From the most fashionable ceremonies like the Met Gala to magazine covers, including photos published on Instagram or fashionable clips: cigarettes never stop reappearing in triumph in the mouths of stars. Last June, singers Madonna and Charli
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During her “Cowboy Carter” tour, in June 2025, Beyoncé was also seen with a cigarette in her hand on stage at the Stade de France. Images that say a lot about the return to favor of cigarettes. Long shunned by celebrities, who refused to associate themselves with a deadly symbol, it is back today as a fashion accessory, essential to appear cool.
Sabrina Carpenter, Kylie Jenner, Dua Lipa, Hailey Bieber… More and more stars have recently appeared smoking, in stylized photos legitimizing cigarettes as an aesthetic object. To hell with public health prevention and vigilance towards their – sometimes very young – audience, personalities are now demanding to smoke in full view of everyone.
Kylie Jenner for Vanity Fair – Spring 2026 pic.twitter.com/HlkBAlxdHE
— Magazine Covers ☀ (@_MagazineCovers) March 11, 2026
Romanticizing cigarettes
“When I created this account in 2021, I had to search through archives for photos. Today, every week, stars are caught smoking”confides Jared Oviatt, the founder of the Instagram account Cigfluencers, which lists celebrities who smoke, interviewed in June 2025 by the New York Times. According to him, the question is above all artistic.
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“The cigarette has a very graphic side. The little bluish cloud around the face, the puff of smoke… It’s very cinematic, it makes a beautiful photo”confirms Philippe Denis, researcher in the history and psychosociology of fashion at the University of Quebec in Montreal (Canada). Referring to Hollywood stars like Audrey Hepburn or Marlene Dietrich, cigarettes continue to evoke glamour, sensuality and chic.
Artists Lana Del Rey and Sabrina Carpenter fit perfectly into this pin-up heritage, using tobacco as a vintage fashion accessory. “The image it sends is an incentive to smoke for aesthetic purposes, like at the time of the promotion of long, very thin cigarettes”adds the Quebec researcher, who evokes the mimicry of fans towards their idols.
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Social networks prove it. On Pinterest, searches for the term “smoking pose” increased by 70% among 18-24 year olds during the year 2025. On selfies and other online publications, cigarettes are the trendy detail. “It’s a fashion accessory like the new AirPods or the figurines that we stick to the phoneindicates Cécile Poignant, independent consultant and forecasting expert in trends. It’s an object, a gesture that young people appropriate to pose.”
“After years of control, cigarettes express everything that the current generation has been forbidden in life.”
Especially since the fashion world is also getting into it. On the catwalks, cigarettes are becoming a component of clothing, as illustrated by the latest collection by Ukrainian-London designer Natasha Zinko, who uses cigarette butts in her spring 2026 creations. In the pages of magazines, models are photographed in full consumption, in poetic and refined imagery, like the model Hailey Bieber for Interview Magazine in April 2026 (see below) or the actor Connor Storrie for Cultured at the end of 2025. Impossible to escape: the cigarette is establishing itself as the fashion object of the moment.
Hailey Bieber for the first edition of Interview Magazine, photographed by Theo Liu. pic.twitter.com/pCOhWI0jjj
— Hailey Bieber Brasil (@hbbrmidias) April 14, 2026
A vector of rebellion
However, if its aesthetic power is indeed inciting, the aura of the cigarette is based on a much more politicized imagination than one might believe. After years of adopting the aesthetic of clean girl (literally the “clean girl”), between getting up at 5 a.m., detox juice, yoga routine and constant encouragement to perform, the mood is now one of relaxation.
Driven by the “Brat” movement – understand, “dirty kid” in English – and the singer Charli XCX as its figurehead, the cigarette fits perfectly into this much more chaotic, casual and rebellious philosophy of life. “After years of control, cigarettes express everything that the current generation has been forbidden in lifeanalyzes Cécile Poignant, specializing in contemporary lifestyles and the evolution of sociocultural trends. There is a fatigue of permanent self-optimization, of personal development. The cigarette arrives in this context: it is an accepted object of disorder which has a forbidden value.
