Gone are the days of cold nights in the library, wine stains, romantic murder plots, and turtleneck sweaters. It is time for picnics, fresh-baked pies, mushrooms, and handmade clothes. That's right: it's spring/summer and that means cottagecore.
WHAT IS COTTAGECORE?
Popularized and coined by the cultural behemoth that is Tumblr in the 2010s, the cottagecore aesthetic has risen to particularly high popularity on TikTok during the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020. The aesthetic has a few predominant themes: farm life, harmony with nature, traditional skills, and overall softness (in attitude, colors, and clothes). Oh, and living in a cottage, hence the name. It focuses on the romanticization of a simpler way of life and heavily highlights skills such as gardening, baking, embroidery, foraging, and creating with your own hands. This subculture uses a naturalistic palette and pastel colors. Typical imagery includes picnics in fields, mushrooms, kitchens, garlands of drying flowers, walls overgrown with ivy, and light wood tones. There are many sub-sub-cultures that have emerged from cottagecore, including but not limited to, goblincore (more green and shiny), witchcore (more witchy), dark cottagecore (darker), and fairycore (crank the pastels up to 11).
CRITICISMS OF COTTAGECORE
Much like Dark Academia, cottagecore faces criticisms for being largely eurocentric. With the whole premise of the subculture being western agricultural life, this criticism is justified. Along with eurocentrism, cottagecore is also criticized for its misrepresentation and underestimation of the difficulties of farmers. Like most subcultures, cottagecore is a romanticism of real-life occurrences and as such, looks at farm life through rose-colored glasses. It discards more unpleasant aspects such as hard fieldwork, poverty, and land ownership in favor of the fun aspects of farm life, like self-sufficiency, home-grown food, and crafts. But wait, there's more. Because of its emphasis on the "traditional" role of women and typically "womanly" tasks such as baking and needlework, cottagecore is popular with the TradWives (traditional wives) community, a typically far-right and conservative community. This is pretty opposite to the other main group of cottagecore enthusiasts, lesbians, and WLW communities, leading to an interesting dichotomy and controversy between the two groups.
COTTAGECORE MEDIA RECOMMENDATIONS
Fair warning: cottagecore is not really defined by media like books, music, and movies so what some may consider cottagecore others will not.
LITERATURE
Books popular in cottagecore communities typically focus on themes of escapism, solitude, and nature. Or they just fit the vibe.
For fiction, try:
Most known for its movie adaptation by Studio Ghibli, the book is the first of three (that's right it's a trilogy). The book delves deeper into the setting, characters, and magic of the unfortunate main character Sophie as she attempts to undo a curse with the help of Howl.
A magical garden is tended by the women from the Nomeolvides family, but they are cursed. If they ever fall too hard for someone, that person straight up disappears. The book delves into this mysterious curse all within the setting of this enchanted garden.
For non-fiction try:
If you weren't forced to read this book in school, nows your chance because as it turns out, American Transcendentalism really fits with cottagecore. The book follows Thoreau as he experiences two years alone in the woods. It's scientific, philosophic, spiritual, a little boring at some points, really the whole package.
The Little Book of Cottagecore by Emily Kent
This book actually teaches you how to do cottagecore things like beekeeping and making candles with step-by-step explanations. It's kind of like the Danish great-grandmother you never had in book form.
MUSIC
Anything and everything that you can imagine listening to while either
a: opening a window to let the cool breeze flow in after baking a fresh loaf of bread
or
b: standing in a field of either wheat or flowers, holding a wicker basket as you look wistfully over nature, your dress blowing in the wind.
Many of the romantic composers fit these themes, namely Schubert (L'autre Valse D'amelie), Saint-Saens (Le Cygne) , Debussy (Reverie), and Tchaikovsky (None but the lonely heart, Op. 6, No. 6).
For songs with words, try:
Hozier's Like Real People Do, Shrike, or Cherry Wine
Anything for Folklore by Taylor Swift
Bloom and/or Woodland by The Paper Kites
and Death with Dignity by Sufjan Stevens
(also anything from Howl's Moving Castle's soundtrack)
TV/MOVIES
TV Shows:
The Great British Bake-off (For all your baking needs)
Hakumei And Mikochi (Visually very cottagecore and overall very wholesome)
Anne with an E (Its Anne of Green Gables as a TV show, I hated the book but go off I guess)
Movies:
Howl's Moving Castle (Suprise! the book from early but its a movie now)
Any other studio Ghibli movie
Pride and Prejudice (A romance about overcoming pride and prejudice)
Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson! It really fits the vibe but in a more funny way)
The Tales of Beatrix Potter (this one is a bit wacky but its like, animal ballet)
Midsommar (alright, this one's not as cozy as the others, but the visuals fit pretty well)
Additionally, for some extra credit points, check out TheCottageFairy and hannahleeduggan on Youtube. They are actually living breathing embodiments of cottagecore.
~Anna Thomasson