and even their cheap knock-offs, how much water they actually drank? It was just a tick-off in the long list of things we have to show off on social media.
After going crazy over a series of tumblers with straws and stickers telling us when to sip, the biggest wellness flex is a glass bottle.
Maybe that’s the secret cool girls are in on now: the most performative thing you can do with the hydration trend is stop performing it. Drink the water, skip the merch and make the bottle boring again.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)