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  [23]The Collection | [24]Lifestyle
  'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy
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  Credit: Alamy
  By Anita Rao Kashi9th December 2020
  How did a bucolic dreamland became the perfect escape from real life?
  Anita Rao Kashi explores a whimsical world of nostalgia, tranquillity
  and folksy mysticism.
  A

  A few weeks into lockdowns everywhere, a curious thing happened on
  Instagram feeds. More and more, they filled with images of pretty
  cottages adorned with climbers and flower-laden trellises, soft-focus
  sunbeams streaming through dense foliage, dappled wooded pathways and
  earthy mushrooms growing in abandon, tea tables and picnics in shaded
  gardens near gurgling streams laden with homemade sourdough bread and
  scones, soft cotton dresses with smocking and embroidered with
  strawberries and butterflies... part surreal, part escapist fantasy
  from the horrors around, and partly about taking control. The
  phenomenon had a hashtag – #cottagecore. It's a trend that has slowly
  become the standout aesthetic of the year 2020. Much like Scandinavian
  concepts hygge and [27]friluftsliv, the pastoral aesthetic of
  cottagecore is striking a chord.

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  Of course, nothing trends like a concept that is embraced by a
  high-profile celebrity. A few months ago, Taylor Swift released her
  album Folklore. The promotional pictures showed her in a woodsy
  setting, de-glamourised and in a cosy overcoat. The album had a raw,
  earthy, nostalgic energy, which toggled between simplicity, cosiness,
  and escapism. The perfect word salad to describe cottagecore. In one
  fell swoop, a fringe aesthetic catapulted into the mainstream.
  Taylor Swift's latest album Folklore helped bring the cottagecore
  aesthetic into the mainstream (Credit: Universal Music)

  Taylor Swift's latest album Folklore helped bring the cottagecore
  aesthetic into the mainstream (Credit: Universal Music)

  As an aesthetic that romanticises the return to traditional bucolic
  attributes, cottagecore lays heavy emphasis on a mix of rural
  self-sufficiency and delicate décor, with a heavy dose of nostalgia.
  Ironically, for all its emphasis on the rural idyll and anti-modernity,
  it is largely played out on the internet – on Tumblr, Pinterest,
  Instagram and Facebook. The latter has at least a dozen pages dedicated
  to its various aspects.

Cottagecore is all about the outdoors and slow living – think Anne of Green
Gables meets The Secret Garden – Lucy Blackall

  At its heart, cottagecore hinges heavily on modern escapist fantasies,
  and posts are full of foraged mushrooms, long billowy dresses, gingham
  tablecloths, baskets of wildflowers, sourdough bread and mossy
  terrariums. There are babbling brooks surrounded by woodland, snails,
  beeswax candle-making, delicate doilies, farm animals, [31]forest
  bathing and rustic simplicity.

  "Cottagecore is all about the outdoors, slow living and often includes
  country houses. It's a warm, cosy community full of nature, growing
  your own foods, spending time with pets, picnicking in the garden.
  Think Anne of Green Gables meets The Secret Garden," says cottagecore
  practitioner Lucy Blackall, whose surroundings in Oxfordshire in the UK
  encompass the ideals of countryside living, and tie in perfectly with
  the cottagecore aesthetic.
  The sensibility is dominated by nostalgia, mysticism and whimsicality –
  all in a rural setting (Credit: Getty Images)

  The sensibility is dominated by nostalgia, mysticism and whimsicality –
  all in a rural setting (Credit: Getty Images)

  Blackall has been posting pictures of the English countryside for more
  than a year on her Instagram page [32]@hercountryliving, and joined the
  cottagecore community at the beginning of lockdown. She says she has
  thrived among like-minded people who "love to craft, grow their own and
  share tips on fashion, home styling, gardening and all things cosy".
  Cottagecore, which is related to other nostalgia-driven aesthetics like
  'faeriecore', 'farmcore' and 'grandmacore', has been around since 2018.
  However, in 2020, its popularity soared. Take Tumblr, where the hashtag
  #cottagecore saw a 153% jump in use while the number of likes for
  cottagecore posts rose by a staggering 500%.

  By presenting isolation and staying home as romantic and even
  aspirational, does the cottagecore trend help make lockdown a less
  scary prospect? Singapore-based artificial-intelligence company
  [33]Quilt.AI – which uses AI to glean insights into human behaviour –
  recently analysed more than 300 Instagram posts with the hashtag
  cottagecore, and concluded that the top emotion was creativity (28%)
  followed by affection (19%) and solitude (10%). It also studied 1.5
  million unique searches across platforms of 2019 and 2020, and
  discovered nearly a 30% increase in search interest for gingham clothes
  and 'milkmaid' style.

