Coquette aesthetic is a 2020s fashion trend that is characterized by a mix of sweet, romantic, and sometimes playful elements and focuses on femininity through the use of clothes with lace, flounces, pastel colors, and bows, often draws inspiration from historical periods like the Victorian era and the 1950s, with a modern twist. [1]
The word comes from the French word coquette, meaning flirtatious. The aesthetic gained popularity on Tumblr in the early 2020s [2] and TikTok around 2022, [3] but has roots in earlier feminine fashion trends, including Japanese Lolita fashion, often compared to other aesthetics such as Balletcore, Cottagecore, and Princesscore. [4]
This aesthetic has been characterized as both a way to relive and express creativity through childhood fantasies, and a way to "fully escape into...femininity without feeling guilty about it," while ultimately being "self-aware and playful". [4] It allows strong women can also see themselves as feminine, delicate and innocent, moving away from the previous stereotype that female empowerment leads to masculinization. Simultaneously, the coquette aesthetic seeks to defend femininity without sexualization, and to celebrate things that were once a source of ridicule or demonized. Just as it happened in later times to the French Revolution, when society condemned maximalism and the exaltation of the feminine clothing of Marie Antoinette to move on to silhouettes closer to men's fashion, the same thing happens with the coquette aesthetic, that moves away from the power suit of the 1980s [5] and the newest aesthetics of oversize, tomboy core and military core. [1] Proponents of the aesthetic argue it can be understood from a disruptive non-heteronormative interpretation. [2]
The coquette aesthetic has been critiqued for reproducing damaging gender roles for women and for its potential appeal for the male gaze. At the same time, the aesthetic primarily derives from "French culture and outdated notions of European femininity," [4] and online images related to this aesthetic almost always portray thin, light-skinned women, which can exclude women who have less hegemonic characteristics. [2] Other criticisms of the coquette aesthetic have also drawn upon similar stances that criticizers of the Lolicon media genre have made, which have stated that the coquette aesthetic as a product of its inspirations and style could result suggestive and problematic in regard to pedophiles. [6] Defenders of the aesthetic affirm that the use of bun, laces and pink-colored clothing should not assume a revictimization for women and these aesthetics are not responsible for misogynistic aggressions. [7]
Among admirers of the coquette aesthetic, inspirations include Victorian, Edwardian, Regency, and Rococo fashion and aesthetics. [2] Pieces of media that serve as inspiration include the novels of Jane Austen and the Brontë Sisters, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Sofia Coppola's films The Virgin Suicides , Marie Antoinette , and Priscilla , [8] Netflix's Bridgerton , [4] and Greta Gerwig's 2023 film Barbie. [9]
The American singer Lana Del Rey is also considered as an icon of this aesthetic. [10]
Fashion is a term used interchangeably to describe the creation of clothing, footwear, accessories, cosmetics, and jewellery of different cultural aesthetics and their mix and match into outfits that depict distinctive ways of dressing as signifiers of social status, self-expression, and group belonging. As a multifaceted term, fashion describes an industry, styles, aesthetics, and trends.
Kinderwhore is a fashion style most notably worn by some female grunge and alternative rock musicians in the US during the early to mid-1990s. The style is characterized through the combination of cute, feminine fashion items like babydoll and Peter Pan collared dresses, with more adult aspects like smudged red lipstick and dark eye makeup. It has its origins in the mid-1980s band Pagan Babies, which featured future Babes in Toyland vocalist/guitarist Kat Bjelland and future Hole vocalist/guitarist Courtney Love, who lived together and shared clothes. Following the band's disbandment, the two's subsequent bands achieved significant mainstream success and led to the fashion being popularised amongst the general public and being referenced by high fashion designers including Marc Jacobs.
Soft grunge was a fashion trend that originated on Tumblr around the late 2000s and early 2010s. Beginning as an outgrowth of the 2000s indie sleaze fashion trend but with a greater influence from the 1990s, particularly grunge fashion, the style began as a reaction against the glamor fitness culture which was dominant in popular culture at the time. It is characterized by its merger of cute and aggressive fashion hallmarks like chokers, tennis skirts, leather jackets and boots, flower crowns, distressed denim and pastel colors. Soft grunge reached its peak popularity around 2014, by which time it had been embraced by high fashion designers including Hedi Slimane and Jeremy Scott and been worn by celebrities including Charli XCX. Its internet-based merger of subculture, fashion and music made it one of the earliest examples of an internet aesthetic. In the early 2020s, the style experienced a minor resurgence due to videos posted on the video sharing application TikTok.
