Why Castlecore and Romantasy Have Had Such Staying Power

Chappell Roan's performance of "Good Luck, Babe " at the MTV Video Music Awards evoked the European Middle Ages .

Taylor Swift and Natalie Portman's fashion evokes the Middle Ages with their fashion.

The New York Times Style section listed “ Minds drift to medieval times” as something to watch for in 2025 .

Castlecore is a sort of Romantic medievalism marked by sumptuous wealth.

It's a kind of medievalism, in other words, that seems to have passed through a sieve of Jane Austen or Emily Brontë ; now you can see it in the works of medieval-themed romantasy novels.

What unites high and low here is a nostalgic ideal of luxury and wealth.

This is a different way of using historical aesthetics than what you see from the tradwife community.

Castlecore isn’t about abandoning your smartphone forever, but rather about finding a place you can put it down for a while.

The past was filled with people who made choices and wielded power, but also people who resisted, who critiqued.