The dark side of cottage core aesthetic through history : Poverty play and fashion
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- Опубліковано 25 кві 2024
- Cottagecore aesthetics and off grid living sound dreamy in our fast modern world, and historical people agreed! But poverty play and romanticizing farm life are not new problems. Fashion history shows cottage core clothing is working class aesthetic without the working class, from the chemise a la reine to the pre-Raphaelites. Thank you Birch Living for sponsoring! Click here birchliving.com/SnappyDragon to get 20% off your Birch mattress (plus two free Eco-Rest pillows!). Offers are subject to change. #birchliving
Is cottagecore problematic? Dreamy aesthetics like cottage core, cabincore, farmcore, and even dark academia are enchanting for many reasons. The cozy cottages and homesteads, peaceful off the grid living, flowing prairie dresses, and rustic farm life . . .There's a reason Little House on the Prarie is so popular! Cottagecore is not a new trend, either. It's the latest version of the "pastoral", a genre of art, literature, and fashion that dates back to Ancient Greece and influenced fashion history since before Marie Antoinette, William Morris, or the pre-Raphaelites made it popular. But before you dive into off-grid homesteading because it's pretty, you should know that cottagecore has a long history of romanticizing life on a farm, to the point of disrespecting the hard work of homesteading and the people that have done it.
The realities behind the cottagecore fantasy show it's always been just that : a fantasy. From the harsh conditions of historical farm life to the modern commercialization of this aesthetic, alternative living and cabin core are new versions of the pastoral utopia that historical literature called Arcadia, where the upper class could ignore the harsh reality of agricultural labor while enjoying the beauty of the countryside. It's this dream that led to ornamental farms like Marie Antoinette's cottagecore village near the Petit Triannon, and the iconic fashions like the chemise a la reine! Victorian cottagecore movements were less problematic in that way, but still made workwear poverty garments like smock frocks stylish by separating the beautiful style elements like smocking from the association with work or poverty. It's working class aesthetic without the working class people! The commercialization of cottagecore clothing is very familiar, and no matter what William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement may have intended, the Victorian era had plenty of it.
Eco-friendly cottage core and slow living practices like gardening, mending clothes, and using secondhand decor are legitimately sustainable. But nostalgia can be used to promote ideologies under the surface. There's a fine line between appreciating traditional skills and sliding into the "tradwife" rabbit hole. So how can we embrace the positive aspects of cottagecore while avoiding the problematic patterns of history? Make yourself a cup of loose leaf tea, cozy up in your chicest prairie dress, and let's have an honest discussion about the history of cottagecore. Can we cultivate the simple joys without falling into regressive traps? The aesthetic may be dreamy, but let's keep both feet firmly planted in the modern world while we enjoy learning from history.
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There's actually an entire culture in South Africa that is still hunter gatherers for the very simple reason that they have this really amazing food source that some kind of nut that once they have gathered enough nuts for the day they don't need to do any other work. The hunters go back I'm going back to me if they feel like it but they could technically live on this nut and literally nothing else. They consistently reject any idea of modernism or settling down or getting a job or even more than clothes because they just straight don't care they wander around their little patch of desert collecting these nuts and that's all they care about the rest of the time they can use the free time for whatever they want.
And it's this romanticized idea of the freedom of getting your time back that modern people are really nostalgic for.
Because during the peak summer months when the food is just out growing I'm depending on how much are the livestock you have you actually have most days to yourself and very little to bother yourself with. The nostalgia of being able to own your land or at least be settled and content in your land which by the way most peasant Farmers never owned their land until the modern era.
It's this idea of having your land doing what you want to on your land and your subsistence is taken care of for the once the crops are in the ground as long as there's no major famine once the weeds are out and everything is growing nicely it's very little work.
It's the animal husbandry and everything that goes with it to create enough fertilizer to maintain those crops that keeps you working pretty much all year.
Did you try to take back control of our own food chain is why people are homesteading again.
Truly, I hate these kinds of videos. You are actually mocking my life, and that of about 3 million American farm women who still exist, still dress this way, and still live surrounded by ancestral possessions because they are useful to us, not because of “aesthetic.” And our lives are hardly escapist, soft or slow. Personally, I milk 62 cattle a day, feed more than 1,000 poultry, take care of fifty geese, six kids, seven dogs. AND WE WEAR THESE DRESSES BECAUSE THEY ARE COOLING, EASY ACCESS TO SQUATTING AND PEEING, CHANGING AND LAYERING.
Geez. I know you’re trying to be realistic, but for many farm chicks, you are actually mocking our daily lives.
Milk maids were sexualised not just due to hygiene but also due to “beauty” milking cows by hand practically guaranteed being infected with cowpox, giving the milkmaids immunity to the far more damaging smallpox and the facial scars it often left behind.
A trait that inspired the first vaccine research and eventual discovery of the smallpox vaccine
Thank you pretty milkmaids
There is nothing romantic about having to fight one's way past aggressive roosters to get to the outhouse.
I know. I've done it.
They are descended from dinosaurs and know it 🤣
Eat the rooster!
A rooster tried to murder my brother when he was a toddler.
@@SnappyDragon
They *are* dinosaurs, and they know it.
Right?
I lived off grid (seriously, on 80 acres, with a well) for a decade. Reaching down to pull a weed, I got a face full of rooster and ended up with 38 stitches on my upper lip and nose. Then, had to bleed all the way to the hospital that was an hour and half away. "Pastoral life" my a$$
this is why i vibe more with hobbit-core, the fantasy element is in the name, and it's not looking at history through rose-coloured glasses
Just stay out of farmer Maggot's field. 😂
@@breeinatree4811 yeah, i'll be chilling in bag end with a pot of tea and a book
Don’t you think the hobbits are themselves a romanticization of the British agricultural class? 🤔
@@HouseHooligan maybe, but it's less egregious than the darling buds of May and definitely less of a pathway to the tradwife/right wing than cottage core
@@HouseHooligan
Possibly, but at least everyone is on board with the fact that it’s definitely fantasy.
Like when people say they were born in the wrong time. They are caught up in the nostalgia and not thinking about the struggles and harsh realities that existed in that time. I would love a modern home that looks like a cottage. Great video!
Indeed, people often never think they are anything but nobility or aristocracy.
That question comes up time and again as an icebreaker in meetings. I always say I’m a black woman the farthest back I want to go is yesterday and the future isn’t looking promising either.
@@roslynholcomb 😅 first part of your response is my go-to; might have to add that second part. LOLOL
i'm too neurospicy and too queer to want to live anywhen other than now. i am, however, going to be decorating my 115 year old welsh house with lots of historical and nerdy inspiration...including an eventual sewing room.
Some eras were probably a pretty good time to be alive, but only if you were fortunate enough to remain healthy and uninjured your entire life. Modern medicine is what keeps me reconciled with the present.
The first thing I think of when I see cottage-core peeps frolicking in meadows is "oh god so many ticks"
Yuuuup. I hope you brought bugspray and have a friend to check you over afterwards . . .
😂❤
And the fire ants and parasitic worms and vector-borne illnesses that live in all the animal poop.
Don't get me wrong, I love being outside. But there's a reason why I hike in 10° weather rather than in 80°.
@@SnappyDragon there's this really funny skit on YT by Dr. Glaukomflecken called Infectious Disease Goes on a Hike that talks about all the stuff that could get you sick on a hike.
Chiggers. We will never “pay homage to the fertility goddess” in an open field again.
I grew up in the rural south. We didn’t have indoor plumbing or paved roads until I was a pre-adolescent. We grew our own veggies. I’ll never get the stain of purple hulled peas out of my fingertips!
I love the cottage core fashion aesthetic. Pretty florals and the like. I also enjoy cooking and gardening but never want to be in the position where I’m dependent on what I can grow. Most of these farmstead people have no idea what it’s like and many find out the hard way.
THIS 👆
same here!!!! i remember helping birth a calf and learning to skin rabbits, i remember watching for snakes when harvesting watermelon, i remember having to herd the chickens and ducks to their coops every single night before going inside for dinner. yes i miss all this work, yes i’ve incorporated it into my personal life as an adult. but one thing i’ve realized is that my gramma and mama didn’t look ‘pretty’ doing those things for a reason. it’s too hard to get things you like back clean after you’ve ruined them bc one of your hens took a big fat poo on your lap.
We had plumbing but I have a very similar take to you.
I'm growing a small garden and all that, but I made it clear to my fiance I want to be somewhat close to the city.
Pre-adolescent? So a child....
@@alexrusso6503 probably a tween, aka, what that term means
I feel like the ideal version of cottagecore would be if you combined it with solarpunk/hopepunk - a movment that embraces nature, sustainable living, and the technology that allows for both while still providing for people's needs, not just an elite chosen few. Now THAT would be a fairytale I could get behind.
Cottagecore aesthetics, solarpunk philosophy?
@@SnappyDragon Exactly!
Sign me up for that.
@@AW-uv3cbAdd a little steampunk there and I am in.
