Cottagecore

Cottagecore is an Internet fashion aesthetic, also described by some sources as a Generation Z subculture,[1] that celebrates an idealised rural life and developed throughout the 2010s[2] until being named on Tumblr in 2018.[3] It values traditional skills and crafts such as foraging, baking, and pottery, and is related to similar nostalgic aesthetic movements such as grandmacore, farmcore, goblincore, and faeriecore.[4] The ideas of cottagecore can help to satisfy for its proponents a desire for "an aspirational form of nostalgia" as well as an escape from many forms of stress and trauma.[4] The New York Times described it as a reaction to hustle culture and the advent of personal branding.[4]

The movement gained further traction in many online spheres and on social media in 2020 due to the mass quarantining in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[5][6] Sites such as Tumblr had a 150% increase in cottagecore posts in the 3 months from March 2020. [1] The trend has been described by Vox as “the aesthetic where quarantine is romantic instead of terrifying”.[3]

The Guardian has described cottagecore as a "visual and lifestyle movement designed to fetishize the wholesome purity of the outdoors."[5] It emphasizes simplicity and the soft peacefulness of the pastoral life as an escape from the dangers of the modern world.[7]

Aesthetic and lifestyle elements of cottagecore
Baking homemade bread is considered part of the cottagecore aesthetic.

Fashion

While homemade clothing is a feature of cottagecore, products including the 'strawberry dress', a $490 tea dress by Lirika Matoshi contain features commonly associated with cottagecore, including a full skirt and sleeves, flounces of tuile, and strawberry embroidery reminiscent of both nature and jam-making, parts of cottagecore's philosophy of self sufficiency. Cottage core clothing often includes lengthy and layered dresses. Floral patterns are also common with cottage core fashion.[8]

Analytics company Edited identified that besides floral prints and stripes "Old-world, feminine shapes and details are integral to this aesthetic — milkmaid necklines, puff sleeves, ruffles and prairie-inspired midi dresses."[1] Marketing commentators noted that the trend fits with already available '70s inspired dresses, lace trim, and denim, and complemented the slow fashion trend. [1]

Antecedents and cultural context
William Morris design for "Trellis" wallpaper, 1862 in Arts and Crafts movement style

While cottagecore arose as a named aesthetic in 2018, similar aesthetics and ideals have a long cultural history. The ancient Greeks had seen the geographical Arcadia as a savage and inhospitable place but as the drawbacks of urban habitation became increasingly obvious they came to see an idealised Arcadia as a representation of an untainted rural life and spiritual haven. The poet Theocritus wrote poems about shepherds and shepherdesses in the 3rd century BCE, leading to him being often cited as the inventor of pastoral poetry. [9] The market for Theocritus’ work was primarily the educated urban class of Alexandria, seeking an escape from the filth, crowding and disease of city life. In the 1st century BCE the Roman poet Virgil’s pastoral poetry was written in response to the violence and chaos of war. However he expanded the genre by acknowledging contemporary moral and political issues such as war whilst maintaining a distance through the pastoral trope.[9] Pastoral escapism continued to be produced for the courtly audience of the Roman Empire in the formal of novels such as the 2nd century CE Daphnis and Chloe.[9]

Pastoral escapism returned as a theme of the arts during the renaissance through the 14th century Italian poet Petrarch who was known for his hillwalking and gardening as well as his poetry. [9] In Elizabethan England Shakespeare wrote two pastoral plays, As You Like It and A Winter’s Tale. They reflect the inherent tension between the subject of the pastoral theme compared with its intended audience in that although aristocrats are featured in these works as play-acting shepherds and falling in love with shepherdesses marriage only takes place only when it is revealed that both are of high social status.[9] Shakespeare’s contemporary Christopher Marlowe’s renowned poem The Passionate Shepherd to His Love inspired poetic responses from poets such as John Donne and Dorothy Parker with Walter Raleigh’s response from the beloved being to point out that Arcadian ideas were fallacies.[9]

The Arts and Crafts movement of the nineteenth century was an approach to art, architecture, and design that embraced 'folk' styles and techniques as a critique of industrial production.[5]

A 2020 New York Times article compared cottagecore to the social simulation video game series Animal Crossing being acted out in real life.[4][5]

Politics and criticism

Cottagecore has become a subculture of the LGBT and particularly the lesbian and female bisexual community, stemming from the drive for an escape from heteronormative society. Cottagecore videos of LGBT women performing tasks like baking bread, embroidering, and thrifting to calming music have gone viral on social media app TikTok. Some proponents of cottagecore report wishing to reclaim non-sexual ideas and images of intimacy and togetherness – as one Reddit user explains, "cottagecore sees love as a connection between two souls."[10]

Others see cottagecore as a way to disentangle and reclaim traditional rural pleasures and surroundings from the homophobia and transphobia they experienced growing up in small towns. One cottagecore fan told i-D magazine, "Even now when I go back [to my hometown] I can't help but feel watched and judged all the time for how I look or dress. It especially makes me feel like the things I loved in childhood, like having farm animals and picking blackberries in the fields and getting lost in the woods, are cis- and hetero-coded. So for me, cottagecore is an ideal where I can be visibly queer in rural spaces."[10]

Cottagecore has been criticised as perpetuating colonialist values, as it "romanticizes the legacy of settler colonialism and frontier living that relies on the stolen land of indigenous people."

Pointing to the gendered dimension of the investment in cottagecore, Claire Ollivain wrote in Honi Soit, a student newspaper at the University of Sydney: "While cottagecore conflicts with these masculine, patriotic myths by providing a fantasy of women and queer people in rural space, it is nevertheless a projection of the urban and carries with it the colonial assumption that land is up for grabs."[11]

Writers have commented on the contrasts between idyllic online depictions of cottagecore, and some other realities of rural life with bugs, smells, dirt, and feces.[4]

Some Gen Z political activists view cottagecore as an opportunity to campaign about such issues as global warming.[12]

See also

References
  1. Velasquez, Angela (June 10, 2020). "In Times of Crisis, Gen Z Embraces Escapist Fashion". Sourcing Journal.
  2. Cocozza, Paula (18 November 2012). "The new ruralism: how the pastoral idyll is taking over our cities". the Guardian. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  3. Vox, Once upon a time, there was cottagecore
  4. Isabel Slone (March 10, 2020). "Escape Into Cottagecore, Calming Ethos for Our Febrile Moment". The New York Times. Retrieved May 23, 2020.
  5. Amelia Hall (15 April 2020). "Why is 'cottagecore' booming? Because being outside is now the ultimate taboo: The visual and lifestyle movement is designed to fetishise the wholesome purity of the outdoors". The Guardian. London. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
  6. Emma Bowman (9 August 2020). "The Escapist Land Of 'Cottagecore,' from Marie Antoinette to Taylor Swift". NPR. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
  7. Gabe Bergado (April 22, 2020). "Cottagecore Offers an Escape From Today's Stressful World: 'In a time where most people live in concrete jungles, or well manicured suburbs, a connection back to nature and a more pastoral lifestyle is craved.'". Teen Vogue. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
  8. Spellings, Sarah (August 12, 2020). "How Did This Dress Get So Popular in a Pandemic?". Vogue.
  9. Frey, Angelica (November 11, 2020). "Cottagecore debuted 2300 years ago". JSTOR daily.
  10. Woolley, Sarah (13 February 2020). "Cottagecore is the pastoral fantasy aesthetic taking over TikTok". i-D. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  11. "Cottagecore, colonialism and the far-right". Honi Soit. 2020-09-08. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
  12. Gen Z Is Using Fashion TikTok To Fight Climate Change. Will It Work?
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