For a while, around 2024, it felt as though everything had a bow on it: hair, shoes, jeans, phone cases, cakes, even dumbbells. That was the coquette aesthetic at full volume. Its codes are pink, lace, ribbons, pearls and frills, and its mood is romantic, girlish and a little melancholy. It is also an aesthetic with a very long history, and one of the most debated on the internet.
What is the coquette aesthetic?
Coquette is the French word for a flirt. As an aesthetic, coquette means hyper-feminine dressing built on soft, delicate details: satin ribbons and bows, lace trims, Peter Pan collars, frilly socks, ballet flats, pearls, and a palette of blush pink, cream and white. Beyond clothes, it covers bedrooms with canopy beds and vintage mirrors, cakes piped with cherries, handwritten letters and a kind of nostalgic, diary-like romance.
Where it came from
The look borrows from many eras. The deepest root is the French Rococo of the eighteenth century: the pastel silks, ribbons and frothy lace of Versailles, painted by Fragonard and Boucher, and immortalised for modern audiences by Sofia Coppola’s film Marie Antoinette (2006), with its pink macarons and Converse trainers hidden among the silk shoes. Victorian and Edwardian nightgowns, 1950s petticoats and 1990s babydoll dresses all feed in too.
The internet version took shape on Tumblr in the early 2010s, closely tied to Lana Del Rey’s music and imagery of Americana, heartbreak and vintage glamour. Coppola’s films, especially The Virgin Suicides (1999), became a constant visual reference. In 2023 and 2024 the aesthetic went fully mainstream on TikTok, where the bow became its universal symbol, and designers such as Sandy Liang, Simone Rocha and Miu Miu made it part of the runway conversation.
The codes
- Clothes: lace-trimmed camisoles, slip dresses, babydoll and milkmaid dresses, cardigans with pearl buttons, pleated mini skirts, frilly socks and tights.
- Details: bows on everything, ruffles, broderie anglaise, rosebuds, heart shapes and cherries.
- Colours: ballet pink, cream, white, baby blue and occasionally a deep cherry red.
- Accessories: ribbon hair bows, ballet flats and Mary Janes, pearls, lockets, heart-shaped sunglasses.
- Beauty: rosy blush, glossy lips, soft curls, light lashes.
See the mood
IMAGES: PINTEREST. TAP ANY IMAGE TO SEE IT ON PINTEREST AND ITS ORIGINAL SOURCE.
The references
Art: Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s The Swing (1767), the pastel portraits of the court of Versailles, and the soft photography of Petra Collins.
Film and music: Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette and Priscilla; Lana Del Rey’s early albums and videos.
Designers: Simone Rocha, Sandy Liang, Miu Miu, Shushu/Tong, Molly Goddard and Cecilie Bahnsen, all of whom play with girlish details in a more grown-up, often subversive way.
Why it caught on
Coquette offered a way to be openly, unapologetically feminine after years of minimalism and practical athleisure. It is pretty, nostalgic and very easy to adopt: tie a ribbon in your hair and you have joined in. The bow also worked perfectly as a meme. It could be added to anything, which made the trend endlessly shareable and endlessly sellable.
The debate
Coquette has a darker side that many writers have addressed. Parts of the online aesthetic drew on Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita and its film adaptations, and on imagery that sexualises girlishness. Critics, including the video essays below, argue that this blurs the line between childlike and sexual in ways that can harm real girls, especially on platforms where many of the people posting and watching are teenagers. Others defend the mainstream version as simply romantic and feminine, a reclaiming of “girly” style without apology. The fairest reading is that coquette contains both: a joyful love of pretty things, and a history that deserves to be looked at with clear eyes. It is also why this page shows objects, interiors and runway looks rather than photos of young women.
Where it is now
The bow mania of 2024 has calmed down, but coquette details have settled into fashion’s vocabulary: ballet flats, ribbon ties and lace trims are now everyday. The aesthetic continues to branch into variations, such as “blokette” (football shirts with bows) and the softer balletcore.
Related aesthetics
Balletcore · Cottagecore · Vanilla Girl · Barbiecore · Blokecore
Learn more: hear from more voices
A short history of the style, and a critical look at how the aesthetic treats girlhood.
Sources: coverage of the coquette and bow trends in fashion media (2023–2024). Videos are embedded from YouTube and remain the work of their creators.
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