Cottagecore Is the Summer 2020 Trend You're Wearing Without Even Realizing It

There’s an aesthetic that’s likely to have dominated your Instagram feed as of late, and we're here to tell you that it has a name: cottagecore. Cottagecore stems from nature, agriculture, nostalgia, and domesticity. It embraces the simple things in life, like caring for plants, frolicking in a field with animals, picnics, and baking bread in a sun-faded vintage apron.

Even The New York Times did a thorough dissertation of cottagecore right as the lockdowns were sweeping across the country. (Adjacent to this quarantine-era aesthetic are grandmacore, farmcore, and wallpaper girl, which is playing out on TikTok and Instagram.) It makes sense that such a thing would arise from this time of high anxiety and sheltering at home.

Without vacations, sporting events, pool parties, and basically every social summer occasion that's usually splashed all over Instagram, people are getting creative and romanticizing these times in isolation as much as possible. As The New York Times puts it, "What these cores have in common is a desire to live in a world outside the one currently inhabited."

And now, a few examples as to how the cottagecore aesthetic manifests itself on Instagram: In the form of posing in a field of flowers in a breezy white dress or in a kitchen in a wrinkled linen nightgown on a summer evening, clothes hanging to dry in the breeze in the backyard, picking berries, or goats—just anything remotely related to goats. Once you’ve familiarized yourself with Cottagecore, it’s unmistakable. So how does it manifest itself in your wardrobe? If you find yourself wanting to spend the days in a house dress and bare feet, your closet is filled with puffed sleeves, you spend your clothing budget on Dôen, Christy Dawn, or Loveshackfancy wares, and/or you'd like to transport yourself to Little House in the Prairie, Pride and Prejudice, or Anne of Green Gables, you're probably embracing the cottagecore look.

Naturally, there are plenty of stylish examples of the cottagecore trend on Instagram, some of which we highlighted below, interspersed with 19 cottagecore-esque pieces to shop. Scroll on for all the inspiration you desire.

Next up, 10 outfits from our readers that are perfect for the heat.