@@wildmarjoramdieselpunk6396same. Steam Cottage ❤
Yeah, I used to be one of those "I was born in a wrong era" people. Now as much as I wish things are different, I do like hot showers, vaccines, and having some rights waay too much to genuinely want that anymore.
I need my modern bed or my back gets jacked up. I would be crippled sleeping on a hay and rope bed.
I don't need to be alive in a past era, I just need a much better, kinder, slower future.
exactly. I wish for a better future, not to go back to a past that wouldn't be kind to people like me.
Every time someone says this to me (usually in a gotcha-y sort of way about wearing old-fashioned clothes), I tell them about living in a badly-updated Edwardian house where I had to boil water on the stove if I wanted a hot bath.
So well said. Agree wholeheartedly. Among other things, I appreciate the modern conveniences of not dying of diphtheria or tetanus and having a predicted lifespan longer than 40 years.
@stevedorecharley2849 That lifespan thing is an exaggerated myth and I wish it would go away.
As someone who had to move from the rural south to huge city with no green space, I miss cows out my back window. Having a highway blaring 24/7 outside my window makes me understand rural fantasy to my core. I like being safe from hate crimes, but the never ending sirens and concrete is soul crushing
The lack of comfort and green spaces in urban areas is SUCH an issue! I'm now curious if there are urban-planning channels talking about similar themes as in this video . . .
Empathy!! I'm a country kid who lived in cities for most of my 20s. It took me until well into my 30s to be ready to move back someplace quieter, I ended up in a liberal suburb (without an HOA so I can suburban homestead) because of the inclusivity issue and also my desire for easy access to things like healthcare. I hope you can find a place that strikes a balance between peace and safety for you!
All that and you're STILL not really safe from hate crimes 😢
@@SnappyDragon Not Just Bikes has made a few videos on how increasing green space and reducing traffic noise does wonders for people who are stressed in cities. Which, in some areas, is basically everyone in the city because the noise is so intense.
He actually moved from London, Ontario where he had always been a person who needed to "get away to nature", but in Amsterdam finds that he can relax closer to home.
@@heypeskymy partner and I are in the process of figuring out where to live and this is such a struggle. We want to live somewhere that gives us lots of space from other people, partly because of being high risk for covid. But then if we live in a rural area we'll probably have to deal with anti maskers (and other bigoted variants) and healthcare less accessible. My partner is pretty steadfast on not wanting to live in a suburb! But I'm not sure. It's so tough.
I like Dandy Wellington’s line “vintage style not vintage values”
Well, some vintage values would be good. Like living simply. Not wasting stuff.
@@wildmarjoramdieselpunk6396 And self-respect, self-sufficiency, loyalty, and virtue.
I actually retired to a small rural property. I do have electricity & hot water. I've also assisted laboring goats @ midnight, in freezing temps: never lost a baby yet. I use my master bath shower for ill/injured chickens & ducks. I'm usually attired in men's sweatpants (better pockets) and chore boots. I save my nicer clothing for the rare meals in town with my family.
I'm enjoying my Crone years; I adore challenging weather. I know it's not for everyone.
Ya, I had dairy goats for 4 years in, and after, high school (late 80s).
I was definitely not wearing pretty dresses while working with them!
I live rurally also. It’s a lot of work. There is nothing pretty about several layers of clothing, wearing a wool hat indoors in the winter and watching the well level go down in the summer and flushing with saved rainwater. If you think you would like cottage core, start by flipping the breaker switch to the off position for a week and ration your water to two gallons per day per person. And stop eating any food in a box or package. Only veggies, fruit, grains, minimal meat, milk and a few eggs.That will just barely scratch the surface.
Do you have bees? My family are traditional farmers and smallholders and the hives are an absolute blessing, not so much for the honey but the wax, I could list the uses but it's worth it for the boot and bag waterproofing alone. I live in a town now and no one understands my deep love of wax.
It's incredibly important work, and it's a good thing there are people that love doing it!
@@SewingandCaring I do have a struggling hive that someone else abandoned. I have a topbar hive I'm rehabbing, hoping to get the hive moved into this spring.
I was wearing a linen dress(orange) with a bib apron(yellow) because linen feels good and pretty colors when a stranger at the grocery commented, "oh so you've completely embraced cottage core". This was several years ago, and I had to go home and look up what the person meant. When I did, I said hell no. Pretty but I grew up rural and poor. There is no wish for romanticizing such in my life. Again, pretty and linen works really well for my sensory issues. I also enjoy having access to green spaces, but I know how much work that life is. No running away to live off grid or start a farm. Some potted plants are my current speed.
Yeah, it's unfortunate that the clothes (which are lovely and comfy) have such a mythos attatched.
Aprons are so practical too! I made a dirndl one year for Pride and my apron wiped sweat, served as a basket for goodies, and got handed to a friend so he could have a good cry into something soft.
I'm basically a hobbit who can't even keep houseplants alive.
Sometime when I hear about on or off grid, I’m reminded of the Little Caesars commercial
I always find cottagecore dresses a little amusing. 🙂 Beautiful but if I'm gonna milk a goat, I want some wellys, a big coat, and denim.
Speaking of wellies, the shiny ones with pretty florals on them are for people who don’t wear them all day while working.
@@ragnkja I can absolutely recommend neoprene boots having slogged through marshes in early spring in them. They will definitely keep you warm and dry!
Heck, even the dresses I wear for indoor housework are some of the plainest and easiest to wash I own. (I say, wearing a cotton t-shirt dress covered in flour from baking all day)
I love the cottagecore aesthetic but when I'm out doing yardwork it's in overalls and kneepads, usually weilding at least a few concerning looking tools depending what I'm up to 😬
As someone who did leave the city to pursue my dreams of homesteading, I encourage anyone to give it a try. Yes, it does take work and can be messy and dirty but every day I look around and feel so much love for my property and what I am doing. The good out weighs the bad. If cottage core leads someone to start skill building and explore new ways of living then I am all for it.
I'm happy you enjoy it! It sounds like you're really informed and grounded about how hard the work can be.
I think it can be a great life (I would love to give it a go, I think it can be very fulfilling and I like physical work), but the thing to remember is to choose it with open eyes - which I think you did! The problem arises only when people think it's all about the frolicking and arranging flowers in a leisurely fashion haha.
@@AW-uv3cb agreed! Some people like the fantasy better than the reality. That’s sad because the reality of it is very rewarding.
That’s wonderful, Aileen.
Distressed jeans are absolutely a form of modern poverty play for the wealthy. I was a teen in the 90s, and those pre-ripped jeans could cost hundreds of dollars, but you could tell the difference between jeans that were ripped by natural wear and tear of poverty and those bought. The look has come back, and I'm sure the imbalance between the fashionable look and the actual poverty that inspired it is still present.
Oh, yes, that imbalance is very much still present. There is also an element of insensitivity in fashions like distressed jeans. For one thing, not only are they much pricier than regular jeans, they don't last as long, and there are issues with the way that they are manufactured. This "fad" has also created problems with the availability and affordability of non-distressed jeans. Good luck finding a pair that isn't distressed! This makes it harder for those of us on limited incomes to find decent clothes.
When are people who are impoverished like myself, try to dress in a way that makes them look more wealthy, does that mean I'm cosplaying as a rich person? Seems like a cultural exchange for me.
Out of curiosity where do you live? Distressed jeans have fallen out of popular fashion, and are not currently trendy right now. (at least in America)So I actually don't see them in stores often. Even at the thrift store, they are less common than they used to be during their heyday.
@theresemalmberg955
@@xdani_thethinkingneko I live in Michigan and if they've fallen out of fashion there's a lot of teens that haven't got the news.
Yes! I was looking for this comment.
Cottagecore isn't my vibe particularly, but I do understand the lure of wanting to twirl around in linen like a disney princess. Ultimately I think a lot of the appeal of cottagecore is just the ways it feels like an ideal antithesis to our overcrowded lives with too much work for too little reward in depressingly-designed urban flats with an endless stream of increasing doom on our phones. Makes you want to just start a lil chicken coop and make your own hedgerow jam. Except, of course, for the reality that, just as in the past, the only peopl who can actually LIVE the aesthetic have bags and bags and bags of money! Oh well, at least linen's a better fabric for the environment than polyester... I hope (I'll cry if it isn't)
Linen is very strong, sustainable and biodegradable, and it's really nice in hot weather! Polyester takes hundreds of years to break down.
@@rionka That was certainly my impression too! It's a staple in my wardrobe 🥰
Do Not forget Carhart. Originally it was a work wear brand that has since become fashionable. Though it is not connected to any core fashion trend. For several years I lived in a college town right next to a lot of agricultural land. You could almost play a guessing game of whether the guy wearing the carhart jacket was a farmer or wearing it because it was in style.
That Carhart canvas work jacket is the best!
I went to a school with a lot of lumberjacks and lumberjills. Carhart is good stuff! And unlike many work brands that became fashionable (timberlands...) their clothing still seems to hold up well under stress. Granted, I haven't bought new pants in many years, but that's a testament to the quality!
