When people talk about decorating their refrigerator, they’re often talking about the door — but the latest trend sees people focusing on the inside of the fridge for decor.
People on Instagram and TikTok have taken up “fridgescaping,” making the place where they keep their food into something aesthetically pleasing.
Groceries now share a home with items such as flowers, framed photos or eye cream as decor.
The trend is just picking up popularity, but some creators have been on the fridgescaping train for a while now — and the term even predates Instagram.
The phrase first popped up in 2011 in a blog post by Kathy Perdue, a retired design consultant based in Brentwood, California.
“Why not put your everyday food items in pretty containers and have something pretty to look at when you open the door?! You know something to make you smile,” Perdue wrote.
However, back in 2011, Perdue’s “fridescaping” looked more like the restocking videos of today: an organized fridge that is aesthetically pleasing due to the functional display — there were no added flowers or photos, just things that belong in a fridge.
“What’s funny is that you can call different levels of fridge organization ‘fridgescaping,’” Ellen Marie Bennett, the founder and chief brand officer ofHedley & Bennettand host of“Kitchen Glow Up,” a kitchen makeover show focused on cooking, told Food & Wine.
But just like so many things in the cultural zeitgeist, social media took fridgescaping to another level.
“I saw a video where someone had an orchid in their fridge, and everything was in an aesthetic jar or picture frame, and it just lit up my dopamine centers,” North Carolina creative Allison Hester told Food & Wine about the first time she saw “fridgescape” content about a year and a half ago.
Since that moment, Hester, along with other creators, have become known — for better or for worse — for the contents of their fridge.
Lynzi Judish, a content creator focusing on home decor based in New York’s Hudson Valley, has been posting fridgescaping content since May, but the one that went viral was her “Bridgerton”-inspired fridgescape, which she calls “Fridgerton.”
“This Fridgerton refrigerator restock was honestly one of the most enjoyable things I’ve done in a while. I just started watching season 3 of ‘Bridgerton,’ so what better time to romanticize my life with some fridgescaping?” she captioned her reel with 1.1 million views.
While fridgescaping definitely looks pretty, it’s not exactly the most practical thing if you need to use all your fridge space for food and ingredients.
“I think [fridgescaping] is a really funny, bizarre trend, but I don’t think it’s a trend by people that cook,” Bennett said. “I think it’s a trend by people that maybe decorate and want to make their house look cute, but are by no means trying to bring function to their home.”
Even though she enjoys the practice of fridgescaping, Bennett admits it’s not practical and is sometimes even “ridiculous.”
“I’ll take a dressing from my takeout container and then I’ll put it into a mason jar and that’s just obnoxious. That’s what I find ridiculous,” she laughed. “Or I will take all of my two-year-old’s yogurts and I will line them up so they all say Stonyfield Farm at the top.”
However, Bennett added that the trend might actually make people cook more, ironically, since these decorators will want to use up the contents of your fridge for aesthetics — and Judish can attest to this.
“It made me start to get into gardening because I wanted to grow my own food and have my own herbs at home,” Judish. “So now I have my own raised garden bed situation that I use all the time.”
Judish agreed that the activity isn’t ideal for extending the shelf life of some food, like when she puts her berries and fruits in pretty open dishes.
She also admitted that the things that go in her fridge for social media content don’t necessarily stay there.
“Obviously I don’t run around my house with lace gloves on, and I don’t actually store a jewelry box in my refrigerator, although some people on the internet genuinely think that I do things like that, which is really funny,” Judish shared.
“I wanted it to be something that was like, this is what my refrigerator looks like right now, one hundred percent. But I also wanted it to be kind of fun. So I think some people miss that. It’s supposed to be a little silly, too.”
The trend is all in good fun, though Bennett appreciates the shift in conversation that it’s brought.
“I actually love this. Instead of us talking about beauty trends, we’re talking about making our refrigerators look cool. What a time to be alive,” she said. “I’m like, I’m here for this. I would rather people spend their money at the farmers market than at Sephora.”
