Stardew Valley, Cottagecore, and the Politics of Fashion
Juniper Lewis, Contributing Editor
In a world where many people work long hours but no longer get to see the fruits of our labor, it’s nice to imagine a world where we can be more connected to our work and the land we live on. The fantasy of living off the land and outside of the grind of consumer culture is appealing, and many people have tried to make this dream, or at least a marketable image of this dream, a reality. Stardew Valley is my favorite video game, and it scratches that itch to escape the world by allowing me and its other fifteen million players a chance to own a home, build a farm, fall in love, and slay monsters in the local mines.
Inspired by games like Harvest Moon, Stardew combines a farm simulator and an action-adventure RPG into one cute, pixelated package. Fashion is another way people work to reimagine their lives and identities, and aesthetics like cottagecore, a style that romanticizes European peasant fashion from the 19th century, are one means of bringing a bit of the pastoral fantasy into one’s everyday life. I want to take some time to dig into the history behind the aesthetic of cottagecore and the surprisingly complex world of Stardew Valley to talk about the ways fashion and game worlds are always political.
The cottagecore aesthetic got its name only a few years ago, but the dream of dressing like a person who both does manual labor on a farm and looks flawlessly beautiful dates back to at least the late 1700s when Marie-Antoinette spurred on the latest trend of wearing simple chemises instead of large rococo gowns. These simpler garments were meant to invoke a pastoral and idealized life, one that was a complete fantasy. Similar fashion trends of the last few years have brought back tea-length gathered skirts, cute collared blouses, and lots of layering. People’s fondness for the cottagecore look is similar to the urge many people felt at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to learn how to make sourdough bread or knit. The dream of self sustainability, and for many folks the dream of existing outside of capitalism, is strong, but the beauty and fantasy of cottagecore often hides some of its insidious origins.
The tradwife, or traditional wife, is both an aesthetic and a set of white supremacist cultural norms. Imagine the perfect 1950s housewife: white, thin, well-dressed, and always willing to please her husband. The look of a tradwife with her basket of farm fresh produce is not so different from that of cottagecore, and neither is the impulse to return to a “simpler” time. Nostalgia flattens the complexities of the past. Many people who produce content around the cottagecore aesthetic have worked to actively subvert the tradwife and alt-right ideologies by making the look blacker, fatter, and more queer. Fashion is always political. What we choose to wear, or choose not to wear, is a statement about the world around us and ourselves. This is true not just for people who participate in a particular fashion subculture like punk, cottagecore, or goth, it’s true for everyone. We can see the way that politics and aesthetics fit into people’s everyday lives in video games as well.
“Stardew Valley is the quintessential cottagecore game,” writes Rachel Watts (PC Gamer). Watts isn’t wrong, but I think there is more to the story. As a person who’s easily overwhelmed by open world games, I love how Stardew slowly unfolds the world of the game. While Stardew begins as a simple farming game set in an idealized countryside, the realities of the world and the people in it emerge over time as you explore and make social connections. Pelican Town, the small village your farm is near, is threatened by a mega-corporation named Jo-Jo Mart, some of the locals struggle with alcoholism, and a war is currently being fought overseas. While you can run big business out of town and help struggling townsfolk get back on their feet, you can also choose not to help your friends and instead work with Jo-Jo Mart to turn the local community center into a warehouse.
Cottagecore is seen as desirable partly because it’s presented as effortless. You get to eat fresh jam but you never have to stand over a boiling pot of water for hours canning it. Stardew, meanwhile, is relaxing in the same way that washing a sink full of dishes is: the beauty and relaxation comes from putting in the work to make a difference. Turning the rundown old community center into a vibrant place where townsfolk can gather takes most players at least a year of in-game time. The piecemeal labor of Stardew stands partially in opposition to the effortlessness of cottagecore, while never forcing the player to truly do the work needed to run a farm. Your animals and plants never get sick and you never have to worry about the long-term consequences of monocropping or topsoil runoff. This is, perhaps, part of what Watts had in mind when she declared Stardew the ultimate cottagecore game. Your labor in Stardew is simpler then fixing up a real life town and starting your own farm, but, of course, no fantasy is ever a flawless map of reality.
Stardew isn’t a perfect imagining of a new world. Like cottagecore, it’s often unknowingly building on harmful traditions. The characters of the game are overwhelmingly white, and while there are two Black characters there are no people from other ethinic or racial groups. Mods such as “Diverse Stardew Valley'' remedy this problem by adding more racial, ethnic, and gender diversity to the game. The world of the game is not just what ConcernedApe, it’s creator, released, it is also shaped by the modders who seek to make the game fit their own vision of a better world. Dreaming of different and ideal digital worlds helps us imagine how we might make our own world a better place. Encouraging diversity and thoughtful evaluations of politics in fashion and gaming aren’t just an escape from the drudgery of capitalism but a way of cultivating a more gentle and egalitarian world.
Fashion and video games often get dismissed as a waste of time distracting from social progress or “real” life. They’re seen as the interests of the vain and out of touch. But fashion and games are always political and are an important part of how we shape our identities. The clothes we wear and the games we play are part of imagining a different and better world for ourselves and the people around us. Cottagecore and Stardew Valley are, like all imaginings, imperfect and perhaps impractical, but it’s through the depiction and creation of a world that we can begin to plot the path to a better society for us all. The revolutionary potential of thinking with games and with clothes is just a click away.
