Style Your Ascendant: Aquarius Rising

Aquarius Rising people are often ambivalent about fashion and it’s not a pose. They stood out for being “weird” as children and the more they tried to de-weird, the weirder things got.

Given the importance that wearing the ‘right’ clothes holds at a certain age, you can see how they might develop an aversion toward trends or prefer to adopt something akin to a uniform.

The irony is that of course Aquarius Risings often set trends and the concept of devising a classic ‘uniform’ that works for you is common to many a chic or ‘cool’ person. They’re easily the most naturally normcore of all the ascendants – As their weirdness comes from within, they have no need to signal it.

So with some celebrities as muse-models, here are the key Aquarius Rising style elements.

If you have an Aquarius Ascendant, you already know that you go way beyond comfort-dressing – your body is a barometer. You sense multiple factors that most people with detect only dimly or don’t perceive at all – scents, frequencies, minute geo-tremors, space weather fluctuations, the lot.

Experimental fabrics with shielding capabilities or that do something useful and don’t fuq the planet in their creation are aspirational wear for this rising sign. Functional clothing is ultra-Aquarius Rising.

If, for example, a new fibre was created which would generate negative-ions around you or alter lightwaves so you saw less LED streetlight and more starlight, you probably wouldn’t care how it looked.

Neo-comfort also reflects the fact that Aquarius Rising people usually look better when their hair is messy or undone than when it’s coiffed. It’s not that the hair looks wrong but that it throws the vibe out.

This is also an ascendant with zero-tolerance for restrictions – polo necks, anything that’s tight, itchy or feels like it pulls the neck down and/or high heels in many cases. The latter is partly because Aquarius Rising likes to be able to walk away from things – metaphorically and literally.

The musician Lou Doillon (Virgo with Aquarius Rising) says her perpetual favourite wardrobe item  is “A pair of boots – I like to walk, and freedom comes from not being contrived, or stopped by your tools.”

Remember also that Aquarius rules the calves and ankles – an ankle roll or tight calf muscles can mess with their Uranian* mindset. Another Aqua-Rising, the actor Charlotte Rampling, told Fashion magazine that her footwear is “strictly black lace-ups by Churches. I have two pairs, and they’re very old – 20 years, I think,” she says. “I’ve had them remade and even remodelled because they didn’t do that model anymore. 

“They are part of the way you walk, the way you move and lounge around. You know how to be in them, so you can put them on and know you are going to look just the way you want to look. You don’t feel the clothes on you anymore, which is a really good feeling.”

Rampling is also a decades-long Hatha Yoga adherent, which may inform her philosophy and besides her ascendant, she has Mercury, the Sun and Venus in Aquarius – a super-stellium.

If you have this ascendant, you may have dealt with orthotics hassles or gait isssues growing up and your knees would be odd little karma zones. If so, even if you technically have the cutest knees on the planet, you’d glare at them like bony peninsulas criss-crossed with old scars.

Even in her prime ‘sex-symbol era’, the actor Kim Basinger preferred her jeans and sweats ensembles. As she told Interview magazine:

“Even though I’ve played those roles and I’ve dressed up and been on the covers of these things and done this and that, it is all such pretense. I wear bib jeans. I don’t wear underwear like that. I don’t move in the world like that. You know, I’m more bare-footed Rastafarian, crazy.”

*Aquarius Rising means you’re “ruled” by Uranus with arguably a subtone of Saturn. But you may prefer to think of it is as “co-leading” with Uranus.

Metallics do magnificent things for the Aquarius Rising aura and aesthetic. It needn’t be a whole suit of chain mail a la Zendaya doing Jeanne d’Arc at the 2018 Met Ball or a space-age retro-futurist look: you could try a top with metallic yarn aka lurex or initially try to divine whether you’re feeling Copper, Gold or  Silver.

Classically, gold is solar and silver is lunar. Venus and copper have an affinity while the other trad planetary metals are not really wearable – mercurial mercury, tin for Jupiter, iron for Mars and lead for Saturn.

Anecdotally, Aquarius Rising people seem to carry more static electricity than others so theoretically, metal in their clothing could help with conductivity? Maybe it makes them into a human antenna, deflecting, drawing and reflecting electricity in equal measure.

Or perhaps metallics just look cool. Their use in fashion arrived with the space age via the multiple conjunct Aquarius designer Paco Rabanne (Venus, Node, Midheaven, Saturn and Sun conjunct in Aquarius!) launching the first metal dresses at a fashion show in 1966.

Considered wildly experimental at the time, the concept expanded and permeated indelibly into fashion culture, ably assisted by Jane Fonda’s Paco Rabanne wardrobe in Barbarella.

These days designers like the triple-Gemini Iris Van Herpen – whom I am convinced has Aquarius or Uranus Rising – have taken up the exploratory baton and metallics still say ‘modernity.’

The actor/singer Zendaya has a Virgo Sun with Uranus rising in Aquarius at birth, thus tripling the Aquarian vibe. (When you’re born with the ruler of that specific zodiac constellation rising with it, it’s considered an enhanced Ascendant.)

Zendaya/her stylist either know their astrological aesthetics or she is instinctively empowered in metal because she wears metallics a lot. Likewise, Nicki Minaj, although her Aqua Rising is less overt due to her extensive Sagittarius stellium – Uranus, the Sun, Lilith, Venus, Mercury and Neptune!

The Aquarius-Rising Leo actor Angela Bassett is also magnificent in metallics – gold is extra augmenting for her as she has her chart ruler Uranus in Leo as well.

You could, of course, add extra metal with jewellery but conversely Aquarius Rising people aren’t overly fond of bling and can find even one piece cluttering.