@@sarahr8311 my friend who is a professional gardener swears by her carharts.
oh, certainly! [gestures at her city full of tech bros in workwear or outdoor clothes because of style]
So was Dickies.
I grew up on a farm and have no illusions about the labor involved. I wear Cottage-crore out of the frustration that people told me what I could and couldn't wear my whole life and now I am almost forty and you can't tell me what to do anymore. Heck upon you! I will be a ruffle monster if I want to be. I don't know if I am doing cottage core right or wrong, but I know my hand embroidered aprons will never see the inside of a sheep barn. I know all too well what's in there.
I learned from my farmer relatives that I didn’t want to be a farmer. Though I have done agricultural work. It was hard work, often wading in knee deep water. :/
@@wildmarjoramdieselpunk6396 Our only knee deep water was when there was a bad flood when I was baby. I grew up on stories of my family floating the water buckets from the tap to barn so the animals would have clean water.
Same, like I grew up in 4-H shirts and boys' basketball shirts. I spent my whole childhood romanticizing urban poverty where, according to TV, you could wear makeup and paint your loft however you wanted because you're an 🎨 artist 🖌
Then I found cottagecore and was like "you mean I could have been doing BOTH??? This WHOLE TIME???"
Real small-farm living? Been there, done that! No cutesy linen dresses - cheap jeans and T shirts (flannel shirts in winter). Yes, the real deal is dirty, hard work. And there’s that old saying: “If you have livestock, you will get dead stock.” All that said, though, can’t wait to get back to something similar. It’s just more fulfilling.
Same - like the pretty stuff is nice and all, but I do want the actual real farm life and all the grit and mud that comes with it, and watching rich people play at dress-up for photoshoots is kind of annoying.
Same (kind of). It was only for a few days at a time, but I got to shovel horse manure and move heavy rocks for my mom's friend and found out that I was one of the best young workers she'd ever had. I don't mess around at my jobs unless I know I have luxury to do so (and that includes petting the animals with the person's permission). I have always wanted to work as a ranch hand or something just to see if I could actually do it.
Having the experience does help ease some of my guilt when I dress up in cottagecore since I know it's something I wouldn't wear in the dirt anyways, but I feel pretty in
I had friends who inherited some money and went to homestead on an island off the west of Canada. All acquaintances were welcomed to visit and help. That is where after a day of clearing land I offered to do the cooking for everyone and my partner and I decided that a small garden in suburbia was all we were going to shoot for. This was after growing up camping every summer in canvas tents with no facilities except a tap somewhere. Plus I helped build a country cottage without any power. But land clearing and all that.... nope not happening.
Me too. I grew up in the country outside a small town and loved it. I was also shopping second hand (still do) before it was a trendy thing to do just because I didn't have the money to get new stuff. I still think it was a great way to grow up even with all the hard work that was involved. My parents installed a great work ethic into me and my siblings and we learned the value of a dollar and how to stretch it out when needed.
I still want to go back to that life. 😊
As a teenager till my mid-twenties I worked on a horse farm and thought I never wanted to have to rely on that so went to university, got a degree, worked a decade in an office , went back to shovelling horse shit in my 40s and might still be doing that if the farm owner hadn't passed away. Funny enough, I'm too poor now to buy even a small farm, so though I live in a condo townhouse, I have a huge garden at my friends' place and I keep bees at my mom's. But yeah, my cottagecore look is cargo pants and steel toed workboots... my boss at the farm called it "Lower Barn wear" whenever I was being a true fashion disaster (we had three barns and I worked in the one down the hill called the Lower Barn). I don't garden in anything pretty either, though I did just make myself a new ardening apron to try out tomorrow.
People who romanticise the past think they would have been rich and kept servants, when in all likelihood they would have been the servants. Ask all those people what their great grandparents did for a living, and most won't even know, and if they don't know what they did, they were probably working class. Specially in the USA, most people had immigrant great grandparents, and people who have land and servants don't just migrate to other continents most of the time.
Even the most “upper class” side of my ancestry (the ones who had tenant farms) were far from gentry, since they were heavily involved with the farm work themselves. And since my grandfather’s time, that farm hasn’t had tenants either, since he gave all the copyholders the owner’s deed to their copyholdings when he inherited.
My grandfather came from a wealthy background however his father died when he was about 12 and as the oldest son he had to drop out of school and go to work. This was pre WWI . His wife dropped out of school at 9 to go and work in a kitchen in a big house, her older sisters worked on the streets near the harbour. We never met her family. That is what life would have been for most people.
There's this weird thing where, I think because of how much history education here in the US focuses on high-status people, we sort of forget just how many people were working-class. So unless someone has some specific reason in their heritage to think about it, like my shtettler ancestors, they just . . . don't. We only read about the rich, so that's the picture we have of history.
@@SnappyDragon I remember my mother and my ex mil talking that they had never had their own bed. They went from a bed the shared with their sisters to a bed they shared with their husband. I doubt many people would want that life.
And the thing is, i'm in Germany and among my friends and me, most of us have nobility ancestry for some reason. For example, my partners family ruled over half a dozen villages in the area about 200 years ago. My ancestors on my fathers side were mentioned in some documents as being nordic nobles and later as one of the close families to a Tsar. The father of a friend of mine was born in a castle (they started to rent it out for tourist stuff before my friend was born). Another friend grew up under a family crest in the living room, some norwegian knightage nobles. And so on.
Thing is, each of us has far more 'peasant' ancestry than noble ancestry, but we have it. Even so, noble life was never as people outside of Europe (and many inside of Europe too) seem to imagine. Unless you were of the highest ranks, you had to work your butt off just as everyone else. You were just dressed better, eat better (though on todays standard still poorly) and slept in a better bed. Ofc as a noble you were also additionally responsible to manage and distribute the work - but at the end of the day, you would be as sweaty and dirty as the farmer down the castle hill in the fields.
I told my husband I would be happy to be a trad wife if we followed the Viking model. He gives me all his money, I have the keys to everything in the house/on the property. I'll pay bills and run the household and provide him a weekly allowance. And run any business I want.
I love the idea of cottage core but have decided I can't do a homestead because I'm severely allergic to anything with feathers and fur. Yes it was a dream a while ago. Now I just bake, sew, weave, paint, and do woodwork on my 1/2 acre in suburbia.
I love cottagecore and fairycore. When I was younger I lived and worked on farms for a living and no one complained about my long skirts and peasant blouses. Now I'm over 60 and live in an apartment in the city... I still wear long skirts and peasant blouses but these days I volunteer at renaissance faires; instead of tending to free range poultry, feeding rabbits and goats, before watering acres of my neighbors gardens.. Yes I did give up a house on an acre of land in an area designated by the federal government as Frontier Living. I still hand sew most of my clothes using scraps given to me by my friends or bought at Scrap PDX. Someday I will retire to a fairy bower but not today... today I'm making patchwork pockets.
Do you have an insta page?
@@anynimus1617 nope. Why would I?
@@catherineleslie-faye4302 I was hoping to see your creations and crafting 🙂
what gets me with a lot of cottage core and associated aesthetic, is that it makes things sound easy to do, without appreciation for the fact that there are learned skills. Like, yes, there's the pretending without acknowledging the reality of actual work, but there's also an element that anyone can just pick up a craft or skill and instantly be good at it. Like, even if you're learning to make your own cottage core clothing and whatnot, there's an investment of resources to just learn and practice
Absolutely! Faux-effortlessness is a quality I see in many trends/fads and I despise it every time.
Something I had to learn from medieval research, because no one in cottage core groups could tell me, was "between my first jump rope and my first wearable garment, what do I do with all my junk projects?" You never see anyone wearing a lopsided cardigan or washing their dishes with a failed attempt at granny squares.
(Btw the answer is that you can unravel it for new stuff, or if it's too knotted you just use it as stuffing)
Absolutely positively. I hate when people tell me (with all good intentions) that I'm so talented. Nope, I worked hard for years to earn these skills - and you could too!
And the 'anyone can buy a smallholding and rebuild the tumbledown cottage with nothing more than a glue gun and roll of masking tape ', annoys me
I'd invite people with cottagecore aspirations to do one thing: look up if there are projects to them locally, which attempt to combat food insecurity by growing seasonal crops on shared land - communal allotments, if you will. Volunteer with a project like that to get some idea of what it takes to grow your own vegetables without having to start from scratch, and without having no clue what to do with any surplus you grow (I'm sure many of us have heard about hobby growers trying to foist off courgettes, especially).
I live in a flat, I only have a balcony, and one which is ill-suited to growing veg on (I've tried). In my neighbourhood, we have a volunteer-run project which works and maintains three plots of communal allotments, growing potatoes, cabbages, beans, spinach, onion, etc. etc. which get handed out to people who may just fall short of qualifying for the local food banks.
Oh my goodness, zucchini (I think they're the same as courgettes?) and tomato season is real!
