The Wall Street Journal published a piece that stopped us mid-scroll. The headline: “Would You Get Braces Again—for Fun?”
The article written by Cassidy George covers the rise of “fashion braces”, purely ornamental braces being purchased online, applied at home with nail glue and kitchen scissors, and worn as a style accessory. One TikTok video showing how to apply them with scissors and glue has accumulated 2 million views, and the creator receives fifteen to twenty direct messages a day from people asking where to buy them.
We read the piece as marketers who found our niche in the dental and orthodontic manufacturing space, and what struck us wasn’t merely the safety implications, but what this trend reveals about the extraordinary power social media holds over how an entire generation perceives orthodontic care.
For decades, braces carried a social cost as they were a treatment to be endured, not something you necessarily looked forward to. There was awkwardness, the “brace face”, the rubber bands, the years of waiting for them to finally “come off”. That narrative has changed dramatically, and social media is responsible.
As the WSJ piece details, celebrities like Coi Leray and Steve Lacy are wearing braces publicly, and proudly, orthodontists like Dr. Grant Collins amassed 4.7 million TikTok followers by reframing braces as something fun rather than clinical, and a wider Gen Z cultural movement embraces, rather than conceals, what previous generations considered imperfections. These have all converged to make orthodontic hardware aspirational in a way no manufacturer or professional association could have engineered. Braces are no longer something patients simply wear, they are increasingly becoming a form of self-expression. The New York Times documented this shift firsthand in a September 2025 piece on the metal braces resurgence: twelve-year-old Madison Aballi described her braces as “kind of another accessory at this point,” placing them in the same category as her North Face backpack and Labubu keychain. What was once a treatment to be hidden has become something patients proudly claim as part of their identity.] The fashion braces trend is here, leading to the unintended cultural shift that the orthodontic industry should actually be celebrating. Or more professionally stated, actual orthodontic treatment delivered by licensed professionals, with real clinical outcomes, has never had a more receptive cultural moment.
How is the industry responding to this change? In the article, Dr. Sable Staller, a New York City-based orthodontist, notes that once a wire is glued in and tied, teeth will begin to move, and the risks include tooth loss and gum recession. Dr. Collins, despite his gigantic TikTok following and enthusiasm for destigmatizing orthodontic treatment, is equally direct in the piece, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” The professional agreement is clear, fashion braces can be dangerous. The professionals who most effectively communicate that message are those who have built a social media presence large enough to reach the audience that needs to hear it. Dr. Collins has 4.7 million followers because he understood that TikTok was not a platform beneath the dignity of an orthodontist, that it was a place where the conversation about orthodontic care was already happening, with or without him, and the social media lesson for the orthodontic industry is one they can’t afford to ignore.
The fashion trend did not begin in a boardroom or a clinical journal. It began on the TikTok platform, was amplified by celebrities, and spread through a peer-to-peer sharing culture that moves faster than any traditional communications infrastructure can track. This is not a new dynamic, but one that the orthodontic and dental industries, manufacturers, and practitioners continue to underestimate.
The destigmatization of braces that orthodontists have spent decades working toward happened organically on social media in a fraction of the time it took. That is not an argument against professional communications, it is an argument for meeting consumers where they already are, in the voice they already respond to. The gap between consumer enthusiasm and professional guidance is a communications problem as much as it is a safety problem. Many people seeking fashion braces do so because they cannot afford professional orthodontic treatment or because they want the aesthetic without the clinical commitment, and that is a conversation the industry has an opportunity, and arguably a responsibility, to enter.
For orthodontic manufacturers, the fashion braces trend surfaces a dynamic that should directly inform both product communications strategy and broader brand positioning. The cultural appetite for orthodontic aesthetics, for the look of treatment, the symbolism of it, and the social signaling it carries, is at an all-time high. A generation that once dreaded braces now considers them a mark of distinction, and capturing that cultural moment requires showing up where culture is actually being made. It requires manufacturer brands to invest in social media programming that goes beyond product specifications and clinical claims, content that speaks to the identity, the aspiration, and the community that orthodontic treatment now represents for a new generation of patients. The New York Times piece makes clear just how personal that identity has become. Thirteen-year-old Avital Shkury told the Times simply, “My braces feel like part of me.” Clinical psychologist Dr. Rebecca Berry of NYU Langone Health is not surprised; she sees the trend as a direct reflection of adolescents embracing authenticity, choosing to show up as they are rather than conceal perceived imperfections. For manufacturers, that is not a soft observation; it is a strategic one. Communications that focus solely on clinical outcomes are no longer sufficient. The patient expects to see their identity reflected in the brands they choose.
It also calls for careful consideration of Key Educator and Key Opinion Leader programs and how manufacturers that invest in and amplify them will shape the conversation, rather than waiting for the trend to pass. When consumer culture moves faster than expert communication, the practitioners make the greatest impact on patient safety. The industry as a whole needs to be in the space where patients are forming perceptions of orthodontic care
We believe the manufacturers who invest in supporting and amplifying those voices will be far better positioned to shape the conversation than those still waiting for the trend to pass. For orthodontists and other dental professionals, the fashion-braces moment is a case study in what happens when consumer culture moves faster than expert communication. The safety concerns are real, but issuing warnings into the void is not a communications strategy. The practitioners making the greatest impact on patient safety, professional reputation, and practice growth are the ones who built the social infrastructure to reach patients before a popular TikTok did.
The industry as a whole needs to be present in the spaces where patients are forming their perceptions of orthodontic care. The practices investing in that presence now will be far better positioned to educate, attract, and retain patients in a context where, as this WSJ story demonstrates, a teen with a glue gun can reach two million people overnight.
The current enthusiasm, properly met by manufacturer and practitioner communications built for the platforms where it lives, is an extraordinary opportunity. The WSJ piece frames it as a cautionary example about safety, and it is that. But it is also an unintentional brief for why social media strategy in the orthodontic space has never mattered more. The orthodontic industry did not create the cultural moment that made braces cool. But it has every tool it needs to meet that moment, if it takes social media seriously enough to show up.
We encourage anyone in the orthodontic and dental space to read the original WSJ and The New York Times articles.
Golden Arrow PR & Social Media is a boutique agency specializing in PR, social media, and digital marketing with a specialization in med-tech, orthodontics & dental manufacturers. We help brands in medically regulated spaces show up with precision, credibility, and creativity that reaches the audiences that matter most.
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