.png)
6 hours ago
1
We are a quarter of the way into the 21st century and just as the world feels more fractured and more online than ever before, here is some welcome news: put the kettle on, teapots are the new whimsy.
Popularised by the “cottagecore” trend beloved by celebrities including David Beckham, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift, the desirability of domesticity is viewed by some as a yearning for life in simpler times.
The trend has also led to a rise in demand for dado rails and ottomans, butter dishes, tablecloths, water jugs and stacks of firewood.
According to a survey, millennials are taking cottagecore – also known as farmcore and countrycore – beyond a mere aesthetic by returning to culinary basics and learning traditional skills, such as cooking from scratch, making sauces and baking.
According to B&Q, which carried out the survey of 2000 29- to 44-year-olds, this generation want to have their homemade Victoria sponge on an eco-friendly lace doily and to eat it too, with the admission that they also cannot do without air fryers, USB plugs and milk frothers.
“The resurgence of the retro farmhouse aesthetic reflects a desire for comfort and timeless design in our homes,” said Tori Summers, B&Q’s kitchen showrooms director. “With the kitchen often being the central place for socialising and entertaining in our homes, we know many of our customers want to ensure it reflects their personalities and is welcoming to guests.”
The New York Times has written about cottagecore in relation to grandmacore, faeriecore, farmcore and goblincore, and these aesthetics’ shared desire to “live in a world outside the one currently inhabited”.
“It is an obvious backlash to the hustle culture embodied by Fiverr ads, cottagecore attempts to assuage burnout with a languid enjoyment of life’s mundane tasks,” wrote the New York Times.
Kai Chow, a creative director at the Doneger Group design consulting agency in New York, said: “People want to be closer to nature. The biggest trend in interior design is bringing the outdoors indoors.”
The trend seems to be drifting – in an appropriately vague and gentle way, of course – down the generations: Edinburgh University Students’ Association put together a cottagecore guide for new students last year that included a Craft and Sewing Society taster session and a tea quiz – where, presumably, beverages were served in a variety of charming teapots.