As a child, I dreamed of making a life in the mountains. As an adult, MS took that dream away, so I started working with horses as passive income to feed my own horse-habit. It also kept me living in the city where my doctors were! I don't know how many times I had to go to a grocery store on the way home and I was so dirty or muddy from cleaning stalls, feeding the horses, cleaning the horses, mending the fences, etc., that people would ask me if they needed to call the police for me because they thought I'd been assaulted or in an accident! It didn't occur to them that I was out doing all the 'pastoral' things that they were dreaming about lol! (Carrying two five gallon buckets of water ten times a day will at least keep you skinny!) At least I got to ride my own, well-kept horse at the end of the work day. Whether training or going on a walk in the woods, it was OUR time. Then, I got to scare all of the people at the grocery store and go home to a nice hot shower and a REAL bathroom! That's my idea of cottage-core to the core! 😊
(And, of course, making the historical costumes for the Halloween horse shows! Now that did bring in some money!)
I like my sewing machine and all the meds required to keep my disabled body functioning moderately ok. That said, yes. Yes, we do all like a flowy linen dress.
Me too, friend!
I keep thinking of the "What's classy if you're rich but trashy if you're poor?" memes. And I'm also thinking of the VonDutch and velour track suit trends of the early aughts or even the 90s grunge style ...def not cottagecore, but definitely "poor people cosplay."
It's funny how the poor do something just to exist in the world as best they can, the rich romanticize them and co-opt it, then the middle class copies the upper class and then the upper class rejects it once that happens, and the cycle begins again.
And then some of us with sensory issues just cling to a comfy fashion until it disappears from stores 😂
And the rest of us just say at some point in life, “well, flark it! I’ll do what I want! (Within reason)”.
Yes, this. Look, I was born in the 1950s, at a time when rationing in the UK had in fact not ended. My mum and dad would reuse and recycle all the time. No one in our family ever threw out string or brown paper; when we started using wallpaper, we kept roll ends to cover school books. Etc etc etc. There were 6 of us all together, so leftover food was never a thing, but if there was ANY, it would have onions, potatoes and other veg added to it, get fried up and served as stovies (delicious!). I hardly ever throw food out (hate it - and will only do it if I reckon it is now actually toxic ... damn).
Mum (and her whole family) made so many clothes for us. I was never really taught how to sew, knit, or crochet (or how to read an actual pattern), I just inhaled it from watching mum. Same with cooking. Will not claim I am great at any of it but I can manage!
And, as a student in the '70s I of course loved the hippy aesthetic - another branch of a type of cottage core - but cheap (perfick). I could never really appreciate the 'corporate' vibe of the '80s (which was of course simply a reaction)
But, Yes, I have always felt very iffy about the appropriation of 'poverty driven' fashion (and food, along with other types of style) and feel especially horrible about those who display all this with an entitled 'look at me' mindset, or a holier than though perspective. The hypocrisy boils my p*iss.
I cannot imagine anyone being attracted to modern 'poverty' or labour clothing - because it is almost totally ugly and unsustainable. That said, a LOT of rap culture has developed to bastardise cheap sportswear worn by factory workers, into 'designer' brands (which, frankly, I find incredibly ugly).
But it's everywhere : there is NOTHING that will not be exploited.
Except, perhaps, a corner, a window, an armchair and a damn good book! And a cuppa tea (though I'm a coffee girl)
Sorry, actual historian and it's super important that I post this correction because, and you may not know this, the far right have hijacked rationing and are using it as a reason to justify modern cruelties and antisemitism . By the 1950s rationing had mostly ended, it was only luxury goods that were restricted and even then restricted, not hard to find. The people young enough to have been effected by rationing are now in their 90s, and the people it hurt most were the middle classes. Poor people actually ended up having vastly improved diets than they did before the war, in part because the introduction of allotments meant they had access to free or cheaper vegetables and this is something which rolled through till Thatcher's government started attacking the allotments to hurt the striking miners
My parents, who were from really poor families in the Netherlands really sneered at that worn paint look on furniture. My mother bought second hand frequently and stripped and restored wooden furniture because it was better built then modern stuff. But that worn out distressed look, it was because people were to poor to afford paint, it was never an admired esthetic.
My parents were in similar households to yours, growing up, and I know that attitude with left-overs, and keeping useful bits and bobs has definitely also transferred to me.
@@SewingandCaring Holy crap...no lol
I also like looking at nature. From inside my climate controlled home.
The opener for this is perfection. I love your historical videos so much.
Nature is nice! . . . for a day. With a real bed afterwards.
In the Philippines, I guess there is a form of this in romanticizing the countryside or provinces.
An obvious example of this are many of the paintings by the artist Fernando Amorsolo
Or the fact alot of the old filipino movies that survive now that come from the 1930s to the 1960s always involve the countryside and/or characters that come from it
As well as the archetype or image of the "Dalagang Bukid", or that a form of cottagecore ensemble is the Filipino ensemble known now as the "Balintawak".
Though I now wonder now about different countries version of cottagecore🤔
I'm not Peruvian, but I've spent a lot of time there. One of Peru's big cottage core pieces of clothing is their version of a pollera (an awesome poofy skirt): a lot of rural women in the Andes work in theirs, as the wool of the skirt as well as the petticoats keep them warm in the alpine temperatures, but there are also festival versions of the garment, as well as fancy dress variations
The Chinese countryside ASMR videos used to make their rounds on my feed plenty. They did come off as romanticized, but also showed the labor of country living.
In Singapore we have Peranaken style which is beautiful with beaded shoes and lace trimmed batik suits. Only the Singapore air crew wear it though. We are far too close in time to our kampong poverty life to want to return. The ladies who wore the suits would have been wealthy. Occasionally you see the men wear sarongs in the industrial areas but that’s because they are so cooling and still practical. It’s not dress up.
I have always figured that Cottage core in it's many forms was the urbanite's way of dealing with stress. Escapism with a historical veneer. Clothing is an easy out. Change your clothes and your attitude in one fell linen swoop. Stressing about the fact that you dropped two dinner plates? Grab something from the local second hand store. If it doesn't match, well... cottage core. You really like to cook, but no one in your social set does... cottage core strikes again. You can add historical reenactment to this file too. I know so many SCAers that love their garb, and slowly it leaks into their 'modern' life.
In many ways, it absolutely is!
I mean, my whole garb costs less than any of my IRL work clothes. My 9 yard leine was half the price of a pair of jeans, and has twice the pockets😂
@@PrincessNinja007 I agree! My garb also costs less than my mundane wardrobe, and will last much longer.
I grew up rural (when the power went out, it could very well be out for DAYS before the eletric company bothered to come out and fix it, we used a wood stove to heat my childhood home until well into my adolescence when my parents finally switched to oil heat, my godfather raised cows, etc), so I have a passing familiarity with the struggles of real-life cottagecore. I now live in a much more urban/suburban area, and I enjoy having my modern conveniences (and being hooked up to city water!! and electric!!), but I do still enjoy the aesthetic of cottagecore. Mostly because I am absolutely the kind of person who is go-go-go all the time, and cottagecore reminds me to slow down, enjoy the moment and the beauty of the world around me, savor the small joys, and not be too hung up on tiny imperfections. I also have a distinct weakness for pretty floral dresses! I'm never going to be a homesteader, but I do grow some pretty good patio tomatoes.
Does anyone who's into cottagecore actually think they're acting out a historical reality? I always got the impression eveyone knew it was highly romanticised. Interesting to learn the history of romantic pastoral themes - I love how people are people and we keep recycling the same ideas and trends over and over.
I'm so glad you brought up country music because cottagecore often reminds me of my brother's suburban cowboy phase in high school.
It actually only crossed my mind as I was writing, which is why I didn't dig deeper into it. Well, that, and saving the deep dive into certain political ideologies for next time . . .
I had to pause partway through and was thinking how much it was reminding me of country.... but there is actually a huge fashion element to it. Country Western fashion is based on workwear developed by very rough living livestock workers trying to survive in an often inhospitable environment. As the money rolled in the fabric went from hard wearing canvas and leather with edges cut in fringes to better shed the rain to bedazzled satin and turquoise encrusted silver belt buckles the size of your head.
Yes. I have cousins who have always lived suburban lives but have adopted country music and the associated aesthetics, go to ranches for vacations, etc. I just saw one of them and her husband wearing their cowboy hats in London, England. Meanwhile I grew up rural and am NOT into that at all. We didn't keep farm animals ourselves (it was more a logging and fishing community), but helped care for those of our neighbors, caught and raised a fair amount of our own food, etc. Honestly, I get kind of upset at the cosplay and political signaling, particularly because we were looked down upon for unfashionable country ways. We weren't poor or poorly educated, just behind the times a bit.
And somehow I'm considered the elitist...
I was thinking the same thing watching this video. It takes a lot of money to own horses, have a nice, fancy farm, etc. (I'm not talking about all farmers). Like, have the esthetic of a Country music video lifestyle.
