Tall grass blowing in the wind; faded yellow potholders pulling a freshly baked pie out of the oven; golden afternoon light casting warm, glowing streaks across the floorboards. If you long for the cottagecore lifestyle as much as I do, it’s likely this idyllic scene makes your heart flutter. Tragically, cottagecore living has become even more inaccessible as covid forces many of us to stay in our citycore apartments, but there are still little ways to help the CC aesthetic shine through. Here’s how I defied the odds and achieved cottagecore by dressing up as the Travelocity Gnome.
Cottagecore is all about embracing the delicate and decorative, plus cottages. And nobody embraces this sensibility better than the Travelocity Gnome. Distill the entire ethos of slow living and overexposed film into one entity and the Roamin’ Gnome is what you’re left with. I may be stuck inside my apartment, but when I dressed up as the Travelocity Gnome, I was suddenly imbued with not only 2014 Tumblr aesthetic perfection, but also hope to one day, in fact, travel to the hillsides of wherever those cottages are. Wales? Maine? Whatever, I’ll figure it out when it’s safe to get on a plane again. And the TG will be there to guide me.
Soft and faded is the visual name of the game when it comes to achieving your cottagecore goals, but having a specific figure to emulate really took the pressure off of finding the perfect ‘fit. Cottagecore is about looking like an unplaceable Lana del Ray phase that she’s always just leaving or about to enter, but how do you put your finger on that? The answer, I found, is to don the nautical blue billowing tunic of the Travelocity Gnome, belt it (duh), then add a pointy red cap that simply screams wicker basket (I guess a wicker basket would scream “wicker basket” more, but the Travelocity Gnome doesn’t have that, so, what can you do?).
By the time I had completed my ensemble, I felt about as whimsical as a goddamn drawing of a mushroom and very ready to be doing something involving a basin. Through this process I learned that cottagecore is so much more than a fleeting trend — it’s a way of life, and one that can best be achieved by dressing up as a travel agency’s mascot. Quaint!
