On Tik Tok, women have been tying bows onto dresses, their boyfriends, and even chicken nuggets, all to the tune of Lana Del Rey. But where exactly did this “coquette” trend come from? Mika Ellison and Ilse von Heimburg have the answers.
[Let the Light In — Lana Del Rey]
Ilse von Heimburg: Break up texts. Earrings. A baguette. A cake, shaped like the Lorax. What do all these have in common? They’re objects that, according to the Internet, have been coquettified.
Mika Ellison: “Coquette” is an aesthetic that started as a trend on Tik Tok, but has spread to the realms of fashion, music, and beyond. Characterized by pastel pinks, frills and bows, as well as by the music of Lana Del Rey, the aesthetic exemplifies hyperfemininity. Medill senior Alea Wilkins, a Managing Editor at the campus fashion magazine, STITCH, has been seeing the trend both online and in person.
Alea Wilkins: I’ve seen, young people put, like ribbons on their bags, or sort of just like ribbons, sort of to like to accessorize anything. I’ve seen it on bags, I’ve seen it on headphones, and I know that’s like a meme right now, or maybe it was a couple weeks ago, of like putting a bow on like random things and then being like, it’s like the Lana del Rey song in the background.
Ilse: Tik Tok is a haven for trends and hyperspecific aesthetics like the mob wife aesthetic, mermaidcore, and the tomato girl aesthetic. The Coquette aesthetic, however, has stood the test of time, first gaining popularity in 2021 and becoming one of the defining trends of 2022 and 2023. It’s part of a trend of embracing traditional hallmarks of femininity that has been growing in popularity. Medill freshman Rachel Yoon sees the trend as forming a deeper connection with a sense of the feminine.
Rachel Yoon: I think it’s a lot of girls trying to, like, reclaim their girlhood or their womanhood maybe. I don’t know if it’s that deep. It’s just, I don’t know, like feeling pretty. And also, in fashion, we’ve been seeing a lot of bows, a lot of like, ribbon stuff. A lot of that, like a specific shade of red.
Mika: The coquette aesthetic has come under fire for seeming too regressive at times. Its resemblance to Lolita fashion, which infantilizes women, and its proximity to cottagecore can cause it to veer dangerously close to the “stay-at-home girlfriend” phenomenon.
Wilkins: Having learned the definition, I know there’s kind of this underlying sense of, like, “oh, like it actually means to be a flirtatious woman” but the image we’re thinking of is very girly and youthful, so there’s kind of like that, that, like ehhh, like, maybe this is sort of, like, sexualizing young girls. But also I feel like I haven’t seen it that way, or it doesn’t feel that way to me. Because I personally really like it, I really like that style. And I feel like the way I’ve seen it more online and like on campus even is more, kind of reclaiming girlhood or a reclamation of it. And just like kind of celebrating really cute and girly things and just kind of like taking ownership of that and enjoying them.
Ilse: In fact, the coquette’s historical and linguistic roots are tied to a complicated view of gender. The word is originally French, and is commonly translated to mean a woman who flirts. But its origins are illuminating.
Braunschneider: It literally comes from the word coq, for rooster. And then the -ette on the end of it is kind of it makes it immediately this kind of gender confused type. It’s basically like a woman who’s acting rooster-ish, like kind of calling a little too much preening attention to herself.
Mika: That was Theresa Braunschneider, a professor at the University of Michigan. She wrote a book on the emergence of the concept of a coquette in 18th century England. Although the style and the type are often associated with 18th century France and the aristocracy, the English version of the coquette bears some striking resemblances to the modern day coquette.
Braunschneider: The typical coquette is described as she’s young, unmarried, vain, and really interested in calling attention to herself, usually through the kind of display of luxury goods. So it’s silk fans, ribbons, lace, brocaded petticoats, hoop skirts. And then also some, a lot of times exotic pets like lap dogs, monkeys, parrots, and all of this to call attention to herself, and put herself in a position where lots of men can see her and will notice her as she’s displaying all of these luxury goods. And, you know, when I’m flipping through Instagram, I’m seeing a lot of ribbons and lace and even like cats with bows on them. That is weirdly resonant of the early 18th century coquette.
Ilse: Yoon articulated those echoes of the past she’s seen on Tik Tok.
Yoon: I’ve seen like, you know, the dogs with the bows on them. I’ve seen people wrap ribbons around their boyfriends and make bows. And there was this one Tik tok that was like, almost kind of concerning. It was like a knife with a bow wrapped around it. I was like, Oh, girl.
Mika: The concept of the coquette is tied to two ideas that have survived to the present day: power through both consumerism and power over men.
Braunschneider: And the coquette is like, is just definitively single. She’s just encouraging their attention, but very much, yeah, a kind of celebration of women’s single status in women, women trying to maintain that as long as they can, in a cultural, social domain, where in order to be socially successful and economically viable, they will ultimately get married. But they’re trying to delay that as long as possible. So yeah, it’s about singlehood.
Ilse: In 18th century England, the idea of “leading on” men was more than just a flirtation: it was a refusal of the economic bondage of marriage.
Braunschneider: Encouraging a lot of men is actually saying no to all of them, in a way, right. It’s a refusal of marriage. It’s a refusal of that narrative toward narrowing down your options.
Braunschneider: In thinking about why that’s a critique of the heteronormative logic of marriage is one character who says, “Why would I give up having 50 men at my feet to be at the feet of one man?”
Mika: The coquette also carries the connotation of a woman using her purchasing power to beautify and adorn herself with rare goods.
Braunschneider: since it was introduced as an idea and word in England, it has been very strongly associated with the consumption, particularly of luxury goods, particularly of imported goods in a time of like, increased global trade.
Ilse: In the modern day, the consumption of girly goods and aesthetics is at an all-time high, with movies like Barbie leading the charge of femininity. As ever, money is a way for people to indicate what they value. Wilkins says she’s also bought into the coquette aesthetic.
Wilkins: I have spools of ribbon in my closet right now, um, and I also have ballet flats and I have heart-shaped jewelry, so I’ve kind of like run the gambit on like coquette trends, but um, yeah. I like it.
Mika: Although festooning yourself and your pet cat with ribbons and bows might seem frivolous at first, for many women the coquette aesthetic has been a way to reclaim a sense of the feminine that they may have rejected or disliked as children.
Yoon: I feel like a lot of women have that kind of memory of pushing away their girlhood. Because they didn’t want to feel like a quote unquote, like, girly girl, because they might get made fun of.
Ilse: As it turns out, the coquette is much more than a regressive, girly-girl aesthetic. It’s been around for centuries– and even at its start it stood for a version of womanhood that emphasized the economic freedom to do whatever you wanted: decorate your jewelry with pink bows, make your own decisions, and go out whenever, and with whoever, you wanted.
Braunschneider: there’s also the sense like there, they’d be like, clubbing you know, they were like going to all of the fashionable places in London.
[I’m Just A Girl by No Doubt]
For WNUR News, I’m Mika Ellison.
And I’m Ilse von Heimburg.