As a fashion person with certain 'sensibilities,' the phrase 'suburban cowboy' makes me want to cry a little. On the upside, it's legit that you can get a flannel-look polyester shirt from Walmart. Cowboy aesthetic for everyyyyoonnnne!
I had too much coffee today 😂
Ruth Goodman is iconic and I hope she does another “farm” type series soon (though she’s done 17th, 19th, and 2 20th century so I imagine she’d want to branch out from farming or fill in the gap with 18th though I don’t know how much different 18th and 17th century rural life were)7
Just doing laundry the "old way" is something I would't like to do.
They also did Tudor Monastery Farm (kind of exploring a world in England before the Reformation) - but for me, it's the 17th c one, 'Tales of the Green Valley': it was *amazing* - they did a whole year there, & you get such an encompassing idea of what the farming year looks like around this time.
But as much as I was fascinated by the subject (& it represented some good research)- God knows I wouldn't survive in that time without a couple of pallets of high-strength Voltaren, but at least they had gin to get blotto on...
Tales of the Green Valley is one of my comfort watches!
Tales From The Green Valley is also one of my comfort shows! The Wartime and Edwardian farm series are also comfy to me, because I grew up in a dairy/beef ranching family, so that's the technology my grandparents were familiar with and nostalgic for (which meant I learned about it through them).
But yeah, I don't recommend old-fashioned laundry. I didn't have a washing machine for a few years while I lived in an old worker's cottage, and I didn't want to walk to the laundromat, so I washed all my laundry like a victorian. It was a lot of heavy lifting, a lot of sloshed water on my ankles, a lot of being up to my elbows in gross water, and probably an accumulated 3 months of Tuesday afternoons utterly devoted to just washing clothes. I was always tired as a dog afterwards, and probably wouldn't have made dinner had I not been on a schedule of cooking a HUGE batch of something on Monday afternoon so I'd have leftovers for a few days. Though I did benefit in that I learned how to spot-clean my clothes like a champion (a skill I still apply for stains before they go in the washing machine), and I was the most in shape I've been except for now when I'm weightlifting regularly and a few years before the victorian laundry when I was on a wrestling team.
I grew up on a farm so I love the dark side. It’s part of the fun to me.
I did run away from the big city and live in a caravan in the middle of a 17acre paddock belonging to a local farmer. I love the quiet and peace of being here and being able to have a couple of ponies to ride and care for. I live completely off grid. You are correct in that there's more outdoor work and the middle of winter when everything is mud and you have to go out a shift a fence to break feed is not always pleasant especially when you pony tips you over her head to land headfirst in a muddy ditch and end up with one side of you covered in mud! I will never go back to the city, I am on a very low income due to disability so I do all the things needed to survive, mend, make do and preserve food. I sew a lot of my garments and add my own style. It's harder than life in the city but I love it.🎄
I like your life, Louise 🌺. With rents rising, I think it’s better than city life.
I was born in Houston, Tx. My mom and grandpa hated the big city, so we moved north to a rural area between Huntsville and Livingston when I was 11, I’m 34 now. We live 29 miles from the nearest city and I love it here. I grew up caring for horses and goats, growing vegetables, and learning practical skills. I also hunted for fairies, spent time reading folktales, and went foraging. All these things, I am now teaching my two children. My little son says we live in the Magical Grand Forest. I love it ❤
I like my nice, climate-controlled house. I like my comfy bed, the modern medications that help me, my kitchen gadgets...all that. That being said, it helped my mental health a lot to unplug from most social media and start keeping a paper and pen journal and take up embroidery as a hobby (both have the blessing of my therapist AND my psychiatrist).
The ideal is to have *all* the options and combine them as we see fit! You will pry my handsewing from my cold dead claws . . . right along with my smartphone.
I would never want a homestead. I couldn't handle it. I do want to add some honeyberry bushes to my yard. The jostaberry I added last summer is flowering. I like growing raspberries in pots. I want to switch my Annes for Lathams at some point. I like my gardening jeans. I like my linen clothes, but I'd never get them dirty by doing yardwork in them.
Me neither! I belong in a house in the city with a little bit of outside for sitting in and growing herbs. I don't even think I want a yard or a pet unless I live with other people who will share the work of maintaining it.
I have heard the concept that fashion reflects what society in that moment lacks. The women’s uniforms in original Star Trek being miniskirts because the fashion of the time being repressive and conservative. That very conservative/controlled style of the 50s being a backlash against the uncertainties of wartime.
So you nailed it that the people who could afford to choose fashion lean into a representation of what they lack.
Nice insight. Thank you.
My Great-Aunt passed away in the early 90s, having refused to allow electricity into her (North Yorkshire) farmhouse. What had happened is when gaslighting came in the farm one side of her burnt down, and then when electricity came in the farm the other side went up in smoke. Which left her in the middle crossing her arms and saying that candles and the cold pantry had been fine before so why change everything. There was solid ice on the inside of the windows in the winter but that was ok because we had to be up and doing by 4am and that would keep us warm, it got very old very very quickly.
Oh goodness I can understand that logic!
Cottage core got me into mending because at first I found patches and mending cute. They were signifiers of poverty back in the olden days but nowadays the fact that I had the time and skill to do this is showing middle class.
But the thing that I really love about mending and patches, is that these shorts I bought from Walmart were once something millions of other people owned but now it is a unique piece of clothing no one but me has.
I have a lot of fun mending the knees on my son's little jeans. We pick out cloth together, or I'll give him options of what shapes he wants me to patch with. But if I'm being honest with myself, part of the appeal is that I'm able to do it for fun, in a way that says "his mama spends time on his clothes" instead of "he's got to wear worn out clothes". There's also an element of "ooh, I want to practice a new thing I learned" and "those pants don't get to decide when they're done. They're not done till I'm done with them!" stubbornness, lol.
Yeah the kids who made fun of my DIY patches are cottagecore and MFH girlies now
Can't recommend the Farm Series enough to get a good idea what life was like back then (happy to hear you mention it and Ruth!).
I think my biggest pet peeve is how Cottage Core (and many other cores) gatekeep the ever living shart out of it. I love seeing unique takes from minorities who also enjoy the aesthetic, but you-know-whos push them out. (As soon as I typed this you mentioned it in the video lol).
I've always lived in cities, and I am the sort of person who is always gogogo. I am always trying to do something. Maybe it's chores, maybe it's high action video games, crafting, sewing, hiking, walking. I sometimes struggle with remembering to take some time for myself and rest. Trying to live a bit more of a cottagecore life is reminding me to slow the feck down sometimes. Appreciate the things I have. Make what I already own more pleasing to look at. My showers have nice handmade soap bars, instead of just bottles of stuff from the grocery store. My kitchen has a lot of different tea blends I love to drink instead of boxes of soda. I sometimes get pastries and sip tea while reminding myself life is pretty alright. My bedroom is full of souvenirs I bought or made while traveling, lots of live plants and some crafted goods from renaissance festivals and tons of thrifted items. It helps me think less about all the things I could be doing, and appreciate all the things I have done.
Years ago, I read an excellent book called 'The Good Old Days - They were Terrible' by Otto Bettmann. It's a true wake-up call to the realities that existed in many facets of American life. We do the actual people who lived during those times a real disservice by discounting how hard their lives were when we romanticize those times. Does anyone remember 'The 1900's House' series that aired on PBS years ago? It's worth a view if you can find it. Those people were so happy to return to modern life. We can do a lot to live simpler, slower lives by turning off our screens.
It makes me think of the Shabby Chic stuff they used to sell at Target for ridiculous prices that I could never justify paying. Now I buy them stained at thrift stores and dye them and sew myself dresses from them.
Just. The irony of paying huge amounts of money for something that looks like it's falling apart, is brand new, and will actually BE falling apart in a year or so!
I’ve never really thought too much about where these trends come from and why, so thank you for this. I absolutely agree with a lot of these points. For myself, I would run away to farm life in a heartbeat but i’m physically not able to. We are trying to set up a garden instead, which is proving difficult enough. I was a vet tech before I became disabled, and miss working with animals, so I’m going to attempt to get my city to approve of having chickens and/or goats as well, because they are currently not allowed. I think the appeal in the aesthetic for me though, is absolutely the fantasy aspect of it. I know the garments are impractical. Having taken care of animals in mud and rain and gods knows what else, I 100% know what clothes work, and what ones don’t. I still love the dresses though. It’s about feeling comfortable and pretty, not getting sweaty and grimy while processing a bunch of flax into spinning fiber XD For that I choose to wear t-shirt and jeans. Ones I don’t care much about, lol. Like a proper country girl in modern times stuck in a suburb.
I think most of us are simply wanting to craft our own tiny realities because let’s face it, actual reality sucks balls. I know that’s what I try and do. It’s trying to find some sense of control, where a lot of us have none. If I can make my own world pretty, maybe, just maybe, it will rub off on others and help us all be a little less overwhelmed.
