"Take long walks. Look at the scenery.
Doze off at noon. And then, pretty soon,
you'll be flying again."
Cottagecore isn’t just an aesthetic.
It’s an ethos -- one embodying wholesome
isolation, creative crafting, love of nature,
and nostalgia for an idealized version of the past.
“Think thatched roof cottages, herb and flower gardens,
reading poetry.”
But it’s also a paradox.
It’s anti-modern,
yet it exists and thrives in modern spaces.
It champions solitary retreat,
yet through public sharing on social media, online communities,
and even video games.
"I am actually going to be touring my completed cottagecore
forest core island”
Maybe, though, that contradictoriness
is one of Cottagecore’s greatest strengths.
Rather than making unrealistic demands
that we all throw away our modern devices,
the trend subtly encourages a reassessment of modern values.
Like past movements where people flocked to the country
in droves to slow down from an increasingly fast-paced life,
Cottagecore speaks to a growing rejection of hustle culture
and the “performative workaholism” that peaked in the 2010s.
“Work like hell, I mean, you just have to put in 80 hour,
80 to 100 hour weeks, every week.”
Here’s our take on how Cottagecore just might be a bridge from the past
to a more sustainable future. [
“In the dismantling of all of our systems of life
that we’ve known in the pandemic,
you either cling to it and try to make it work,
or you just say ‘well, I guess I’m just gonna
chart a new path.’”
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“It all seems so familiar, yet I know I’ve never
been here before.
I feel so... at home.”
Cottagecore began in the late 2010s as a trend on Tumblr and TikTok,
an aesthetic defined by rural, countryside living, and a love
of activities like crafting, gardening, and baking.
"Let's make angel food cake..."
This vibe seemed to be the antidote to our fast-paced technological,
globalized world, and 2020 provided the perfect
conditions for cottagecore to explode into the mainstream:
the Covid-19 pandemic abruptly took that fast paced life
away from many.
“I’m going to be baking bread so hopefully cottagecore
can help me figure out how to do that.”
Isolation became the norm, while Taylor Swift’s surprise
2020 albums Folklore and Evermore appeared to provide
the perfect soundtrack.
“When you are young they assume you know nothing.”
Adding to its appeal for people tired of a specifically urban
or suburban grind, Cottagecore is a rural aesthetic.
“It’s blackberry season at the cottage, so I made a blackberry mousse.”
Speaking to Architectural Digest, Davina Ogilvie defines it
as a “nod to the traditional English countryside style,
romantic and nostalgic,”
while HuffPost’s Ambar Pardilla sums it up as “gardening, greenery,
floral prints, flowy dresses, and animals.
You want to feel like you would fit in on a farm.”
It’s based on the timeless belief that the natural world
is spiritually nourishing.
“Today I went foraging for clover and dandelions and I met a turtle.”
This is far from the first time people have sought solace in nature
as a tonic for the anxieties of modern life.
During the 1800s, writers like Henry David Thoreau
and Ralph Waldo Emerson espoused the philosophy
of transcendentalism.
“Transcend means the idea of the spirit transcending matter.”
“In the hands of Emerson, transcendentalism focuses on
the individual and the great potential for every individual.”
Transcendentalism was also
-- according to historian Stephen Saunders --
“a resistance movement against the Industrial Revolution
which introduced a life of complexity, endless monotonous toil,
the ugliness of factories,
and the defilement of nature by urbanization.”
Thoreau famously spent two years living in a small log cabin by Walden Pond,
eating wild food and meditating, while writing Walden.
“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately.
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”
Transcendentalism was about experiencing God through nature.
“I need solitude,” Thoreau wrote.
“I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms
of the mountains in the horizon— to behold and commune with something
grander than man.”
“But you’re wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally
from human relationships.
God’s placed it all around us, it’s in everything.”
Emerson’s famous 1841 essay, “Self-Reliance,” meditated
on the virtues of listening to your inner self
and not worrying about what others think.
Quote: “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates
to that iron string.”
