Name: Sardinecore.

Age: Freshly spawned this summer.

Appearance: Fishy.

Sardinecore, you say. What fresh (fish) hell is this? Are you planning to make a lot of fish puns?

Clare V’s ‘Liberez les sardines’ T-shirt. Photograph: CLARE V

I am: it’s o-fish-ial. So what’s sardinecore? Well, tinned fish – often in beautiful, colourful packaging – has been hot for a while. It is served in bars at an eye-watering mark up and London’s Saltie Girl restaurant even has a “tin list” menu. Then a chef called Ali Hooke made #tinnedfishdatenight a TikTok phenomenon.

Tinned fish date night? Holy carp. There’s nothing erotic about a pilchard or a sprat. Sexy is in the eye of the beholder. Apparently, Hooke’s husband “Leaned over and told me he had always dreamed of sharing a moment like this with someone he loved”. Anyway, scales have also been having a design and fashion moment.

You mean a fishion moment. I do not. I mean LA brand Clare V produced “Liberez les sardines” T-shirts and caps, and luxury label Bottega Veneta has created a much-coveted “Sardine” bag.

Like Carrie’s daft pigeon clutch in And Just Like That …? No, this Sardine is sleekness personified. The sardine element is a “sculptural” fish-shaped gold handle.

It’s very beautiful, but how many tins of tuna can you fit in there? Four, I reckon.

Sold! It’s over £3,000.

Are you squidding? Unsold. But hang on, I thought this summer’s sea-themed trend was mermaidcore? That was back in early summer, a fashion lifetime ago. But, yes, all those gauzy, iridescent, diaphanous fabrics and fishtail shapes probably paved the way for sardinecore.

Bottega Veneta’s ‘sardine’ clutch. Photograph: BOTTEGA VENETA

None of this is new, is it? You couldn’t move without falling over a lobster print a few years ago. Ever since Elsa Schiaparelli’s 1937 lobster dress, I’m not sure it ever really went away. “The sea – vast, unknowable, volatile, both life-giving and life-taking – provides a seductive setting for myths, tales and speculation about what lies beneath the surface,” as Vogue put it in 2021, when Versace produced starfish-inspired dresses and Riccardo Tisci of Burberry channelled a “love affair between a mermaid and a shark”. Since then, we’ve seen Lizzo in an octopus outfit and a winter trend called “jellyfishing” (wearing a puffy coat with a slim bottom half).

Is there any sea creature that can’t be sprinkled with fashion fairy dust (as well as salt and lemon)? I’ve yet to see a fashion-forward blobfish – the deep-sea creature that looks like gloomy mucous – but anyfin is possible. Argh!

Do say: “Are you ready for the hot gill summer?”

Don’t say: “The sea is so hot right now. (So hot the only place you’ll see fish soon is on T-shirts.)”