• Intelligencer
  • The Cut
  • Vulture
  • The Strategist
  • Curbed
  • Grub Street
  • Subscribe to the Magazine Give a Gift Subscription Buy Back Issues Current Issue Contents
    Subscribe to New York Magazine
  • Subscribe
  • Profile
    Sign Out
The Cut
  • Style
  • Self
  • Culture
  • Power
Style
  • Fashion
  • Beauty
  • Shopping
  • Design Hunting
  • New York Weddings
  • Parties & Red Carpet
  • Fashion Shows
  • Cathy Horyn
Self
  • Health & Wellness
  • Motherhood
  • Advice
  • Sex & Relationships
  • Science of Us
  • Horoscopes
  • Ask Polly
Culture
  • Books
  • Television
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Celebrity
Power
  • Politics
  • Work
  • Money
  • Rebecca Traister
More
  • Latest Stories
  • Video
  • About Us
  • The Cut Shop
  • nymag.com
  • New York Magazine
  • Intelligencer
  • Vulture
  • The Cut
  • The Strategist
  • Grub Street
trends
February 26, 2014

Normcore: Fashion for Those Who Realize They’re One in 7 Billion

By Fiona Duncan

Share

  • Share
  • Tweet
Photo: Amy Lombard

Sometime last summer I realized that, from behind, I could no longer tell if my fellow Soho pedestrians were art kids or middle-aged, middle-American tourists. Clad in stonewash jeans, fleece, and comfortable sneakers, both types looked like they might’ve just stepped off an R-train after shopping in Times Square. When I texted my friend Brad (an artist whose summer uniform consisted of Adidas barefoot trainers, mesh shorts and plain cotton tees) for his take on the latest urban camouflage, I got an immediate reply: “lol normcore.”

Normcore—it was funny, but it also effectively captured the self-aware, stylized blandness I’d been noticing. Brad’s source for the term was the trend forecasting collective (and fellow artists) K-Hole. They had been using it in a slightly different sense, not to describe a particular look but a general attitude: embracing sameness deliberately as a new way of being cool, rather than striving for “difference” or “authenticity.” In fashion, though, this manifests itself in ardently ordinary clothes. Mall clothes. Blank clothes. The kind of dad-brand non-style you might have once associated with Jerry Seinfeld, but transposed on a Cooper Union student with William Gibson glasses.

At first, I spotted just occasional forays into normcore: the rare cool kid wearing clothes as lukewarm as the last sips of deli coffee—mock turtlenecks with Tevas and Patagonia windbreakers; Uniqlo khakis with New Balance sneakers or Crocs and souvenir-stand baseball caps.The look also cropped up on my social-media feeds, on Internet “It” kids’ Instagrams and Tumblrs. Internet-inspired artist Jeanette Hayes (who’s created work on behalf of Proenza Schouler and Alexander Wang) was layering white athletic socks with strappy stilettos, and posing for selfies in a Yankees cap and juniors-department denim. VFILES host and casting director Preston Chaunsumlit wore white nurse clogs for several seasons running. And Devonté Hynes of Blood Orange amassed a collection of off-brand New York ball caps, which he paired with turtlenecks, sweatpants, and boxy jeans. Showing up for an interview with Fader at the Empire State Building, Hynes looked, wrote the reporter, “like a tourist.”

By late 2013, it wasn’t uncommon to spot the Downtown chicks you’d expect to have closets full of Acne and Isabel Marant wearing nondescript half-zip pullovers and anonymous denim. Magazines, too, had picked up the look. T noted the “enduring appeal of the Patagonia fleece” as displayed on Patrik Ervell and Marc Jacobs’s runways. Edie Campbell slid into Birkenstocks (or the Céline version thereof) in Vogue Paris. Adidas trackies layered under Louis Vuitton cashmere in Self Service. A bucket hat and Nike slippers framed an Alexander McQueen coveralls in Twin. Smaller, younger magazines like London’s Hot and Cool and New York’s Sex and Garmento, were interested in even more genuinely average ensembles, skipping high-low blends for the purity of head-to-toe normcore.

