Coquette Core & Hyperfemininity
If you’re like me and have the unfortunate tendency to be chronically online, you’re more than familiar with Coquette Core and the slew of newly coined ‘girly’ aesthetics i.e. the strawberry girl, tomato girl, blueberry girl, cinnamon girl, vanilla girl, hot girl (shout out Megan Thee Stallion), rat girl ( I don't know what this one means either), clean girl, soft girl… and I think that about covers it?
Though I do not tend to fit easily into archetypes, except for my Art Hoe phase back in High School (I regret nothing)— the recent emergence of Coquette Core is one I’ve found to be somewhat fun & refreshing.
Taking inspiration from ballet culture, the romantic period, and media’s favorite femme fatales, the Coquette Core aesthetic is characterized by a playful, charismatic, and “flirty” attitude (this is pretty much its most agreed upon definition according to Who What Wear ). Those invested in the aesthetic tend to adopt feminine silhouettes, lots of lace, tulle/ sheer fabrics, pearls, and ribbons as a staple.
Essentially, if you’re a Simone Rocha, Sandy Liang, Miu Miu, or Margiela enthusiast, you’re likely already well-versed in all this.
Though by no means perfect (it has its flaws), Coquette Core first piqued my interest because it aimed to be a ‘reclamation’ of femininity — a means to find strength in the disparaged and power in the frills where the patriarchy found frailty. Lately, however, I’ve become much more fascinated with the fact that despite foregrounding “traditional” femininity, Coquette Core has somehow managed to evolve into a lighthearted trend on social media, where people, regardless of identity, participate in the “girly” aesthetic.
Renee Rap’s Instagram Story December 20th, 2023
@veryharryhill on X December 19, 2023
These tweets and memes have by far been some of my favorite examples of the cultural expansion of Coquette Core. Not to mention, as a black girl, seeing other women of my complexion take on the aesthetic—despite bringing me lots of joy—has caused my feeling of instability with femininity to resurface.
In a lot of ways, I’d like to think that the true insidiousness of racism is the unobserved mode by which it successfully prevents black people from self-expression, fragmenting identity in its very early stages.
At a very young age, as a little black girl, I learned that the soft “traditional” femininity that Coquette Core exemplifies wasn’t available to me in the same way that it was for other girls fairer than I. I could dress the part of a ‘girl’ and have the “toys” and “interests,” yet there was something about me, notably my complexion, that became a crippling reminder that I was once again an other. For black girls and women alike, dark-skinned ones especially, being robbed of femininity is one way that white supremacy strives to dehumanize us.
Truth is, though I may have loved the bows and barrettes my mom put in my hair as a kid or the frilly socks, and mary-janes in which she dressed me— words like dainty, graceful, delicate, and pretty still felt out of reach. With time, I came to understand why: my identity as a black woman was and is socially tethered more to masculinity than feminity. It often feels that to be perceived as girly, I have to occupy an extreme, oversexualizing myself and overperforming. Otherwise, I forego my femininity altogether.
That’s all to say that part of the reason I think I enjoyed the Art Hoe aesthetic so much in high school (before it got co-opted by a much larger & whiter demographic) was that it allowed black girls to be seen in a way that social media, not to mention the real-world, had never before. Corny as it sounds, we could be expressive, artistic, awkward, goofy, cute, and quirky; superimposing ourselves into European paintings to physically make and take space for ourselves. Suddenly, it seemed that femininity was not something for which I needed to overextend myself. I was no longer making desperate attempts to cling to or mend my bastardized “womanhood.”
As a teenage girl, still unsure of herself and her changing body, who had only begun to deal with the heft of perception (that damming concept), embodying the Art Hoe made me feel I could enjoy my black girlhood in a way that I had felt so isolated from beforehand.
So, how exactly does this all relate to Coquette Core?
Though, obviously, fashion and beauty trends are NOT the only things we should attribute or market to girls— that’s beyond reductive—they are an undeniable and necessary arena for self-expression.
I found it a little jarring to think so at first, considering that the Coquette Core draws from industries like ballet, which have historically been palpably white, harsh, and exclusive; however, the popularity of the aesthetic has opened up more room for progressive discourse surrounding sex, gender, & identity. Though I have so many more thoughts to flesh out, if there’s one thing I can confidently say, it’s that this era within which Coquette Core and other hyper-feminine aesthetics are evolving, has, to me, solidified that my femininity is bound to my personhood in ways that I am still trying to understand and unravel.
It has also reminded me of the importance of having the outlet (yes, that includes style) to work out all those complexities that come with defining oneself. Karon Davis’ art exhibition Beauty Must Suffer, a photo from which you will find as the cover for this article, is the most beautiful representation of how I’ve begun to think about Coquette Core, blackness, and femininity: her work both affirms delicate black femininity while demonstrating the onerous labor it takes to cultivate it in the first place.
Some may read this article and think I have been too generous to Coquette Core, and that may be true. But, I do not want this article to be seen as a gloss over the aesthetic’s faults. As with all fashion-related trends and sectors, Coquette Core, too, needs to be more inclusive on all fronts.
I guess, the reason I decided to write this article was to say that I find Coquette Core to be more than a shallow, one-dimensional approach to feminity. After all, no one works harder than a black ballerina. I’m sure Misty Copeland would agree.
Cover photo from ‘Karon Davis: Beauty Must Suffer’
