[imagesource: David Beckham/Instagram]

David Beckham has a reputation, due in some part to his famous wife, for leading the pack when it comes to fashion.

The pack is easily influenced.

Becks went through a leather phase, and then the sarongs happened, and my eyes are still bleeding from that time he decided to leave the house in a head-to-toe purple ensemble.

Thankfully, that one didn’t catch on.

What has caught on is something that the internet is calling ‘cottagecore’. It has been around for a while, and whilst the aesthetic was most popular in women’s fashion, Beckham is making a big deal out of it on Instagram, and men have decided to get on board.

The Guardian explains:

During lockdown, Beckham’s Instagram account has featured him in some distinct poses. With a scythe in hand against a bucolic sky with a field in the background, he’s usually wearing a flat cap, corduroys and a woolly cardigan or jumper.

Sometimes he’s wading through fields in his Hunter wellies and trenchcoat and he’s even filmed himself building a beehive in a V-neck smock top…

“As we emerge from lockdown, men are embracing cottagecore as a means to convey a more romanticised ideal of masculinity,” says Andrew Groves, a professor of fashion design at the University of Westminster.

Here, he says, Beckham has idealised the agricultural worker and reimagined himself “as the gamekeeper from Lady Chatterley’s Lover”.

I wish this was all speculation, but a recent Instagram post suggests otherwise:

I’m not sure what his pinky is doing either, but I’m sure it has something to do with the beauty of the pastoral life.

Also, props to his son Romeo for calling dad out.

The aesthetic on social media seems to involve people taking a drive to the nearest building-free natural setting to frolic in the grass in a maxi dress and braids, for as long as it takes to snap an Insta-worthy record of events.

During lockdown it has increased in popularity. “For those who felt trapped in their apartments in the grimy, crowded city, it made sense to start daydreaming about pastoral settings, where one could be cosy and feel free from disease,” says fashion historian Andrew Luecke.

Cottagecore activities like baking, gardening and making your own clothes have all boomed during the pandemic.

Now, menswear is taking note. Searches for the staples that make up so-called “granddad style” have increased: flat caps (monthly searches are at 27,100 according to Digitaloft.co.uk), cardigans (40,500) and smocks (74,000).

Harry Styles has become #fashiongoals, for his #harrystylescardigan, which looks like something that your grandma gives you for Christmas, forcing you to fake happiness while making plans to donate it to charity.

Designers are also getting on board, incorporating patterns featuring pansies and gardening boots in various spring/summer menswear collections.

If you feel like this is all a bit silly, you’re not alone.

Rather than have a go ourselves, we will hand over to Terry Gilford from Wookey in Somerset, who wrote into The Guardian, for his take on the “romantic sheen of rural life”:

Thanks to your correspondent for introducing us rural folk to “cottagecore” – “the latest trend of whimsical outdoor living” (David Beckham leads the way as men flock to ‘cottagecore’ look, 3 July).

In Somerset, we call “the romantic sheen of rural life” by the name “mud”, or sometimes “cow shit”.

As for city dwellers “daydreaming about pastoral settings, where one could be cosy and feel free from disease”, the farmer in our village who went to Cheltenham races is much missed. He was buried in our pastoral setting some weeks ago.

I think we can all agree that Terry is the hero of this story.

[sources:guardian&guardian]