I am very overt about my dream of pulling a full Hameau de la Reine. If I was a millionaire I would gladly patronage people to run a successful farm for their livelihood so long as they would politely ignore me rolling up to cuddle the farm animals and maybe take some of their fruit.
As far as the fashion is concerned, i liked cottagecore better when it was called mori girl.
I've dedicated entire days to making loaves of bread and a big pot of soup and pans of roasted veggies. I've spun and plied 4 oz of wool to the finer end of sportweight thickness on a drop spindle and pencils for bobbins in the span of 2 weeks. I've used glass bottles and thrifted sketchbooks in place of a darning egg/mushroom to mend and reinforce my work pants with even lines of stitches only three threads long. I've knit socks with a pattern i rewrote to suit my guage and measurements with my own handspun silk and wool yarns. I've had so many "cottagecore bitches wish they were me" moments and i still can't stand the cottagecore aesthetic. I grew up in rural poverty and nothing they do inspires my nostalgia for it.
There's no crouching in overall shorts and flannel shirts to pick berries. No OSB walls. No sink baths. No native art. No muddy boots or sawdust on eyelashes. No long car rides into town for grocery trips.
It's not like my house with my broke family. It's like the rich people that lived miles away, or their nice lake houses. They just like to dress like they're a Disney peasant or a Little House on the Prairie extra
I am using the phrase Disney Peasant!!! It's perfect!
I think another appeal of cottage core activities is the idea that it’s ok if we really are just 1 step ahead of poverty. You brought up preserving food, something I am proud of and enjoy doing, but also something that in the back of my mind might yet be essential.
Yes, in the back of my head there's always this ideia that if the zombie apocalypse (or climate apocalypse) comes, at least I'll be a little more prepared--and might have skills I can barter...
So a lot of us are there now! One fired job away from chaos.
Ngl I’m so excited for the video on Morris but I’ll be honest, my favourites will always be his wife and daughters, especially May (who I am SO glad is getting more recognition that she deserves bc she was fascinating and made some beautiful art).
It was because of my interest in her that I found out about the school she helped establish that is still open to this day: the Royal School of Needlework. And as of last month I am currently taking classes hoping to earn my degree in Hand Embroidery 😊
Oh believe me I have THOUGHTS on how the women of the pre-Raphaelite/Arts and Crafts movements are all thought of as models/muses/partners and not artists in their own right! Heck, Elizabeth Siddal was being paid a hefty yearly salary for her art while Rosetti was struggling to get work.
Furthermore, though the current cottagecore trend was sorta starting before the pandemic, I think it took hold because we were all stuck and home and recognized how ugly our lives had become (figuratively and literally). Like, so many houses in my town were painted in 2020 and 2021, it's wonderful! I for one am sick of atheleisure as every day casual wear, so I love the "cottage core" style as a way to dress comfortably and still be put together and feel pretty. I save the workout leggings and t-shirts for the really dirty yard work and mowing, and of course, exercising.
Once I studied history (and had a hard enough time of loneliness and boredom on my family's tiny plot with lots of gardens and chickens as a kid), I recognized that back then was not "better," especially if you were a woman, even a wealthy one. I do enjoy my tiny plot in my metal box (a trailer! the original tiny home!) and my rose bushes, but I also like electricity and indoor plumbing. Though, gardening is hard becaus I don't have an outside hookup for a hose, so I have to haul buckets from the bathtub. A reverse of ye olden days.
I haven't really seen anyone talk about cottagecore much beyond the clothing aspect of it. It always struck me as more of a fantasy about moving out in the country and gardening rather than an old timey farm thing. "Living my cottagecore dream" summons thoughts of a small house with a vegetable garden and a lot of flowers, still in the modern day with modern amenities, just not a super modern decor style. That sounds really nice to me, although gardening is pretty messy and still a lot of work. Whatever is actually happening in the cottagecore community(?) according to you, a person who has actually done the research, sounds bonkers.
I remember watching one of those PBS specials were families lived in a pioneer setting and one of the women was lamenting the very hard work. She said she’d imagined herself sitting by a stream reading a book and I thought, “Did you not read Little House on the Prairie? Ma Ingalls was working from sunup to sundown.” Even in her romanticized, slightly fictional stories it was clear how much work mothers had to do! Ma never sat by a stream reading a book! Even if you read Anne of Green gables, Anne is out in nature, but Marilla is working constantly. She’s even shelling peas when her friend is visiting. Adulting in the past was hard. Adulting now is hard. Escapist fantasy is fun!
This was really well done! I remember when the prairie aesthetic was big in the late 70's/early 80's, but also grew up hearing my great-grandmother's tales of living in a sod house and later challenges of dust storms on the prairie. Those ladies often gave up a safer life for a harder and less certain future, so love the fashion, but honor their hard work
Yes, I remember this in the 70's it was called prairie, then French country, shabby chic, farmhouse, now cottagecore. It really isn't new. I think now in lifestyle aesthetics it's more specific in style and color palettes due to the Internet. So you get all the subgenres of styling. Overall, each time I see the country or pastoral theme there is always a nuance to the styling that seems to match whatever the current trends are. Most fashion and modern decor lifestyles are romanticized. 🌸🍄🌼🌾
Thank you for this great video 💚🌟🐛🌻
I am superficial and self indulgent enough to admit that my favorite bits of cottage core tend to be the natural signs of the turning of the seasons.
.I would rather have the illusion of whimsical planting, tending & harvesting than the harsh truths of injury, overheating, sunburn, crops or flowers that get diseased or refuse to grow, hauling water, hand washing out the dirt, and, even the debilitating & pervasive allergies
So, gazebos & resplendent trellises with pretty teacups & impractical soft & adorned garments hold much appeal for me
I had livestock when I was in high school. Even with modern amenities, it is a lot of work!
I don't even have the energy for a pet 🤣
@@SnappyDragon omg I have 3 cats, two neurodiverse kids (17 & 20) and three cats, and my 81yo mother and RA/fibro (and I'm guessing, based on the number of neurodiverse people I am surrounded by, I am probably not neurotypical either.)
I'm so so tired.
Did I mention three cats?
I could never quite articulate what bothered me about the cottagecore aesthetic when I first encountered the term, or the "farmhouse" and/or "shabby chic" of previous decades, but I think it's this: having grown up on a working farm, I instinctively recognized the inherent impracticality of gauzy curtains and bare floors in a house without modern insulation or windows. I know just how much work goes into chopping firewood, growing vegetables, preserving food, and milking cows (even with modern mechanization). Real rural life is all about minimizing effort and maximizing results, just as in any other business.
My husband and I do have a small homestead. Basically it's one foot in a simple life and one foot in the present. And it works for us. And if this is cottage core, honestly, the look should be rubber boots, big hats and rags for wiping sweaty brows. BTW-the comment about 'more wool in their ears than on their backside'...spot on! Great video.
Oh thank goodness, I have no actual experience of caring for sheep so I was going off descriptions. I'm glad it was accurate!
Cottage core dresses. Perfect for caring for my collection of My Little Ponies who never farted, spitdrooled or decided to urinate, or defecate - while I'm trying to brush them. In the magical land of comfortable temperatures, and low UV ratings.
You forgot biting
Not to mention how many people who pretend to actually be doing the actual work in aesthetic ways actually have people doing the work behind the scenes...
Anyway. I for one wish we had more men dressing in cute aprons and talking about the food they're making for their wife (or husband). Make it neutral so it's less right-charged, AND letting men get some of the rest and the beauty instead of constant messages of toxic masculinity.
Co-signing this. Also yes to men doing crafts of their choosing within this aesthetic, be it cabinetry or knitting.
I did once have a guy flirt with me by first complimenting a dress I had made, then telling me he was learning to mend his own clothes, and later telling me about his kintting projects. It got him a date-- although the date was later cancelled for unrelated incompatibilities.
Menfolk, take note? 🤣
As someone who's poor and rural himself, I can say it's not worth idealising. With that said though, getting away from stressors and trying to live a simple life is something I'd recommend to everyone, regardless of where they live and their wealth.
Well, even if you are poor and rural, you can still read a good book under a tree and philosophize about life. Poor doesn’t equal ignorant or dumb…which is a stereotype my family grew up with. :/
Dunno who else can relate to this, but I came to cottage core from the other end. I grew up with that "bud light bottle feeding a calf" childhood, but I wasn't allowed to do things that were girly or sensitive or artsy. Cottagecore was my first introduction to the idea that I could be all those things without having to up and move to an equally idealized big city apartment
I wonder how many people think NYC life is like what they saw in tv shows and movies- big apartments, pretty front steps, friendly shop people. 😂
I left NY a long time ago and have no regrets. I knew the reality very well.
Farm life is awesome. Hard work but if you learn it and are willing to work hard, it has rewards
Another fascinating deep dive! Thank you, V!!
