Indulge us for just one moment and cast your mind back to the early 2010s. You’re heading to HMV to purchase 500 Days Of Summer on DVD, bopping away to Feist on a pair of knotted, wired headphones. Your outfit? A polka dot dress, burgundy tights, an owl necklace and a pair of ballet flats. Life is good.
For those unfamiliar with this point in time, from c2007 to 2012, let us walk you down memory lane. Known on Tumblr as ‘twee’, the indie-adjacent aesthetic was defined by a love of ‘quirky’ movies, music and fashion – the likes of Juno, Kate Nash and Peter Pan collars. Commodifying the idea of the hot nerd, twee was all about girls in big glasses, riding pastel-coloured bikes and being ‘adorkable’.