Charli xcx smoking in front of a “NO SMOKING” sign at Le Dive the other night.🚬🖤
📷: Matt Weinberger pic.twitter.com/P2upImBeLZ— xcx source (@xcxsource) October 18, 2025
If smoking has always embodied a sign of freedom and transgression, the current period is all the more conducive to it. Among the more or less young, cigarettes appear as a visual manifesto against imposed standards, while some denounce a sanitization of society. “It’s a way of going against the established discourse. Medical discourse and social discourse tell us that we should not smoke for this or that reason. What if I did?”underlines Philippe Denis, who particularly points to the younger generations in search of an identity and self-affirmation. The Canadian researcher also recalls the centenary of the Art Deco movement and the return to fashion in the 1920s, when women fought for their emancipation, notably through cigarettes.
Between past and present
At the same time, the craze for the 1990s and 2000s is bringing back to the forefront the “heroin chic” trend, which established thinness, paleness and… cigarettes. “The new generations love vintage and put on a pedestal this period that they have not known and that they think is more free, cigarettes are therefore part of this ambient nostalgianotes Cécile Poignant. Above all, it is an object anchored in reality, which can be touched, turned on, vacuumed. We need to have concrete things today.” Like the disposable camera or the vinyl, the cigarette represents an analog action: the result is tangible. A response to the need to understand according to the futurist, strongly linked to the current context.
“Many prefer to enjoy the present and create an interesting imagination, rather than anticipating lung cancer in twenty or thirty years.”
While the Covid-19 pandemic generated a lot of anxiety about the future and the health crisis was being experienced day by day, it was impossible for many to project themselves into the future. As for the current geopolitical situation, it also creates a phase of intense uncertainty and instability, making it impossible to imagine better days.
“The future as we understand it today is potentially only negativeobserves Philippe Denis. Many therefore prefer to take advantage of the present and create an interesting imagination, rather than anticipating lung cancer in twenty or thirty years. It’s an issue of temporality.” It is particularly during these precarious periods that the cigarette resurfaces as a referent, symbol of ambient defeatism and a need for hedonism.
A new generation of smokers?
The experts are clear. Being continually exposed to these particularly glamorous images of cigarettes necessarily encourages tobacco consumption, particularly among the most impressionable audiences. “Thanks to social networks, this content reaches young people 24 hours a day and in a very targeted mannerexplains Christine Schäfer, trends researcher at the Gottlieb-Duttweiler Institute (Switzerland), to the Swiss media SRF. Studies show that the more we are confronted with these kinds of representations, the more normal they seem. And when reference figures embody this way of life, imitation becomes a natural reflex, without us taking the time to ask ourselves if it is really beneficial for us.
The Alliance Against Tobacco claims, for example, that in less than ten years, tobacco on screen has quadrupled in series for young people, leading to an increasingly inciting fascination. Thus, 48% of 15-25 year olds say that these images make them want to smoke and 72% of former smokers say that they rekindle the desire to relapse.
However, the French have never smoked so little since the popularization of cigarettes. The number of daily consumers aged 18 to 75 decreased by 4 million between 2014 and 2024, particularly among adolescents and young adults. According to figures from Public Health France, 29% of 18-29 year-olds declared themselves smokers in 2021 compared to 18% in 2024, while 17-year-olds were only 15.6% in 2022, a proportion in sharp decline (25.1% in 2017).
According to Cécile Poignant, the paradox lies in the aesthetic nature of the cigarette. “It’s not because she’s going back hype let’s start smoking againinterprets the specialist. It is held in the hand in a hyper photogenic way, it is a fashion accessory, an element of styling, but we do not necessarily consume it. Except that cigarettes are directly harmful to health.
Whether held in the hand or inhaled deeply, tobacco remains a deadly danger for everyone nearby. “There is a chance that the movement will run out of steam, but the risk is habituationpoints out Philippe Denis. We risk having more and more smokers because of this trend.” To avoid experiencing a new generation of smokers, Health Insurance recommends banning the sale of tobacco to people born after 2009.