I grew up in NYC in the 60s. In the early 1970s my parents, fed up with the chaos of urban life and burnt out, became enamoured with the idea of a peaceful life in the rural countryside, and they decided to buy a working farm in New England along with some friends of theirs, and off we went to the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. We were all shocked with the reality of rural life, as opposed to the rural idyll that we had envisioned. More people lived on my block in Manhattan than in the entire six-mile-square township we moved to. Our indoor plumbing was minimal: no shower and only one toilet that emptied into an overfull litchfield that stank to high heaven in warm weather. Work was endless, endless tedium. People in the area were nice, but they couldn't really relate to my parents, who were highly educated and politically and economically socialist in their views, nor could my parents relate to our neighbors' experiences of actually living this life. Through the years my dad took on two full-time jobs on the side and my mom one full-time job just to make ends meet, and it wasn't enough. After seven years (by which time I was living on my own) my parents decided to sell the place. It was too economically and emotionally stressful for them to stay.
From what I've read, this repeated a pattern of escaping to "the simple life" that has existed at least as far back as Roman times -- probably further. The romanticized ideal of rural life didn't stand a chance against the realities of country living and subsistence farming. This doesn't have much to do with cottage core in fashion, but it is based in the same impulse.
Oooo! Love the references! I've already managed to find several of those people on my own.
I think the issue is that we're lied to in both ways. Is subsistence farming hard? Hell, yes. But just statistically, it feeds a ton more people on the planet than industrial/commercial systems, with orders of magnitude less waste. Did people work hard in the past? Hell, yes. But so much of what we count as work from then we count as leisure now. Cleaning house, cooking, maintenance, etc. are hella easier, but not nothing. Also, people did a whole lot less work in the dark, due to the expense of fuel.
The average American is living paycheck to paycheck working at least 40 hours a week on top of maintaining a household, going in debt to buy groceries and pay utilities. So yeah, it's appealing to imagine just turning that work into food and house maintenance without the debt. It might be a foolish fantasy for many, but it makes sense given how vulnerable people are while working so hard.
I think the best case scenario would be a balance. Running water and a garden. Washing machines and the knowledge and capabilities to fix basic things in your own house. Sergers and a common practice of people making their own clothes. Some convenient, cheap, mass-produced items, and a healthy local artisan and craft economy. Modern healthcare and daily physical activity outside.
Subsistence farming was once so successful as a lifestyle in the US, the government put out propaganda depicting it as lazy to push people off farms and onto corporate payrolls. The less people can do for themselves, the more we have to buy with money we make by working for corporations, the more those corporations can and will exploit us. We don't need to move to the country and become farmers, but I think we do need to restore basic life skills like growing and cooking food, making our own clothes, maintaining our own homes, etc. as common, basic knowledge. And to change laws and systems to support this.
Yes, all of this! You'll never get me to give up my washing machine and dishwasher, but I also love having a garden, and learning to preserve the food that comes out of it! And do I sometimes wear pretty linen dresses while I do those things? Absolutely!
I’ve never had a dishwasher. 😂 I dread being at someone’s house and having to figure out how to load and run it.
As a U.S.American, there's something colonial about the romanticizing of "living off the land". I'm not Native, and I'm sure there has been actual writing/research into this. For me, it's just the European aesthetic planted onto stolen lands combined with the "living off the land" and "being one with nature" romanticization. Feels not just inauthentic in a fantasy/escapism way, but also in a way that ignores the history of the land you would be living off of.
There's also the ecological aspects of agriculture, that sort of tie into it. European farming practices that weren't properly adjusted to the Americas' climates and ecosystems have historically caused problems (Dust Bowl, for example). It's just another way the aesthetics don't actually consider the realities of agriculture, farming, or even just gardening. Home gardens aren't always the most ecological optimal option when it comes to produce.
I'm really rambling, but Cottagecore is a pretty aesthetic with a lot of weird implications if you think about it.
It's not colonial, it's middle class America. Being lower class gives you so many more real problems to solve that you don't have time for posturing and elaborate fantasy. It becomes your everyday life and you just have to get through. It's not an option to give up. At least, that's my personal take.
I really like living in big cities. My parents grew up in rural areas, and going back to visit family without running water really helped me understand how much background mental stuff gets put towards keeping track of weather, propane delivery, and regulating temperature at home--among things.
Cottage core's clothes are really cute, but there was no place for nice clothes beyond going to Sunday services, weddings, and funerals, at least in my family's history.
Big cities, in temperate areas-- I moved as far away from winter as I could get and still live somewhere green 🤣
Farming involves too much hard work and pus for me. I just learned about lash eggs which are ball of solid, cheese-like pus chickens with infections can lay which can make you ill to touch and I’m never, ever keeping chickens.
I’ll just frolic in fields in pretty dresses and go straight home to the city!
It is nice to grow up with farmers. You learn a lot of survival skills. :)
My grandma actually grew up on a farm and it wasn’t glamorous. Up until she was a teenager they only had an outhouse and had to live very frugally. Her mom canned and her dad farmed the land.
Ripped jeans costing as much as a months rent are definitely appropriation.
Every time I see ripped jeans all I can think of is do a brake job and a clutch on your car and your cheap jeans will look just like that, and it’s free!
cottage core is basically a preppy farm girl. I am a farm girl that wakes up before sun rise to feed my chickens and water the massive veggie and fruit garden. then i make coffee and get my kid ready for school. it is hard work!!!! also i own a 100 year old cottage house in all original. Im only living this lifestyle cuz I cant afford buying groceries. I have solar panels to save money and grow my own food.
Cottage core clothes still appeals to me despite growing up with horses a goat and chickens and I think it’s because I love the Renaissance festival and have loved it ever since I was little I love the faux historical outfitting it reminds me of something that is knotted to my life while being appropriate as public daily wear. It’s more about my past as someone who would write on big leaves and tell my little sister they were fairy letters or look up ‘MERMAIDS REAL PROOF’ every day after school. I hate chickens and don’t want a farm I do however miss trying to force magic to be real and looking for a witch stone so I could see fairies and I want to dress like someone who loves that bit of my past
I love the idea of making my own clothes since I do that for reenactment anyway and like to wear my reenactment clothes outside of events because they’re comfy and make me feel pretty
The ad transition! *chefs kiss* We agrarians jokingly say ‘living the dream’ when slogging through hard tasks because unaware people say it so often.
I feel our ancestors would give us a quick kick in the pants if we didn't take advantage of all the lovely conveniences we enjoy. I, too, very much enjoy nature - when I look out a window I'm as fond as the next person to gaze upon a well kept garden with some flowers and suchlike - that someone else put together and maintains 😁
There's a tumblr post that makes the rounds every now and again where a college student describes herself eating fried chicken while she studies, and her ancestors are looking on going "She can study like an imperial scholar and eat like an imperial concubine? Our descendant is so successful!!!"
I'd like to think that my shtettler ancestors are very pleased with my ability to run a business, keep a house, and host a great dinner party, although probably rather confused about where my sweet-but-clueless rabbi husband is.
@@SnappyDragon Yes, they would be so proud and boast to the whole town 😊 Though, yes, there might be confusion over the man not necessarily in the picture - I think our ancestors would love the conveniences but we'd probably have to help them along with certain current social mores.
Ive always daydreamed about having my own lil homestead up in the mountains....but I do love having the internet and air-conditioning :P
Well you can have both of those modern amenities nowadays. It really just depends on if you get said home updated if it's an old home or you add those in if you're building a new home. Just takes money is the main hurdle.
Solar and wind power.
Thank you for the deep dive. I do sometimes wear clothing that matches this aesthetic, but I also wear clothing from other styles, including medieval and renaissance historical ones. I don't particularly care for some of the associations with several of the aesthetics I enjoy the visual effects of; I just look for things that are comfortable and make me happy to wear.
I do end up doing most of my own cooking, enjoy sewing and other hand crafts, and like spending time either sitting in a cozy chair with a book or spending time outside. But if I have messy chores to do or it's bad weather, I dress for that rather than looks.
Homesteading or any other kind of farm life sounds like way too much "getting up at 4am" and not enough "mosquito-free sleeping" for me. I would like a patio, with a lemon tree and a serious container garden. That's about the limit. There's nothing wrong with wanting to live on a farm -- some people thrive on that lifestyle and are miserable in towns & cities. I am not those people, but someone needs to be because food doesn't grow itself.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to be a housewife, or with only considering people who could & would support that as potential partners. The problem with the tradwife thing is that the movement is wrapped up in the idea that it's God's Plan For Your Life and therefore following any other lifestyle (or belief system) mean you are a sinner and not good enough and etc, no matter what the reason for not doing it is.
Exactly! The issue is not about whether anyone should or should not live in the country, farm for a living, or be a housewife. It's about having the choice of what's the right path for you.
I live in a cottage in the uk. It would have been a hovel before it was added to and cleaned up. I love it. I can’t see anything out my windows but green and birds and the odd rabbit and occasional deer or fox. It’s quiet and the air is pure. In winter we have a log fire. But we also have running water and central heating. You can have the best of both worlds.