  "As countries opened to a post-Covid-19 situation, we found a general
  increase in attraction towards positivity and joy. We saw individuals
  returning to less urban ways of life," says anthropologist and Quilt.AI
  co-founder Angad Chowdhry. "What interests me is that the disconnection
  is almost a stepping away from conventional urban modernity."
  Naomi Stuart is among the many cottagecore 'practitioners' on social
  media (Credit: @grove_cottage_/ Instagram)

  Naomi Stuart is among the many cottagecore 'practitioners' on social
  media (Credit: @grove_cottage_/ Instagram)

  Chowdhry says cottagecore is indicative of a desire for  simplicity and
  anti-modernity. "It is the equal and opposite reaction to the
  contamination, helplessness and incoherence of our contemporary mise en
  scène." Quilt.AI’s analysis also revealed that while a slew of
  wholesome, earthy symbols such as flowers, leaves, bees, mushrooms and
  bees were generously used, the top emoji was that of sparkles
  signifying magic and wonder, and hinting that cottagecore holds a lot
  of meaning as a fantastical paradise.

  Rural tranquillity

  Practitioners themselves agree. "I started using the trending hashtag
  #cottagecore on my Instagram account [34]@grove_cottage_ during the
  first  lockdown. At the time, my interpretation of the hashtag was a
  cosy, romanticised life of living in the country in an idyllic
  Victorian cottage," says Naomi Stuart. "I hoped that my pretty squares
  of rural tranquillity would give people who live in the city or don't
  have a garden a sense of pleasure and calmness amongst the madness that
  was, and still is."

  While cottagecore might have increased on social-media platforms, it
  has a more rooted sibling in homesteading, a lifestyle based on
  self-sufficiency and subsistence agriculture. The concept saw a
  resurgence in the 1960s and 70s but subsequently went below the radar –
  only to re-emerge in recent years, with hipster undertones, as
  proponents advocated adapting renewable energy technologies and growing
  heirloom vegetables, even if they didn't necessarily live in rural
  locations.

Now is a great time to think about some of the old, traditional skills that
previous generations would have had – Lauren Molloy

  Earlier this year, a new book, [35]The Women's Heritage Sourcebook was
  published, describing homesteading as "a lifestyle of self-reliance and
  sustainability, characterised by home gardening… and even the
  small-scale production of textiles, clothing, and craftwork."
  The volume of blissful, bucolic images shared on social media has
  increased steeply in 2020 (Credit: Getty Images)

  The volume of blissful, bucolic images shared on social media has
  increased steeply in 2020 (Credit: Getty Images)

  "It seems the pandemic has made some people consider the value of
  making their own goods [which] they maybe hadn't thought about
  previously," says Lauren Malloy, co-author of the book. "Maybe [it was]
  the disrupted supply chain or maybe it was slowing down and more time
  at home to explore homesteading or maybe both. Now is a great time to
  think about self reliance and some of the old, traditional skills that
  previous generations would have had."

  A big part of cottagecore and a return to traditional ways is about
  making clothes and sewing, as evidenced by the profusion of
  prairie-style dresses and aprons embroidered with natural motifs such
  as mushrooms, sprigs of flowers and butterflies posted on many of the
  social media platforms. In fact, practitioners not only design and sew
  their own whimsical dresses but also model and retail from their
  accounts. And then there are adjacent activities that could range from
  home-embroidered berets and bags to eco-printing and designing shawls,
  quilting patchwork blankets, and sharing knitting and crochet patterns.
  Malloy's Heritage Goods and Supply store also retails weaving, macramé
  and tapestry kits to get people started on these activities.
  The Women's Heritage Sourcebook depicts a rural idyll of sewing and
  self-sufficiency (Credit: The Women's Heritage Sourcebook)

  The Women's Heritage Sourcebook depicts a rural idyll of sewing and
  self-sufficiency (Credit: The Women's Heritage Sourcebook)

  And underlying the aesthetic is also a strong affinity to
  environmentalism, which ties in with attributes like self-care and
  thriftiness. "In our fast-paced society," says Lauren Molloy, "the
  process of making, doing, feeling connected, has virtually been
  eliminated. We love the thought of slowing down, feeling connected and
  having the experience be meaningful".

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