Jeremy Lewis, the founder/editor of Garmento and a freelance stylist and fashion writer, calls normcore “one facet of a growing anti-fashion sentiment.” His personal style is (in the words of Andre Walker, a designer Lewis featured in the magazine’s last issue) “exhaustingly plain”—this winter, that’s meant a North Face fleece, khakis, and New Balances. Lewis says his “look of nothing” is about absolving oneself from fashion, “lest it mark you as a mindless sheep.”

From Novembre magazine. Photo: Nicolas Coulomb

“Fashion has become very overwhelming and popular,” Lewis explains. “Right now a lot of people use fashion as a means to buy rather than discover an identity and they end up obscured and defeated. I’m getting cues from people like Steve Jobs and Jerry Seinfeld. It’s a very flat look, conspicuously unpretentious, maybe even endearingly awkward. It’s a lot of cliché style taboos, but it’s not the irony I love, it’s rather practical and no-nonsense, which to me, right now, seems sexy. I like the idea that one doesn’t need their clothes to make a statement.”

One of the first stylists I started bookmarking for her normcore looks was the London-based Alice Goddard. She was assembling this new mainstream minimalism in the magazine she co-founded, Hot and Cool, as early as 2011. For Goddard, the appeal of normal clothes was the latest thing: “Styling is about showing different types of clothing in a new way,” she says, “which normally means taking something—an item, a character or an idea—that I find kind of ugly and gross, and making it good.”

Goddard’s initial interest in normcore was in part a reaction to the fashion status quo. One standout editorial from Hot and Cool no. 5 (Spring 2013) was composed entirely of screenshots of people from Google Map’s Street View app. Goddard had stumbled upon “this tiny town in America” on Mapsand thought the plainly-dressed people there looked amazing. The editorial she designed was a parody of contemporary street style photography—“the main point of difference,” she says, “being that people who are photographed by street style photographers are generally people who have made a huge effort with their clothing, and the resulting images often feel a bit over fussed and over precious—the subject is completely aware of the outcome; whereas the people we were finding on Google Maps obviously had no idea they were being photographed, and yet their outfits were, to me, more interesting.”

From Hot & Cool magazine. Photo: Courtesy of Alice Goddard/Hot and Cool

The Internet is where all conversation about normcore seems to converge. New media has changed our relation to information, and, with it, fashion. Reverse Google Image Search and tools like Polyvore make discovering the source of any garment as simple as a few clicks. Online shopping—from eBay through the Outnet—makes each season available for resale almost as soon as it goes on sale. As Natasha Stagg, the Online Editor of V Magazine and a regular contributor at DIS (where she recently wrote a normcore-esque essay about the queer appropriation of mall favorite Abercrombie & Fitch), put it: “Everyone is a researcher and a statistician now, knowing accidentally the popularity of every image they are presented with, and what gets its own life as a trend or meme.” The cycles of fashion are so fast and so vast, it’s impossible to stay current; in fact, there is no one current.

Emily Segal of K-HOLE insists that normcore isn’t about one specific aesthetic. “It’s not about being simple or forfeiting individuality to become a bland, uniform mass,” she explains. Rather, it’s about welcoming the possibility of being recognizable, of looking like other people—and “seeing that as an opportunity for connection, instead of as evidence that your identity has dissolved.”

K-HOLE describes normcore as a theory rather than a look; but in practice, the contemporary normcore styles I’ve seen have their clear aesthetic precedent in the nineties. The editorials in Hot and Cool look a lot like Corinne Day styling newcomer Kate Moss in Birkenstocks in 1990, or like Art Club 2000’s appropriation of madras from the Gap, like grunge-lite and Calvin Klein minimalism. But while (in their original incarnation) those styles reflected anxiety around “selling out,” today’s version is more ambivalent toward its market reality. Normcore isn’t about rebelling against or giving into the status quo; it’s about letting go of the need to look distinctive, to make time for something new.

