“Who? Why sardines?”

The nautical theme of 2025 has laser-focused on an surprising fishy theme that has TikTokers confused about all of the sardines.

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Suddenly, sardines are in all places, and nobody can work out precisely why.

@holxbeauty I don’t get it #sardines #sardine ♬ suono originale – AIVIDEO

This will need to have one thing to do with these lobster beaded baggage from April.

What’s with all of the sardines?

Starting in May, sardine prints and decor started to flood retailer cabinets, on-line outlets, and social media. Stores like Urban Outfitters, West Elm, and Anthropologie nonetheless have sardine sections up on-line filled with striped materials and tin cans.

As the summer season wore on, TikTookay customers began to brazenly marvel why these little fish have been in all places all season. Nobody noticed the sardine summer season coming, and even amongst those that prefer it, few seem to get it.

@steph_unnie

LITERALLY WHY SARDINES??? 😭

♬ Lucifer’s Waltz – Secession Studios

“Whose great idea was it in the year of 2025 to make all home decor pieces sardine themed?” requested @steph_unnie again in July. “Who? Why sardines?”

Many commenters responded with pictures of seals, suggesting some form of nice seal conspiracy to push the sardine aesthetic.

Others remembered that random animal decor traits are cyclical, pointing to the love of geese and roosters from previous generations.

By why sardines, and why now? Some suppose that the cheap, typically canned fish could function yet one more recession indicator. There have been a number of alerts that youthful generations are disposing of flashy vogue for a less complicated life-style, and sardines match completely.

“Sardines are a very humble fish,” Oxford University Professor of Italian Cultural History Guido Bonsaver advised USA Today. He theorizes that they symbolize the power to embrace a frugal existence, “and be happy with it. Not take it as a failure, but as a new dimension in which you find a smaller place to be happy.”

Tomatoes and nautical baggage

Simple, quaint themes have prolonged past a budget little fish. The coming heat season introduced together with it a deep want for beaded baggage sporting lobsters and different nautical objects again in April. TikTokers had been providing their kidneys for particular baggage from Marshall’s carrying little sea creatures, together with sardines.

This prolonged into a whole “fisherman aesthetic” that Pinterest customers predicted in late 2024. Long rubber boots and overalls turned a vogue assertion. Things acquired bizarre.

To go together with sardines, in fact, you want tomatoes. In May, Bath & Body Works began selling a “tomato girl fantasy.” This baffled the web at first, however many didn’t hate the savory scents provided.

As issues heated up, tomato cocktails turned the drink of the summer season.

“Me and my friends have been calling it a stinky girl summer because of all the tomato and sardine decor that is out rn,” mentioned one TikTookay commenter.

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