Essentially, Emerson tells us: look inward and you’ll find
everything you need.
“But for our farm, we can get free water
from the land.”
In the 20th century, aspects of the Transcendentalist
philosophy reemerged.
Romantic accounts of moving to the country became influential
in the 30s on.
And in the Back to the Land movement which peaked in the 1960s and 70s,
up to a million Americans left cities behind in search
of a more sustainable country life.
“If we’ve lived in this country away from the major urban centres,
we’ve seen the process, the gradual destruction
of the natural systems around us.”
While it overlapped with the greater counterculture movement,
“back to the land” was more specifically a desire to get
back in touch with nature.
It was a reaction to suburban or urban lifestyles that felt
increasingly disconnected from the fundamentals.
And it may also have stemmed from negative anxieties
about the state of the world, from disillusionment brought on
by the Vietnam War and Watergate to budding awareness of the devastating
environmental destruction being wrought by humankind.
"All these young kids then, who had sort of been radicalized
and were sort of anti free-market anti-capitalism...
kept on marching except...
instead of holding up Chairman Mao's little red book,
they were holding up Rachel Carson's little green book."
It’s telling that some of the most popular television series reflecting
the time’s Back to the Land ethos
– like The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie –
are influences on Cottagecore, especially in the related trend
of “Prairiecore.”
"The peace and beauty of the land and sky around Waltons Mountains
was a source of constant comfort to all of us during those difficult
Depression years."
“It’s a beauty, what kinda knife do you use to carve her?”
“No knives, chisels!”
In the 2010s, many of the same conditions
that drove these past movements can be seen kicking into overdrive.
Between growing understanding that climate change
is becoming an existential crisis,
“We can’t go on consuming, wasting, overconsuming,”
and “rise and grind” obsessive work culture driving burnout,
"The World Health Organization recently added burnout to its classification
of diseases as quote, 'an occupational phenomenon,'"
the stage was set for the forced collective isolation of the Covid-19
pandemic to accelerate the rise of Cottagecore.
“As the coronvirus pandemic unfolds, it feels like everyone is baking bread.”
As the world grows bigger and scarier, it makes sense that we’re witnessing
a resurgence of this nostalgic pursuit of a back-to-basics escape.
“We choose the nature, so to live here,
we are trying to solve the problem ourselves.”
And on a deeper level, like predecessors,
Cottagecore challenges the assumed narrative that all
forward ‘progress’ is good -- especially as we’re faced
with mounting evidence of how much damage capitalism and globalization
are doing both to the planet and to our personal well-being.
The isolation that cottagecore celebrates has an built-in
creative element.
The BBC’s Anita Rao Kashi reports that a “Singapore-based
artificial-intelligence company Quilt.AI ... analysed
more than 300 Instagram posts with the hashtag cottagecore,
and concluded that the top emotion was creativity at 28%.”
“I’m going to try making dandelion petal cookies, so I spent a while
separating the stems from the petals.”
“It was my first time using something foraged in baking, but it came out well”
One name that’s become synonymous with cottagecore over the past year
is Taylor Swift, whose Folklore and Evermore were products
of the isolation of quarantine,
“I’m just writing songs in quarantine, and then, there,
it just became an album really quickly."
and came complete with an aesthetic of flowing dresses,
homespun cardigans, and bucolic tranquility.
Swift wrote of Folklore, “In isolation, my imagination
has run wild, and this album is the result,
a collection of songs and stories that flowed
like a stream of consciousness.”
“Opening the album with the words, ‘I’m doing good I’m on some new shit,
I’m saying yes instead of no’.”
“I’m just saying yes, I’m just putting out an album
in the worst time you could put one out.”
More than a decade earlier, Bon Iver championed this creativity
in isolation with debut album For Emma, Forever Ago,
which singer-songwriter Justin Vernon largely recorded isolated
in a cabin in the woods.
“He had a hunting lodge in north western Wisconsin
and I went up there to just sort of be.”
