If you’ve been on the internet for the past few months, you may have seen the strawberry dress circulating all over social media. From TikTok to Instagram, this beautiful pale pink cotton candy midi dress embellished with glittery strawberries, plunging neckline, gently puffed sleeves, dainty waist-tie, and ruffled hem is everything everyone is obsessed with. There are viral tweets, memes, and fan-art for the $490 Strawberry Midi Dress. Lirika Matoshi is breaking headlines this year not only for her contribution of free serotonin with her strawberry dress, but as well for her cloud knit sweater, rainbow heart dress, and other enthralling designs.
Kosovo native Lirika Matoshi moved to New York at the age of 15. In 2016, Matoshi was inspired by her older fashion designer sister, Teuta Matoshi, to begin selling handmade accessories covered in crystals on Etsy. Her success only continued to flourish on Instagram. Despite not having any formal fashion school training and only being in the industry for a short time, Matoshi has made a name for herself as a fashion powerhouse.
The Lirika Matoshi brand is currently based in New York. It operates out of a New York City and Kosovo factory: she and her sister started from scratch, and work alongside one another. The brand is also made up of 100% women and focuses on female empowerment and working on improving sizing inclusively, which is rare to find in an indie brand.
Despite the current universal love for the strawberry dress, it did not receive the same admiration when it was first worn on a red carpet. Back in January, Tess Holliday wore a custom-tailored iteration of the dress to the Grammys. Holliday faced harsh criticism and ended up in multiple “worst dressed” lists. “I like how this dress had me on worst dressed lists when I wore it in January to the Grammys; but now [bc] a bunch of skinny ppl wore it on TikTok, everyone cares,” Holliday shared to Instagram on August 17. “To sum it up: our society hates fat people, especially when we are winning.” Holliday is not wrong: certain fashion choices, regardless of how “extravagant” or “extra”, are often praised when worn by thin people and ridiculed when worn by plus-sized people. Hopefully, after seeing the booming success of Lirika Matoshi, other fashion brands will do a better job of creating garments that people of all body types look and feel great in.
It is not far-fetched to conclude that this dress is beloved by many, especially with the rise of the “cottagecore aesthetic.” There has been such a spike in popularity that Matoshi created a unisex dress shirt, a version of the dress in black, face masks and scarfs adorning strawberries. In a time where everything thing seems daunting, who wouldn’t want to get rid of their sweats and run around in the strawberry dress in a remote field to escape quarantine?