Summer is just around the corner, meaning seasonal fruits and fashion are making their comeback. Some of the most recognizable are strawberries and cherries.
Strawberries are my favorite fruit. I love the color, flavor, aesthetic, and they make wonderful additions to deserts and fruit bowls. They have a cute, sweet, and innocent connotation, which is something else I love.
I may be a little bit obsessed with them, so naturally I scroll online in search of cute strawberry clothes and accessories. Once again, I’m absolutely obsessed with the strawberry aesthetic.
In my search and mindless scrolling through SHEIN, I find absolutely stunning tops, dresses, and bathing suits, and on closer inspection, I find that those cute little red dots aren’t strawberries. They are cherries. CHERRIES! Cherries…
Listen… cherries are iconic. Cherry picking is fun, and they make a nice jam for toast or sandwiches or toppings on desserts. While cherries are a lovely color, as I love dark red, I hate eating cherries, especially with the pit.
Strawberries are much more versatile as a fruit, as you can make countless foods and drinks with them, including strawberry shortcake, regular cake, frosting, syrup, lemonade, and countless others.
What can you make with cherries? Probably the same things, but are they as good or convenient? Probably not.
The type of strawberry aesthetic I like isn’t very specific, but I don’t like the vintage Strawberry Shortcake one. Personally, it’s just not my style. I respect it, but it’s not for me.
So many strawberry clothes on SHEIN are… you guessed it… VINTAGE STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE. It upsets me a lot because I love the pastel pink/red aesthetic, maybe some green accents, and yet modest clothes and accessories like that are getting hard to find.
Cherries have a very sexual connotation, which my traumatized and child-like self hate. I don’t know why that is (and I’d like to keep it that way), but I see cherries on lighters, magazines, lingerie, and in other, not-so-innocent environments.
I’m sure it’s a slang term for a few things, but I choose ignorance and peace of mind.
Come to think of it, I only know two people that genuinely enjoy cherries, and they’re both over the age of 40, so take from that what you will.
I do own a cherry dress, as it’s super cute and fits like a glove, but I got it before I found this level of love for strawberries. I know I sound crazy, being this passionate about two small seasonal fruits, but I want some strawberry bathing suits that are made for adults instead of literal children.
Despite the connotation of cherries mentioned above, I’ve seen several modest clothes and accessories with cherries on them, far more than strawberry ones I’ve seen.
I don’t understand why cherries are so much more popular than strawberries. Maybe it has to do with the marketing of cherries on top of desserts.
Either way, cherries suck and strawberries deserve just as much, if not more, attention and love as cherries.