“I really had no intention of making a record,
but in the in the end, that’s what happened.”
So it’s fitting that Bon Iver features both in one of Folklore’s
most prominent singles - Exile, about the perspective that comes
from reflective distance,
“I think I’ve seen this film before.”
-- and the title track of Evermore “and when I was shipwrecked”
“can’t think of all the cost” “I thought of you."
If we can’t all be Taylor Swift or Justin Vernon,
we can experience the creative benefits of isolation.
Moreover, we even need relaxation in order to function productively
in any field of work.
We can even see this truth in stories like 1989 Studio Ghibli gem
Kiki’s Delivery Service, where a young witch
suffering from burnout discovers a healthier form
of work ethic through a period of rest.
“Why don’t you come and stay at my cabin?"
"Huh?"
"It’ll probably make you feel better”
The growing popularity of “digital detoxes”
and unplugging through off the grid vacations
--or even Airbnb “cuddle a goat” “experiences” --
shows just how many people are currently looking to reassess their relationship
with the modern world.
“It’s one of the only moments where you don’t have any screens whatsoever.”
“You have space to daydream.”
But this brings us to why the ‘escape from the world’
element of cottagecore has been ridiculed as shallow.
Are you really getting off the grid if you’re uploading evidence
of your spiritual fulfillment to social media?
The common accusation is that Cottagecore is merely a silly
performance seeking congratulation on a faux-alternative lifestyle.
The series Dickinson likewise takes aim at cottagecore granddaddy
Henry David Thoreau by joking that he was his time’s equivalent
of a phony hipster.
“The people may be there, but *I* have no use for them.”
“Except for when your mom does your laundry.”
While it’s clearly exaggerated for laughs,
“The pond is full of people, they’re everywhere.
You didn’t say that in your book.”
it’s true that Thoreau wasn’t quite the hermit in the woods
he’s remembered as.
As W. Barksdale Maynard writes:
“[Thoreau’s] intention was not to inhabit a wilderness,
but to find wildness in a suburban setting less than thirty minutes’
walk from Concord village in a landscape heavily used for human purposes.”
“I’m his sister. I live, I live just down--”
“Your home is far away, and you must return there now.”
What’s most interesting about cottagecore is that it
doesn’t fight this contradiction.
Cottagecore doesn’t advocate ditching our wifi routers;
instead, it embraces technology as a tool to allow like-minded people
to connect over their shared values and offer each other new ideas.
"The great thing about online aesthetics and kind of the growth of this
which we've seen so much you know this last year,
is that you're able to see yourself in them
and you're able to get inspiration and connect with like-minded people"
This is supported by the fact that Cottagecore took off
during the pandemic, when the only communities
we could access were online.
"As millions scramble for connection amidst quarantines,
more and more users of all ages are hopping aboard."
“So, of course when I look up google images of the cottagecore aesthetic,
it’s mostly white people participating in the aesthetic.”
“So that’s where I come in.”
Another common criticism of Cottagecore has been that it’s an exclusive space,
built from cultural references that are white and heteronormative:
heritage movies and period dramas
in which marginalized communities are absent.
“Mr. Bingley how do you like my ribbons for your ball?”
“Very beautiful.”
Its influences are mostly stories focused on the lives
of wealthy white people,
who are never asked to interrogate their privilege.
“You have to pull the weeds up, to give the flowers room.”
The back-to-the-landers of the 60s and 70s
were also dismissed as a bunch of entitled rich kids.
And as Dickinson’s send-up of Thoreau gets at,
it’s long been a luxury to be able to escape modern pressures
and go back to nature.
“Our dad owns a pencil factory.”
“Yes you are brave to make such a long journey into the wilderness.”
But, perhaps surprisingly, cottagecore is appealing
to members of marginalized communities, who are looking to engage
with the aesthetic in a way that helps empower them.
“I have had so many black, indigenous,
people of color reach out to me and thank me,
because they’re finally seeing themselves reflected
in the aesthetics they wanna participate in.”
