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Deep Dive: Return to Twee-Topia

Leaning into the youthful (particularly girlish) and innocent connotations of the style, twee is in some ways described as an adult version of your Kindergarten’s first day of school outfit. And other times, an edgier take on 50s and 60s aesthetic. Though Zooey Deschanel and Alexa Chung are often lauded as the queens of twee, the likes of Tavi Gevinson, Gossip Girl's Blair Waldorf and even Kourtney Kardashian have also cultivated the style in the early 2000s.

 

But there’s much more to twee than striped suits and extravagant hats; and more to twee-pop than the boy-girl-guitar bands popularized by the likes of The Moldy Peaches (of Juno soundtrack fame) and She & Him (of Zooey Deschanel fame). The branch of twee that has mainstream recognition has been imbued with a sense of passivity and co-opted capitalism that romanticizes white femininity, and skinniness, among other homogenizing forces.

Alexa Chung in Elle 2012
Zooey Deschanel in 2011 Moschino
Kourtney Kardashian, 2011
Tavi Gevinson, 2009 (Getty Images)
Leighton Meister as Blair Waldorf in Gossip Girl

As Ian Wang noted in The Tribune, twee, in its first iteration in the United Kingdom in the 1980s rested in the sweet spot between pop and punk. With aims to undercut Margaret Thatcher’s free-market, small-government politics with a socialist music revolution. One of the first mainstream reference points for 1980s twee came in NME Magazine’s C86 Cassette Compilation in 1986. C86 defined a genre of indie rock, wedding melodic pop, and jangle guitar riffs. At the heart of the compilation was the question of whether the grit, anger, and politically charged narrative of punk could be adapted to reach the masses, and spark a movement.

 

Not long after, Sarah Records answered the question. At nineteen, Clare Wadd and Matt Haynes launched the independent record label. Between 1985 - 1995, in the transitional period between Vinyl and CDs, as indie moved from an ideology to a genre, and therefore became marketable, Sarah Records released one hundred vinyl 7’ singles. Intentionally straying away from the more expensive 12’ records, to make music that was, not only sonically, but also financially accessible to the masses, Wadd and Haynes embodied the socialist ideologies the label touted. While intended for the masses, 80s twee was not made to be mainstream (and consequently marketable). When Sarah Records saw the commodification of the sound they had lovingly fostered in opposition to capitalism, they simply closed up shop—a parrallel could be made with Tavi Gevinson's Rookie Mag (of course, after throwing one last goodbye party).

The Marine Girls
The Field Mice
The Softies
Northern Picture Library

The difference between twee of the 80s and the 00s lies in its distinct counter-cultural positioning of the 80s, juxtaposed against the commodity of the 00s style. The 2000s are seen as the origins of twee style, because they spurred a concerted effort towards twee in fashion (a creative industry more rooted in commodity.) Following adaptation by high fashion brands like Moschino, twee was mass-produced and packaged as the newest trend. It is in that detail that the quirky twee we know and love (and love to hate) is born, and problematized.

 

Divorced from its political context, twee can uphold the very structures its predecessors aimed to undo, collapsing femininity, often white, and ofen upper-class preppy styles with an idyllic, dreamlike romanticization of the past. Insidious in all iterations, capitalism has voided twee of its oppositional undertones, leaving a pile of bubble skirts, mary janes, and bows where an ethos once stood. In its absence creating the manic pixie dream girl– a romantic embodiment of opposition without an opposing force that has become the calling card of the twee aesthetic.

 

The problem of the twee aesthetic, namely, is that has become an aesthetic, an image without context or grounding in reality. Twee is  not softness for the sake of softness, but rather, in opposition to harsh realities. In the third iteration of twee, we have the opportunity to reimagine a gentle opposition, renewing the spirit of the 80s and expanding the aesthetic of the 2000s to make way for new twee icons taking shape in the likes of designer Tyler McGillivary, style icons Harry Styles and Gunna twisting up twee classics.

Twee never fully left, it has found new names in the cottage-core craze of early 2020, and the ever present DIY bedroom-pop scene. It’s in the soft-core croonings of Sidney Gish, Soccer Mommy, and early Clairo, think “Pretty Girl.”

 

But beyond a revival, twee implores us to create a culture beyond commodity. To honor the romance, curiosity, and wonder behind twee, can we replace the consumption of nostalgia with a search for something new? A culture that is accessible, created without profitable intentions, and cultivated to define a moment in time specific to the unique politics, lives, and aspirations of the individuals within it? If we can’t, we might as well close up shop.

Twee is not softness for the sake of softness, but rather, in opposition to harsh realities

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