The demographic leading the normcore trend is, by and large, Western Millennials and digital natives. Stylist-editors like Hot and Cool’s Alice Goddard and Garmento’s Jeremy Lewis are children of the nineties, teens of the aughts. The aesthetic return to styles they would’ve worn as kids reads like a reset button—going back to a time before adolescence, before we learned to differentiate identity through dress. The Internet and globalization have challenged the myth of individuality (we are all one in 7 billion), while making connecting with others easier than ever. Normcore is a blank slate and open mind—it’s a look designed to play well with others.

*This is an expanded version of an article that ran in the February 24, 2014 issue of New York Magazine.

View
1 / 20 Photos
Kristine Guico (26, fashion designer) "Everyone’s so unique that it’s not unique anymore. Especially in New York." "I tend to go... Kristine Guico (26, fashion designer) "Everyone’s so unique that it’s not unique anymore. Especially in New York." "I tend to go for nostalgic things, and I feel like that’s kind of where normcore is... I was an only child. I was very into Limited 2 and Nike and basically I’m kind of still the same, fashion-wise.” Reporting throughout by Jenna Marotta. Photo: Amy Lombard
Kristine Guico  Photo: Amy Lombard
Chris Wegman  Photo: Amy Lombard
Jake Moore  Photo: Amy Lombard
Sarah Brown (23, works at Brooklyn Charm) Photo: Amy Lombard
Sarah Brown  Photo: Amy Lombard
Nick Anderson (22, visual merchandiser at American Apparel) "Blue puffy jacket: I just got it at a thrift store in California. Probably 10... Nick Anderson (22, visual merchandiser at American Apparel) "Blue puffy jacket: I just got it at a thrift store in California. Probably 10 bucks. I thrift really hard. I love thrifting.” Photo: Amy Lombard
Nick Anderson  Photo: Amy Lombard
Daniella Polyak  Photo: Amy Lombard
Freda Ding  Photo: Amy Lombard
Ross Schaner  Photo: Amy Lombard
Ross Schaner  Photo: Amy Lombard
Sean Monaghan (26, works at Beacon’s Closet) On normcore: “Normcore, yeah. My friends did that. They do K-HOLE... People call it ‘Bardcore’ too... Sean Monaghan (26, works at Beacon’s Closet) On normcore: “Normcore, yeah. My friends did that. They do K-HOLE... People call it ‘Bardcore’ too. Like Bard the school. It’s funny.” "The one thing about normcore that’s cool is that you want to be approachable by as many people as possible rather than being divisive or elitist.” Photo: Amy Lombard
B Taylor  Photo: Amy Lombard
Hamilton Lublin (19, student in Stockholm, in NYC on a three-month visa) Photo: Amy Lombard
Christian "Big" Farquis (18, integrated design student at Parsons and intern at VFILES) "I have no problem doing something a litt... Christian "Big" Farquis (18, integrated design student at Parsons and intern at VFILES) "I have no problem doing something a little more awkward; sometimes I’ll wear, like, a fanny pack." Photo: Amy Lombard
Daniel So (27, operations coordinator at Thrillist Media Group) “I used to be really big into the HashtagMenswear stuff... But ever since I sta... Daniel So (27, operations coordinator at Thrillist Media Group) “I used to be really big into the HashtagMenswear stuff... But ever since I started working in a more relaxed work-culture where I can just wear anything, I kind of started getting back into sneakers and stuff. Photo: Amy Lombard
Daniel So  Photo: Amy Lombard
Phillip Wyatt  Photo: Amy Lombard
Rachel Rinehart Reporting throughout slideshow by Jenna Marotta. Photo: Amy Lombard
1 / 20

Tags:

