A Love Letter to Whimsy: Inside the AuroraBelle Universe

by Aaliyah Smith

@themiseducationofliyah

photo/@aurorabelleuniverse on instagram

After an hour of scrolling on Reels, I tell myself, this is it, the last one.

I scroll again and suddenly stop on a young woman showing off designs for her clothing brand. And these aren’t just any designs — handmade pieces filled with color and life. A beautiful Frankenstein of sugar and spice and everything nice. Tiny charms dangling from chokers. Decorative bras layered with textures. Hair clips that looked like they belonged in the bedroom of a cartoon girl protagonist who journals in glitter gel pen.

Welcome to the AuroraBelle Universe.

Founded by Arabella, a 20-year-old artist and designer, the AuroraBelle Universe exists somewhere between fashion brand, art project, and emotional scrapbook. Her inspirations pull from everywhere: music, childhood cartoons, jazz, girlhood, fantasy, maximalist runway archives, handmade craft culture, and the emotional chaos of being young and deeply imaginative.

At first glance, the brand feels nostalgic. But spend more than thirty seconds with it and something else becomes clear: AuroraBelle Universe doesn’t simply recreate childhood aesthetics. It protects them. In a fashion landscape increasingly flattened by minimalism, sameness, and algorithmic trend cycles, Arabella’s work feels startlingly sincere.

That sincerity caught me immediately.

“I just want people to feel magical,” Arabella tells me later over our interview. “Like a princess and all that stuff.”

And hearing her say that didn't feel childish. It felt honest.

That honesty runs through every part of AuroraBelle Universe. Even before fashion entered the picture, Arabella’s life revolved around creativity. She played electric bass for nearly ten years, toured through School of Rock programs, and attended an arts boarding school in Michigan where she studied jazz. When she speaks about music, she describes it visually, almost synesthetically.

Talking about artists like Björk and Tame Impala, she says their work feels colorful to her. Not metaphorically. Literally.

“Their music has color,” she says.

That sentence explains AuroraBelle Universe better than any aesthetic buzzword could.

Her designs carry that same sensory layering. The pieces feel less “styled” and more emotionally assembled, like objects gathered carefully over years inside a childhood treasure box. Even her inspirations mirror that sense of theatricality. She references the fantasy-heavy runway worlds of Christian Lacroix and the eccentric femininity of early ’90s Vivienne Westwood collections.

But unlike many young designers pulling from archival fashion right now, Arabella doesn’t approach these references with irony. She approaches them with affection.

I believe that is what makes AuroraBelle Universe so refreshing. 

For years, fashion has been obsessed with emotional distance. Coolness became synonymous with detachment. Even femininity often returned filtered through cynicism — hyper-polished, hyper-minimal, or carefully self-aware so no one could accuse it of trying too hard.

AuroraBelle Universe rejects all of that. Instead, it leans fully into whimsy.

Growing up, Arabella says she always gravitated toward self-expression. There were emo phases (I mean haven’t we all?) , colorful skirts, deadstock fashion finds, cartoons, American Girl dolls, and stacks of visual references that slowly shaped her world. She specifically mentions Judy Moody as a major point of connection — not because of the aesthetics alone, but because of the character’s personality.

“She’s goofy,” Arabella laughs. “And I’ve always been kind of aloof and silly like that.” That childlike openness still lives inside the brand.

At one point, I ask her what the AuroraBelle Universe would look like if it existed as a real physical place.

Without hesitation, she references Mabel’s fantasy world from Gravity Falls, describing wanting the AuroraBelle Universe to feel like an escape hatch from reality.

Honestly, Arabella already makes us feel like that with her brand. 

Everything about the brand feels slightly dreamlike. Like stepping inside a bedroom where every object has sentimental value. The atmosphere feels handmade in the truest sense — not simply physically handmade, but emotionally handmade too.

That emotionality is so important because we are currently living in a moment where young people seem exhausted by irony. Exhausted by performing nonchalance and needed everything to seem effortless. Like guys, where is the fun?

But Arabella knows the answer.

When discussing fashion today, she admits she feels mainstream fashion has become increasingly conservative and repetitive. But underneath that, she still sees smaller artists creating colorful, eccentric work beneath the surface.

“There’s still all this colorfulness,” she says. You can hear the hope in her voice when she says it.

That hope extends beyond aesthetics too. When I ask what she wants to see more of within her generation of designers, she immediately begins talking about community. Real community. Not networking for status or proximity, but genuine artistic connection.

“I want people to collaborate because they genuinely like each other’s art,” she says.

That answer lingers with me because it reflects AuroraBelle Universe itself. The brand doesn’t feel exclusionary. It feels inviting. Once you're in, you truly don't want to leave. 

I believe that emotional openness is why her designs resonated so deeply with me and her audience. They remind people — especially girls — that imagination does not have to disappear once you grow older. That femininity does not become less meaningful because it’s soft. That whimsy can still exist without explanation or apology.

When I ask how she wants people to feel wearing her work, her answer arrives quickly.

“Happy,” she says. “And not afraid to show off color.”

Then she pauses for a second.

“I want them to feel magical.”

Throughout our conversation, that word keeps returning: magical.

Not cool or trendy or marketable – but magical.

By the end of our interview, Arabella tells me about upcoming photoshoots inspired by Judy Moody, future pop-up shop dreams, fashion shows she hopes to create, and her desire to continue experimenting with textures like clay, metal, lace, and fabric. She speaks less like someone building a brand and more like someone building a world.

And that’s genuinely what AuroraBelle Universe feel like. A world straight from the pages of a Rainbow Magic book. 

One where fashion still feels rooted in emotion and connection. One where girlhood is something we embrace rather than feel embarrassed of and where handmade items are valued over fast fashion.

After speaking with Arabella, I found myself thinking back to that late-night scroll where I first discovered her work. The thing about AuroraBelle Universe is that it doesn’t stop feeling sincere the longer you look at it. If anything, it becomes even more earnest. Now, I have to get one of those MLP-inspired chokers. 

In a culture constantly asking young people to become more polished, more ironic, more digestible, AuroraBelle Universe shows up and whimsys out.

In Arabella’s world, femininity doesn’t need to explain itself. It just thrives.