'Cottagecore: Back to basics' - Irish Independent 5th March 2021

Thrilled to be in the Irish Independent today in an article about the cottagecore interiors trend, written by Eleanor Flegg.

See article here or read the text below:

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Get nostalgic with cottagecore: How to express your yearning for bygone days in the home

by Eleanor Flegg

Cottagecore is a balm for troubled times; an escapist fantasy, fuelled by nostalgia for an imagined rural past. In the dream of cottagecore, home-baked pies cool on the windowsill. Logs are wholesomely chopped.

Eggs are gathered from the henhouse. And wild herbs are picked in the clearing by the stream. Goats are milked by women wearing floaty dresses and evenings are spent crocheting by the fire. There are very few men in cottagecore, hence it has been embraced by lesbians, and there is no evidence of electronic devices.

That’s ironic, since the dream is largely fuelled by Instagram and TikTok. But nobody is claiming that cottagecore has much in common with real life.

Cottagecore isn’t an interiors style. It’s more like a collective yearning for bygone days, but it’s perfectly possible to express that in the home.

“Recalling happier times is what it’s all about,” says Maggie Brady, interior designer. “The news is scaring people. They want less Wi-Fi and more comfort.” Cottagecore, as she describes it, is the opposite of modern. “It’s a lovely idea, going back to simpler times and slower times. You can have some of that in your home if you want to.”

It’s also a way of taking back control. Lockdown is tough on many but Gen Z has had a particularly rotten time. Cottagecore gives them a context in which to reinvent their living environment, even in tiny ways.

“A lot of the kids are back living at home now, they’re surrounded by the furnishings that their granny might have had, and they’re trying to make something of it.” Anyone can embroider. Anyone can dream.

For Brady, the cottagecore aesthetic is something that she’s always loved. The reinvention of old pieces of furniture, and placing them in a context that makes good design sense, is one of the things that she does best.

“A lot of people come to me because they want the older, quirkier items. Or maybe they have an older piece at home that they don’t know what to do with.” A recent project incorporated the client’s grandfather’s milk churn. “It was sitting in the shed. We turned it into a bathroom sink!”

Brady’s practice, Pearl Redesigns, is based near Newry, Co Down, where she heads up the Ulster chapter of the Interiors Association.

“It’s great when you find someone with a bit of furniture that they really love and are willing to invest in. Then you can have a bit of fun, and there’s a story behind it.” She’s also happy to source older pieces for her clients, some of whom need a little encouragement.

“There’s still a stigma about buying old stuff, so sometimes we need to show people the possibilities,” she says. “Mahogany armchairs are wonderful pieces of furniture. When they’re fixed and reupholstered you can’t buy them in the shops.

"There’s a place for everything and very few limitations, so long as you don’t try to put straight lines on top of it. I don’t do the straight lines thing.”

The aesthetics of cottagecore are culturally specific. American cottagecore has a Little House of the Prairie flavour; British cottagecore is more Beatrix Potter. These are porous distinctions. Gingham pervades throughout. Ireland has all the ingredients for a kick-ass cottagecore aesthetic — milking stools, spongeware ceramics, thatch — but the famine casts a long shadow.

We’re only a few generations away from a poverty-stricken rural past. It’s hard to be nostalgic about that. Still, there’s something about thatch that transcends memories of poverty and skyrocketing insurance costs. And it’s quintessential cottagecore. If cottagecore were scored on points, you’d definitely get a 10 for thatch.

It’s six years since the interior designer Audrey Whelan, Dublin-born but based in London, bought a thatched cottage in Cloonkeely, Co Galway. The cottage was built around 1800 with tiny windows, whitewashed walls, low ceilings, and a hearth that takes up half the room.

“We totally fell in love with the concept of a thatched cottage,” she says. “It was long before cottagecore became a thing.”

That said, she was able to connect with an online community of cottage enthusiasts. “There are people who are obsessed with the idea of cottages and then there are people who are obsessed with their own particular cottage…”

The heritage of this particular cottage was unusually intact and Whelan designed the interior around it. Resisting the usual practice of throwing out the furniture left by the previous owners, she decided to keep the kitchen table and the dresser, and make them pivotal to the design which is stylistically simple.

Whelan recalls the change of pace associated with cottage living. “You have a very tiny internal space and a very large external space that requires a great deal of manual labour. You end up spending a lot of time outside.” Now, the cottage is for sale.

There’s nothing more cottagecore than chickens, unless it’s photographing yourself with them. Rebecca Roe, interior designer, has been entertaining herself during lockdown with the very productive hobby of keeping hens.

This coincided with the launch of Hedgeroe’s new paint collection in collaboration with Acres Hall, specialists in Irish Georgian colours. Excited by the double meaning of the word eggshell, she painted an egg in each of the colours in the range, and styled them in a nest. The shades are appropriately delicate and a 2.5 litre tin of eggshell costs €74 from Hedgeroe.

For a more decorative interpretation of cottagecore that is Irish, but not slavishly Irish, the Carolyn Donnelly Eclectic range for Dunnes Stores has much in the way of comforting stuff. A floral print cushion with tassels costs €20; a small enamel vase in ochre costs €8; a larger one is €15 (you’ll want both – where else will you put the flowers that you plucked from the ditch).

A quilted throw is €29.51 and the super-nostalgic block print cotton tablecloth is €24.60. Which brings us to another of cottagecore’s ironies. The aesthetic is driven by a desire to make do with less. Yet, there’s a lot of lovely stuff that you can buy. Go figure. 

See pearlredesigns.com, audreywhelan.com, hedgeroe.com and dunnesstores.com. For a directory of accredited interior designers, see theinteriorsassociation.ie. For a directory of accredited upcyclers, see thehouseofupcycling.com. You’ll find Audrey Whelan’s cottage at Cloonkeely, Headford, Co Galway, on daft.ie.

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