Femboy is a slang term that refers to males, usually cisgender, who express themselves with traditionally feminine behaviours, or—especially in the variant spelling femboi—to LGBTQ people of any gender identity who affect a "soft" masculine look. As an Internet aesthetic, this may be through the use of jewellery, wearing feminine clothing and makeup, or expressing feminine behavioural qualities. Femboy can be used as both a sexual and non-sexual term; it does not denote a specific sexual orientation or gender role.
Julie Pelipas is a Ukrainian stylist and fashion director. She is the fashion director of Vogue Ukraine and an ambassador of No More Plastic Foundation.
E-kids, split by binary gender as e-girls and e-boys, are a youth subculture of Gen Z that emerged in the late 2010s, notably popularized by the video-sharing application TikTok. It is an evolution of emo, scene and mall goth fashion combined with Japanese and Korean street fashion.
Cottagecore is an internet aesthetic idealising rural life. Originally based on a rural European life, it was developed throughout the 2010s and was first named cottagecore on Tumblr in 2018. The aesthetic centres on traditional rural clothing, interior design, and crafts such as drawing, baking, and pottery, and is related to similar aesthetic movements such as grandmacore, goblincore, gnomecore, and fairycore.
Dark academia is an internet aesthetic and subculture concerned with higher education, the arts, and literature, or an idealised version thereof. The aesthetic centres on traditional educational clothing, interior design, activities such as writing and poetry, ancient art, and classic literature, as well as classical Greek and Collegiate Gothic architecture. The trend emerged on social media site Tumblr in 2015, before being popularised by adolescents and young adults in the late 2010s and early 2020s, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The fashions of the 2020s represent a departure from 2010s fashion and feature a nostalgia for older aesthetics. They have been largely inspired by styles of the late 1990s to mid-2000s, and 1980s. Early in the decade, several publications noted the shortened trend and nostalgia cycle in 2020s fashion. Fashion was also shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a major impact on the fashion industry, and led to shifting retail and consumer trends.
The Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute (CARI) is an online community which is "dedicated to developing a visual lexicon of consumer ephemera from the 1970s until now".
Zemmoa is the stage name of a Mexican singer-songwriter and musical artist. She is known for her song Mi Amor Soy Yo featuring Tessa Ía and Trans-X that went viral on Spotify in 2021.
Soft girl or softie describes a youth subculture that emerged among Gen Z female teenagers around mid-to late-2019. Soft girl is a fashion style and a lifestyle, popular among some young women on social media, based on a deliberately cutesy, feminine look with a "girly girl" attitude. Being a soft girl also may involve a tender, sweet, and sensitive personality.
Keishla He is a Puerto Rican social media personality who posts about her identity as a person of Asian descent in Puerto Rico. She also speaks out against xenophobia and racism related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
An Internet aesthetic, also simply referred to as an aesthetic or microaesthetic, is a visual art style, sometimes accompanied by a fashion style, subculture, or music genre, that usually originates from the Internet or is popularized on it. Throughout the 2010s and 2020s, online aesthetics gained increasing popularity, specifically on social media platforms such as Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok, and often were used by people to express their individuality and creativity. They can also be used to create a sense of community and belonging among people who share the same interests. The term aesthetic has been described as being "totally divorced from its academic origins", and is commonly used as an adjective.
"Ch y la Pizza" is a song recorded and performed by the American group Fuerza Regida and the Mexican rapper Natanael Cano. It was written by Daniel Candia and Miguel Armenta and produced by Jesús Ortíz Paz, who is also the group's vocalist. It was released on December 1, 2022, as the lead single for the former's seventh studio album Pa Que Hablen (2022), through Rancho Humilde, Street Mob Records, Los CT and distributed by Sony Music Latin.
Vanessa Mercedes Rosales Altamar is a Colombian author. She is a renowned feminist fashion critic in Colombia.
Regencycore or, sometimes, royalcore, is a fashion style and internet aesthetic inspired by clothing worn in early 19th-century Europe. The rise of regencycore is widely attributed to the popularity of the Netflix television series Bridgerton, which takes place in a fictionalized version of Regency era Britain and premiered at the end of 2020.
"Choro" is a song by Mexican singer Thalía and Estilo Sin Límite co-written by her for her upcoming twentieth studio album. It was released by Sony Music Latin as the album's second single on November 30, 2023, following the success of the album's first single which reached the top spots on iTunes in countries like Mexico, Chile, and the Dominican Republic in its first week.
Shushu/Tong, also stylized as SHUSHU/TONG, is a Shanghai-based fashion label founded in 2015 by designers Liushu Lei and Yutong Jiang. Its design sensibility is inspired by girlhood, nostalgia, and retro anime and films.
Thinspiration, also known as thinspo, is recognized as photographic content of women with thin body types promoting unhealthy eating habits and disorders. Thinspiration blends the words “thin” and “inspiration” as to give motivation to people with eating disorders or people who want to be thin to continue to deprive themselves of food.