How kidcore pulls out TikTok’s inner child

Adults are entering the social media trend defined by bright colors, ridiculous accessories, and carefree instincts.

“Hello everyone! So I want to wear my first date clothes today,” says a smiling young woman. At TikTok.. Her make-up is impeccable and exaggerated, with dark pink blush and pale green eyeshadow, and her face surrounded by dark bobs highlighted in iridescent blue and green. She lifts a floor-length lace gown with aquamarine, then adds a peach nightie and two-tone tights. Her accessories include a colorful knit balaclava, an opera-length arm warmer, and a neon green tote bag. In her over 13,000 comments, she has the recurring feeling, “I don’t know if she’s joking.”

I’m not kidding. Sara Camposarcone is the ambassador of Kidcore, a trend defined by flashy prints, bright colors, cartoon characters and ridiculous accessories that can’t be mistaken in the toy’s tantalizing trunk. She attracts nearly 400,000 TikTok followers by recording her daily outfits, usually landing somewhere in the continuum between the “eccentric art teacher” and the “birthday party clown.” I did. She is often asked if she is wearing these clothes in public, so she recorded a video at a grocery store and trimmed with a set of purple platform shoes and custom-made cerulean pants and loofah. I went through the top. In another popular video, Camposarkone puts on her clothes for her job interview. Her ensemble is built around a cat-printed corset, layered over a white embroidered dress and neon orange tights, with an oversized heart pendant and an electric green plush toy studded with hanging beads. I am. “For a nice colored pop,” she says, referring to her purse. “Because this look is more neutral to me.” (Camposarcone got her job as a marketing specialist for the Toronto apparel brand Cakeworthy.)

Camposarcone’s style is undeniably weird, but in the last two years fashion has been cut off from reality. The pandemic has led to a major withdrawal from public life, along with affecting all opportunities we dress up, including meetings, weddings and holidays. Many of us withdrew into sweatpants, but some went the other way and found an audience of brave efforts online. Especially on TikTok where the #kidcore hashtag has been played over 1.1 billion times.

Social media has obscured the runway as a pioneer of new trends. TikTok is a place where new styles have been devised, accepted and abandoned. Content authors need to catch because TikTok forces users to scroll from one video to the next Get the viewer’s attention and stick to it.This has It has influenced the way fashion is introduced in the app. Style influential people often assemble costumes one at a time, like a burlesque show. The more they are amazing, the more likely you are to keep watching. When someone has a cat print corset, you will want to know what they are trying to do with it.

As a result, aesthetics are elaborate and very specific. There is a dark academia featuring tweed and wool trousers. It’s like a Donna Tartt character wearing it while thinking about murder at the Liberal Arts College in the corridor. There are delicate things, Victorian shade cottage core. Perfect for Jane Austen festivals and dreamy dispatches from lavender fields. TikTok fashion is fantasy. Trends are centered around academic, romantic and idyllic atmospheres and emotions. If you want to pretend to be a Scottish literary professor, there are clothes for that.

This escapism leads to the purest purpose of fashion. It is a kind of alchemy that changes the wearer from the outside to the inside. Wearing a particular dress or accessory will be your version you’ve always wanted. And kidcore suggests that you can find confidence by deviating from fashion norms rather than sticking to them. When never thinking of putting a tutu on skiwear, it evokes not only the iconography, but also the carefree instinct of childhood. “People love to feel that little nostalgia,” says Camposarcone. Talking to me on Zoom in late April, she wears a Day-Glo-orange Bob and cherry red sweatshirt and a green baseball cap. Both are decorated with Mickey Mouse. “Wearing this, it feels like when I was five.” Her admiration for Disney invites her to work with the company to create a look inspired by the Cruella de Vil on that TikTok channel. It was recently rewarded when it was done.

The 26-year-old Camposarkone grew up in Ancaster, just west of Hamilton, Ontario. At her Catholic high school, she was regularly sent to her principal’s office because she broke the dress code with her colorful accessories and mismatched socks. None of her friends were interested in fashion, so Camposarkone spent a lot of time on YouTube looking for inspiration for her style and teaching herself how to apply makeup from a video tutorial. .. She discovered a saver video, began to step into the local Value Village, and soon became obsessed with the treasure hunt aspect of second-hand shopping. She studied visual merchandising at Sheridan College, and when she graduated in 2018, she participated in a summer internship with a fashion blogger in Milan. She said, “I remember thinking, Everyone here is so easy and cool, what’s happening to me,“She says,”No one cares what others are doing.“

The videos she posted in 2018 and 2019 have hints on her current aesthetics. Hot pink tights, Hello Kitty wallet. But the pandemic was a catalyst. “I started playing in the closet. Things, “she says.Her first experience with online viralArriving in a full puppy print outfit, the feedback was clearly mixed, but Camposarkone was pleased that many were watching. “I know it’s good clothes if I’m walking down the street and 10 people spin to see me,” she says.

You may not see a full-fledged kid core in real life, but many of the factors are Mainstream. Women of all ages wear oversized removable collars, candy-colored resin accessories, pinafores and overalls. Ouroboros in fast fashion has already eaten up the kid core. You can now buy a leisure suit with a SpongeBob SquarePants pattern on Forever 21. However, choosing the joy of living is difficult. The most striking thing about Camposarcone’s videos is not the collection of novelty wear printed by dogs, but the joy of spinning and ringing the videos. Look at her girlfriend, you think, I want to have fun changing clothes..

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This article was printed in the July 2022 issue. McLeans magazine.Subscribe to monthly print magazines hereOr buy the issue online here..