What is Normcore?

“If you think about it, this aesthetic is kind of like a boring minimalism. A bland, depressing fashion. Trying really hard to look like you’re not trying. Ok, fine. I’ll stop. Like Jerry Seinfeld in unfitting dad jeans and white sneakers.”

Do you often get lost within the incommensurable variety of aesthetics? So why not blend in and dress like everyone else? Normcore might be your best option.

Normcore (coming from the contraction of “normal” and “hardcore”) defines the will to be indistinguishable. The term appeared for the first time in the 2013 report of the trend forecasting group K-HOLE. The paradox is this: trend forecasting is “the ultimate pseudo-science of fashion”, as said by Emily Segal, the begetter of normcore, in her interview with Sleek Mag. But how can you forecast blue jeans, white shirts and black turtlenecks and make it a new aesthetic? Is normcore even real or just a witty neologism?

If 2013’s socio cultural revolution was made of hoodies, chinos, button-downs, and a wardrobe curated by Gap, New Balance, Patagonia, and your dad’s closet; it’s still hard to say if normcore is actually an anti-trend, a non-trend, or even a trend at all.

Normcore is now so normal that it even metastasized through numerous fashion circles, and probably became the most unreachable fashion phenomenon known up until now. 

Called “the new normal” by the New York Times, yet called a fraud by Elle.com. If you think about it, this aesthetic is kind of like a boring minimalism. A bland, depressing fashion. Trying really hard to look like you’re not trying. Ok, fine. I’ll stop. Like Jerry Seinfeld in unfitting dad jeans and white sneakers. 

On another hand, beyond the dress-code, normcore is a lifestyle. You want to exhibit neutrality. The clothing is unisex, thus gender-neutral. You don’t strive for difference or uniqueness, but sameness. You decide to be undecided, uninvolved, yet aligned. In any way, doesn’t it sound therapeutic?