Many members of LGBTQ+ community, especially lesbian women,
have found a home in the cozy world of cottagecore,
reclaiming rural spaces which may have previously
felt threatening.
“It allows them to imagine a space without homophobia,
fear and judgment that doesn’t feel like a banishment,
but instead a specifically curated paradise.”
Speaking to i-D, one queer cottagecorer named Reid says:
“Unfortunately, my hometown, like many rural areas,
is very anti-LGBTQ+... 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... Cottagecore is an ideal where I can be
visibly queer in rural spaces.”
Diversity has a more complicated place within the movement.
As Bethan Kapur points out, “A video of white women
draped in long, cotton dresses
and wandering romantically through fields
connotes something else when your history is shaped
by enslavement and exploitation.”
"Miss Scarlett! Where you goin' without your shawl and the night
air fixin' to set in?
And how come you didn't ask them gentlemen to stay for supper?
You ain't got no more manners than a field hand!"
And writer Yannise Jean notes that, “frilly dresses and bright flowers
are symbolic of an era built upon white-supremacist ideology
that glamorizes pastoral and settler living,”
i.e., a reminder of the Antebellum South.
"The South's sinking to its knees. It'll never rise again. The Cause.
The cause of living in the past is dying right in front of us."
Still, diverse voices are breaking through this inherent whiteness.
“Baking - I bake all the time! Reading - I’m an avid reader.
Picnics - I do love a good picnic.” “Am I a cottagecore girl?!”
Influencer Noemie Sérieux, who started @cottagecoreblackfolks,
explains, “The reason I wanted a vision board with Black women
living the cottagecore aesthetic, is that there’s almost a message
in seeing images of people who don’t look like you
enjoying the life you want and that message is:
You don’t belong here.”
Black content creators are carving out space in a place
that’s not usually reserved for them and challenging the narrative
of what black womanhood can be.
“Cannot this be a sort of reclamation of that,
like reimagining a time where you would have
previously been in suffering as just peaceful?”
At its best, cottagecore can be a safe space in which to express
a marginalised identity, away from what society thinks
that identity should look like.
On the other hand, Cottagecore’s semi-fictional,
performative nature risks reducing it
to a passing entertainment trend that fades away
as post-pandemic life gets back to “normal.”
To disprove the accusations of frivolity,
the Cottagecore ethos has to prove that it’s more than
just diverting escape for individuals to temporarily forget
their capitalist discontent.
Cottagecore testifies to a deep desire to have a more direct connection
between what we make and what we consume --
to recover certain aspects of life that have been lost
with all our progress and increased comforts.
“Maria, there is only one thing that can save us now.”
“Classical French needlepoint.”
In the wake of a globe-altering pandemic,
Cottagecore’s values do seem to have a greater chance
of being incorporated into mainstream life.
The exhaustion many of us have felt, as our work and home lives have blurred,
raises questions about how we want to spend our time
in a post-pandemic world.
Would we all be happier - and more productive -
if we had more time for ourselves?
“Have you always wanted to be a writer?”
“Always, yes, it’s a perfect job.
Sitting, indoors, and always near a teapot.”
As Jenny Odell writes
in How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy,
“To capitalist logic, which thrives on myopia and dissatisfaction,
there may indeed be something dangerous about something as pedestrian
as doing nothing: escaping laterally toward each other,
we might just find that everything we wanted is already here.”
“You need to understand nature, to appreciate the great, great things
that have been created.”
“We spend so much of our life walking around looking,
but never... never, never seeing.”
More than ever,
the urgent need to address climate change
demands a widespread shift toward sustainability
and a questioning of the growth-obsessed assumptions
of our corporation-ruled society.
“Gather only the things we need.”
Emerson once wrote:
“Leave this military hurry and adopt the pace of Nature.
Her secret is patience.”
Cottagecore has adopted that mantra - now, maybe it’s time the rest of us
followed suit.
"Take root in the ground. Plant your seeds in the winter.
And rejoice with the birds in the coming of spring."
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