I remember my first "core", when I learned about "normcore" for the first time, but as we know times have drastically changed, and with such change we welcome a new internet-fanned aesthetic "Fairycore".
You heard right, fairies from the fairytales, wings and all. But this isn't just for fantasy fans, the aesthetic is, like most other cores, it's something heavily tied to the fashion and beauty world.
Some hardcore fairycore stats:
#fairycore Instagram tags: 775k
#fairycore TikTok views: 736.2M
#fairycore Pinterest searches up x6 YoY
"fairy aesthetic" Pinterest searches up 145% YoY
Having taken off earlier in the year in the Northern Hemisphere's Spring, we have this to look forward to as a post-lockdown treat (fingers, toes and wings all crossed) as flowers and all things fairy-like bloom.
Image Source: Grazia
This hasn't come from nowhere, last year it was cottagecore - a romanticised rural aesthetic. After an endlessly miserable 12 months it comes as little shock that this has evolved from simply an embrace of the outdoors to the more escapist and fantastical.
NYLON magazine explains: "Fairycore allows you to embrace the tiny bits of magic you can still find on even the most ordinary day.”
Other internet aesthetics that you would be forgiven for getting confused with fairycore include goblincore and angelcore. With Gen Z and Gen Yers love for things like witchcraft, crystals, and anything related to the tarot we should expect to see more mythical trends in our aesthetic future.
And if you, like myself are struggling to keep up, our good friends at Refinery29 have rounded up a list of some of the cores to stay on top of.
Or go straight to the overwhelmingly large list of increasingly niche aesthetics at aesthetics wiki
Kitch Catterall