The real downsides are total reliance on cars to get food and well anything, the mud, the power cuts, all the spiders, mice in the attic, and a lot of work to keep the garden in shape. In winter it’s very boring. On a good sunny day I am in my hammock in my wood and serving meals outside under the apple tree surrounded by roses and cottage garden flowers. It’s all real. But I wear work trousers and a t shirt and mud boots pretty much 24/7.
Both of my parents did a lot of ranch work when I was growing up. They went where the work was. Even if that meant it was on a ranch so big that it could take two days just to get into town from the main living area. So I grew up doing the hard work along with them, along with a lot of the garden and cooking work around the main houses. Even after we officially settled in Texas because my mom got a town job, they still kept up with the lifestyle of owning farm animals and growing a good 90% of what we ate. I was expected to help out with all of that as well, before and after school. So when all of the city people started moving to the smaller towns in Texas for a "simple, country life" because it looked fun and cute online, I hate to admit I got some kind of sick enjoyment from watching them come to the realization that it wasn't all fun. The work is hard and depending on what you are doing, it is the kind of work that means you can't just up and go on vacation when you want because those animals will need to be fed or milked. I will say the one good thing about this lifestyle trend is that it means people who understand the hard work can get a lot of good deals on animals and equipment when people eventually throw in the towel 🤣
This feels like the same thing as when I see people’s rogueish pirate adventure fantasies as a professional tall ship sailor-none of that clothing is practical, and they clearly haven’t experienced the rain, cold, and sleep deprivation yet. 😆 and yet there’s no way they’d know that, and the pirate fantasy is appealing in large part as a contrast to the norms of daily life today, so I can’t fairly blame them for enjoying it either.
i moved off grid onto a farm out of financial necessity, and while i was there, i hand sewed a beautiful white linen skirt that’s absurdly flowy & voluminous to try to romanticize my life & make the situation less upsetting, but it was such an impractical garment that i never wore it outside of photo shoots. i’ll probably only ever wear it to ren faires now.
I wanted to homestead since I was a girl. Because of disability, I never thought I could have the reality. Now I am married and we have a small, 6-acre homestead. I sometimes wear jeans, but sometimes I wear dresses or skirts, even out into the animal pen (just not church-nice fabrics). Nothing is romanticized out here, but I love my little homestead. I also love wearing dresses and skirts.
I am anxiously awaiting the video on the history of LARPing because rich people pretending to be simple country folk definitely seems like LARPing to me. I get the appeal of cottage core & pastoralism etc but I grew up on a working farm/ranch & believe me the reality =/= the fantasy. I can still remember the smell...🤢
This is such a good way to put it!
I live in a not very large village, so this time of the year I don’t need a very long memory to remember the smell of pig dung in the fields.
This is so true. I grew up in a very isolated place in the woods in a hand built cabin with no source of heat other than fire. My mother even regularly had to cook on a wood stove when the electricity went out, which was a regular occurrence. And when the electricity went out, we also had no water. As an adult, I live a completely different life as a suburban professional. I’d rather be boiled in oil than have to go camping, which all my friends seem to love to do.
Not to rub it in anyone's face, but I know how incredibly lucky I am in this. My in-laws have had another child dramatically and angrily leave the church, so when we just told them calmly and gave a muted explanation it went really well. They've always been pretty chill and they don't treat us any differently so far. I feel so bad for everyone that has different experiences, my mom was the staunch Mormon and she passed a few years ago
Maybe you missed the trend of making jeans look worn without actually using them. Start with stone washed; rips and fraying at the knees then thighs; pre-stained, the faux mud being the stupidest expression of “I can afford to fake it because I don’t have to make it.”
I grew up rural (urban now). I've had some friends move to the country. Some of them knew what they were getting into, but others were surprised when I told them they were going to have to learn about septic tanks and Franklin stoves, and would most likely need to buy a chest freezer.
"Oh, I prefer to grocery shop two or three times a week." Not when you're stuck in the middle of nowhere in bad weather you don't.
What I find puzzling about cottage core is that to me it looks very... townie. Farmers where I'm from dress like the characters in the show Letterkenny (because I'm not too far from the actual Letterkenny, Ontario) -- denim, spandex, t-shirts, and buffalo check.
Pretty day dresses are... pretty, but they're for people who live in town.
Also, modern farming is still hard work, but not nearly as bad as what people had to do before the invention of tractors!
Another also: actual farm owners can be quite well-to-do, even if they wear denim all the time. Get a real farmer talking shop and they will show themselves to be very engaged in business.
And this is why I will always be one of the people who lives in town . . .
I have farmers in my family who have done quite well. :)
During the Great Depression my mother’s family (7 children) lived in the country in a house that had no central heating or water heater. They had a pot-bellied stove that only heated the kitchen. They had to carry water to a metal tub from the stove top. They had to run to the cold bedroom to get in their pajamas on. This was in Northern Ontario, which had rough winters. This was only 90 yrs ago! People think life was easier in earlier times. It wasn’t.
I think people tend to forget how good modern conveniences are until they go without them.
Go a month without indoor plumbing during the middle of winter, then I might believe you when you say you want to go back to a simpler life.
I was furious even going without heated water for two weeks!
I love hiking and camping and roughing it, but by golly a sit down toilet in a heated room with running water is a marvelous thing to have
As a middle-class mom of toddlers in a rural "city" I like to use the ideas cottage-core/hobbit-core to romanticize the tasks I'm already doing. That said the word "trad-wife" gives me so much ick, ew, no. But whenever I'm gardening, or tending the chickens, or canning my harvest or trading plant seeds with my friends at the library, I imagine hobbiton and pretend I'm there, and it makes the tasks really fun even though they ARE a lot of work.😅 When I'm chopping wood to cook hotdogs and smores with I imagine myself as a shield maiden from Skyrim swinging my axe in training for battle. And for the tasks that don't translate into my imaginings (laundry and dishes) I use audiobooks or UA-cam videos to distract my mind from the task I'm doing. Granted I seldom wear my cottage-core dresses and am more often found in pajamas or denim and flannel. I grew up in a family that gardened and farmed not as our profession, but because it gave us milk, and beef, and fruit that we could provide to ourselves. Adding a little bit of whimsy to the life-style I'm familiar and comfortable with makes it more fun.
That's why I personally love Solarpunk.
- pretty clothes according to your own wishes ✔
- nature and greenery ✔
- electricity, indoor plumbing and heated rooms ✔
- automation of dudgery while keeping the work for the people ✔
But in order to get to the Solar, you first need to become Punk. * throws a seed bomb *
My favourite historical “cottagecore” movement is the development of folk dress/national costumes in Eastern Europe during the Romantic Era as a response to growing industrialization, and utilized as a support for nationalism and nation building. Same general development by the upper classes emulating the lower, just with the overtone of nationalism. It’s a whole can of worms in terms of political ideology and aesthetics but one that is endlessly interesting.
I love it when people say they want to live on a farm and have chickens and all. Then when they come out to my homestead and get to see and smell the chickens they change their mind about how they feel about it. Especially when it comes to collecting the eggs. Which involves going into the coop and yes stepping in poop to get the eggs out of the nest boxes. I find it amusing that they get grossed out by the fact that chickens only have one hole back there. Yes they really do poop and lay eggs our of that hole and sometimes they poop on the eggs. It isn't always pretty. For as much as I love my orchard that my husband and I have spent a lot of time together putting in, there is still a time frame to harvest the fruit before it either goes bad or the birds and bugs get to it. Then you have to preserve it. My mulberries are ripening right now and its become a race to harvest them and freeze them as fast as I can so that I can process them into jelly and fruit leathers. My hands and stained purple and I have been pulling leaves and sticks out of my hair since for some reason I can't be bothered to cover it up.🤦🏼♀️ I have no excuse for myself. It's also gardening time and it's currently a race to get everything planted before the Arizona summer heat kicks in. It's not kind to seedlings. It's hard work and labor intensive to have a homestead, especially when you are just starting out. We had a very steep learning curve and killed lots of trees planting. Our first garden was a total flop since we knew nothing about permaculture. I love a cute cottage core dress as the next person but I won't be wearing it to dig in the dirt or to try to catch those chickens that escaped the coop. That's more of a wear into town for a trip to the farmer's market or a date night than practical working. I certainly won't be wearing it to bake cookies or make sourdough bread. Most cottage core dresses won't stand a chance.
I think another part of what drives people towards cottage core is a desire to do labor that we can actually see the fruits of and that doesn’t feel pointless and bureaucratic, see: Bullsh*t jobs. I don’t want to spend my days managing google calendars, sending emails, etc. I’d rather be sewing something or doing other work with my hands (that still isn’t back-breaking heavy labor, which is, to be entirely clear, what a lot of agricultural work is)
I LOVE Alexis' content! She is such a bubbly, amazing human.
I am all about blending historical and modern ideas for sustainable living. (And aesthetics, of course.)
Thank you for your awesome videos!
My ancestor was apparently Marie Antoinette's gardener at Hameau de la Reine.