  • normcore
  • trends
  • new york magazine
  • fashion
  • love and war
  • More

More Galleries

campaign trail Jan. 28, 2021
 The Best Fashion Campaigns From Spring 2021  This season’s best from Prada, Versace, Miu Miu, and more. 
By Florence O'Connor
in memoriam Dec. 30, 2020
30 Incredible Fashion Moments From Pierre Cardin  Remembering a creative visionary. 
By Andrew Nguyen
rest in power Dec. 23, 2020
A Photo Memorial for an Iconic Model  She passed away suddenly at the age of 50 this week. 
campaign trail Nov. 18, 2020
‘Tis the Season for New Fashion Ads  See the best ones from Gucci, Prada, Versace, and more. 
By Emily Burns
nyfw spring 2021 Oct. 26, 2020
How a Great Collection Comes Alive  Christopher John Rogers launched its first-ever online shop, along with a new campaign. 
By Andrew Nguyen
campaign trail Sept. 24, 2020
See the Fashion Campaigns for Fall 2020  From Prada, Michael Kors, Celine, Louis Vuitton, and more. 
By Andrew Nguyen
nyfw spring 2021 Sept. 22, 2020
See the Coach Spring 2021 Collection  Worn by Megan Thee Stallion, Kate Moss, Cole Sprouse, and more. 
By Andrew Nguyen
fashion Sept. 16, 2020
The Stunning Awkwardness of Face Masks on the Red Carpet  Celebrities tried to make the best of a strange situation at the 2020 Venice Film Festival. 
one word one shot Sept. 15, 2020
72 Designers on Their Spring/Summer Inspirations  Just in time for Fashion Week. 
By the Cut
red carpet Sept. 8, 2020
This Red Carpet Was Totally Surreal  But also amazing. See all the looks at the Venice Film Festival. 
By Emilia Petrarca and Andrew Nguyen
in memoriam Aug. 31, 2020
Remembering Chadwick Boseman on the Red Carpet  His style was bold, risk-taking, and always impeccable. 
the wedding files Aug. 21, 2020
The Design-Minded Couple Who Didn’t Want to Try Too Hard  The bride got a wonderful surprise the morning of her wedding. 
By Kaitlin Menza
the wedding files Aug. 14, 2020
A Costa Rica Wedding During the Rainy Season  Thunder roared during the toasts. 
By Kaitlin Menza
the wedding files Aug. 7, 2020
A San Francisco Wedding at a Big, Empty Pier  The bride changed into crushed-velvet pants for the disco-infused reception. 
By Kaitlin Menza
the wedding files July 31, 2020
An Elopement Among the Lupines in Iceland  The late afternoon was spent snapping photos near waterfalls and black beaches. 
By Kaitlin Menza
the wedding files July 24, 2020
A Pennsylvania Potluck for 280 People  “I looked at her for the first time and had this feeling like, You. I know you.” 
By Kaitlin Menza
milan fashion week July 22, 2020
Behind the Scenes at Gucci’s Virtual Show  Instead of models, members of the design team sported the eccentric collection. 
By Andrew Nguyen
the wedding files July 17, 2020
A Dance Party Under Puerto Rican Palm Trees  Bad Bunny blasted and pitorro flowed. 
By Kaitlin Menza
the wedding files July 10, 2020
A Zoom Wedding Only Two Digital Creatives Could Produce  The couple coordinated multiple video segments, breakout rooms, and a dance party. 
By Kaitlin Menza
the wedding files July 3, 2020
The Anti-Spectacle Wedding That Turned Into a Spectacle  Brooklyn Bridge Park was the site of their first date, proposal, and wedding. 
By Kaitlin Menza
  • Style
  • Self
  • Culture
  • Power
  • Newsletters
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Help
  • We’re Hiring
  • Press
  • Trademark
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Ad Choices
  • Do Not Sell My Info
The Cut is a Vox Media Network. © 2021 Vox Media, LLC. All rights reserved.