What Is Cottagecore?
Cottagecore is an aesthetic that romanticizes simple rural living — think flower gardens, baking sourdough, wearing flowy dresses in meadows, collecting wildflowers, and generally pretending you're a character in a Studio Ghibli film or a Jane Austen novel.
It's a fantasy of escaping modern life for something quieter, slower, and more connected to nature. Whether you actually want to live on a farm is irrelevant — the VIBE is what matters.
Where Did Cottagecore Come From?
Cottagecore existed as a Tumblr aesthetic since the mid-2010s, but it EXPLODED during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. When everyone was stuck inside, the fantasy of living in a cottage surrounded by nature became incredibly appealing. People started baking bread (remember the sourdough era?), gardening, and wearing prairie dresses.
The aesthetic also found a strong home in LGBTQ+ communities, particularly among sapphic women, who embraced the "two women living in a cottage" fantasy as a queer utopia.
How to Achieve the Cottagecore Look
- Clothing: Linen dresses, puff sleeves, floral prints, aprons, straw hats.
- Activities: Baking, gardening, pressing flowers, journaling, foraging.
- Home: Dried flowers, handmade pottery, vintage kitchenware, natural wood.
- Music: Folk, indie folk, classical, anything with acoustic instruments.
- Vibe: Peaceful, nostalgic, gentle, connected to nature.
Examples in the Wild
"my cottagecore fantasy: living off the land, baking bread daily, reading by candlelight. my reality: I killed a succulent."
"cottagecore is just millennials and gen-z romanticizing the life that boomers had and rejected"
Why It Matters
Cottagecore represents a genuine longing for simplicity in an overwhelming world. When everything is digital, fast-paced, and anxiety-inducing, the fantasy of a quiet life in nature is deeply appealing. It also challenged fashion norms by embracing femininity and softness without being performative. Cottagecore said: what if we just... slowed down? And a lot of people really needed to hear that.