It’s a summer afternoon at one of our country’s most popular malls, the Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio, and teens are doing what they’ve done for decades: roaming around in groups of twos and threes, browsing and gossiping and passing the time. Near the center of the complex is a renovated Abercrombie & Fitch store, brightly lit and covered in wood panels. Two teenage girls stop to review a wall of flouncy cotton-poly knee-length floral dresses. Each garment has the same distinctive horizontal pleats across the bust — Abercrombie’s comfortable but polished take on the cottagecore trend. One girl reminds her friend that two of their classmates wore that exact style, called the Emerson, in their senior pictures. “I hate that dress,” she says. “I love it, actually,” says the other.
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