Metallic nail varnish or eyeshadows can be talismanic and energetically supportive without the intensity of metal element in clothing. FYI, in traditional Chinese geomancy and medicine, the colors white + silver are deemed elementally metal.

It seems weird that this avant-garde ascendant should work so well with an item as ‘establishment’ as the trenchcoat but it does!

It has a sort of private intel operative or detective aura so perhaps trenchcoats allows Aquarius Rising people to feel they’re in stealth mode, finally afford the sort of ubiquitous acceptance they strove for in childhood and early youth?

Literally created to be worn during trench warfare, these coats are actually emblematic of a time when everything was in mass upheaval, according to the Smithsonian magazine.

Their utilitarian nature – pockets, waterproof, adaptable – also appeals to the clutter-disliking Aquarian Ascendant. Bags can really bug these people – hands-free and nothing ‘in the way’ is their ideal – and better an extraordinary coat than a rickety umbrella.

Maybe this is just me but I’ve never encountered an Aquarius Rising person who was not weird about umbrellas.

The endurability of trenchcoats also appeals to the secret Saturnine side of this Ascendant – it’s not just the sign has a modern and an ancient ruler, Saturn-ruled Capricorn is the 12th house for Aquarius Ascendants.

On the face of it, the cool indigo Aquarius Rising persona may not seem so aligned with red. It belongs to the Fire element and more specifically Mars + Aries. But Aqua-Rising can carry off red as a neutral – no namby-pamby ‘splash of color’ here – so it becomes their beige.

If the Aquarius Rising person has an Aries Sun or a strong Mars like Queen Letizia of Spain (Sun conjunct Mars in Virgo), it’s extra effective. She rotates colors because it’s her royal responsibility to provide variety for the paps + the population but favours iconic dragon-red pantsuits. “The Queen favors sharp styling and sleek silohuettes,” observed Tatler magazine.

The practicality of pantsuits could also appeal to this former journalist (she was embedded with troops on the frontline in Iraq when covering that war) and first “divorcee commoner” to marry into the Spanish Royal family.

She’s also just begun to let her gray-silvery strands shine through which, while drawing some criticism from the old guard, is on point with her ascendant. Truth in aging is very Aquarian. The Queen of Spain also likes bronze metallic eyeshadow and evidently Bulgari’s The Vert perfume.

Lou Doillon, above, is also a green fragrance aficianado but only one – the iconic Mitsouko.

Clarice Lispector (Sagittarius with Neptune opposing her Aquarius Ascendant) was also big on red as a neutral. She wore it devotedly, not only in clothes but as nail polish (fingers and toes) and her tint. She loved red geraniums and the color red also features prominently in her books and paintings.

Incidentally, this description of her from a friend feels ultra-Aquarius rising: “Clarice was a foreigner on earth, going through the world as if she’d arrived in the dead of night in an unknown city amidst a general transport strike.”

Her preferred scent – one which she attributed semi-mystical powers to – was the now discontinued Vert Et Blanc, another green.

With a few exceptions, prints and non-neutral colors are often anathema to Aquarius Rising people. Is it because prints essentially ‘say’ something and this Ascendant is automatically no-comment?

Or something to do with mass-production ensuring that no print is unique – how could it be? The Aquarius Rising person wants to “pass” sufficiently so that they will be left alone or at least not draw undue scrutiny but that doesn’t mean they’re joining, fuq no.

Monochome – black, white and maybe camel is thus the cornerstone of any Aqua Rising without performance obligations. David Bowie and Nina Simone were both monochrome in maturity, while Charlotte Rampling (dubbed “the Queen of the sober pallette.”) says she only dresses in black or white.

The late Carolyn Bessette Kennedy was inarguably genius at monochromatics and her minimalist aesthetic was so persuasive that you still read fashion mag articles attempting to channel “what Carolyn Bessette would select as this season’s top looks.”

She was a Capricorn with Lilith, Mars and Venus conjunct her Aquarius Ascendant, a true trendsetter. Her choice of wedding dress – an utterly simple, pared-down slip dress by Narciso Rodriguez – changed the bridal fashion market in one weekend.

A monochromatic wardrobe also removes complexity and decision-making, leaving the Aqua Rising brain free to zap around topics it finds more appealing. To be an Aquarius Rising is to be adept at entering a fashion emporium and emerging with a black or white t-shirt no matter how vast or exotic the selection.

Grey marle is a firm fave, perhaps because it is monochromatic and it embodies “metal.” Even if envisage an Aquarian ascendant who suddenly acquires a gigantic budget for fashion, it’s quite likely that the quality of gray marle t-shirts and hoodies would simply improve. Or they’d get 100 of them.

When you’re born with Aquarius Rising, you’re completely content to wear the same item day in and day out.

Actor Charlotte Gainsbourg, the sister of Lou Doillon mentioned above (yes, Jane Birkin had two Aquarius Rising daughters) refers to her “uniform” – skinny jeans and a white t-shirt – and says she likes to “wear the same sweater over and over. I only take it off when it’s smelly.”

She’s also a triple-Cancerian so there may be a sentimental aspect to the smell thing? Crab-Scarabs are super-sensitive to pheromones and familiar scents.

The Scorpio actor Adam Driver is another “uniform” person, with GQ magazine noting that he’s “just one garment shy of wearing the exact same thing every day…

From “The Tonight Show” in New York to the big Tokyo premiere, Driver’s been committed to his uniform of black jeans and sneakers with a neutral-color crewneck and a blazer on top.”

“Here’s hoping he might have a fantastic jacket up his sleeve,” they concluded wistfully. Actually for any rising sign with a celebrity profile, wearing the same thing all the time is a paparazzi deterrent because it’s much more difficult to sell pics of you.

Pluto settling into Aquarius will no doubt evolve and intensify the Aqua-Rising aesthetic traits to a considerable degree. Thoughts?