Normcore. Have you heard about this latest extreme trend? It’s all about being, well, totally normal, actually. Neutral, nondescript, trademark-free, even bland – this understated anti-trend is now the new trend to know. How ironic.
New York Magazine dubbed it ‘Normcore’. The aim is to dress like the perfect pedestrian – you could look easily to your dad’s grey jumper/DIY-damaged jeans combo for style inspo. After years of trying to impress as individuals, looking just like everybody else is now not just acceptable, it’s actually cool.
Take a look in your wardrobe – plain white t-shirt, tick! Ripped n’ raw denim, tick! Team with the marker of hardcore Normcore dressing, a pair of Birkenstock or Adidas flip-flops that you previously referred to as garden slippers (which, btw, now fall into the super-stylish footwear category ‘sliders’) and you’ll find yourself bang on trend with truly minimal effort. But are the principles of normcore really that new?
After a decade of Dynasty-glam hair, big jewels and OTT 80s shoulder pads, 90s grunge was a backlash. While punk made anti-fashion statements, grunge was about not bothering to make a statement at all. Likewise with post-noughties Normcore, we’ve navigated years of WAGs, synth beauty, hyper-fast fashion and flash labels - so maybe we just can’t be bothered anymore? For dedicated fash fans, we know, this is a difficult one.
And so the great fashion debate spirals on – it’s cool to look mainstream, until everyone’s doing it, because then everyone would look cool. And that’s definitely not cool – is it?