Normcore is Normal Fashion

Fashion Terms

A mix between normal and hardcore, but leaning more toward the side of "normal".

Have you heard the term Normcore?  Are you a fan of such a trend?  Actually it was envisioned by its creators, not a fashion trend, but more as a broader sociological attitude.

Normcore is a unisex fashion trend characterized by unpretentious, average-looking clothing.  What a certain group would consider “normal” clothing.

According to the New York Times, “Normcore (noun) 1. A fashion movement, c. 2014, in which scruffy young urbanites swear off the tired street-style clichés of the last decade — skinny jeans, wallet chains, flannel shirts — in favor of a less-ironic (but still pretty ironic) embrace of bland, suburban anti-fashion attire.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/03/fashion/normcore-fashion-movement-or-massive-in-joke.html)

Normcore wearers are people who do not wish to distinguish themselves from others simply by their clothing.  This is not to mean that they are unfashionable people who wear whatever comes to hand, but that they consciously choose clothes that are undistinguished (not overtly trendy).  Although Normcore is somewhat an avoidance of trends, it has actually been a bit of a trend in its own right.

The "normcore" trend has been interpreted as a reaction to fashion oversaturation.

Normcore clothes include everyday items of casual wear such as t-shirts, hoodies, short-sleeved shirts, jeans and chino pants.

These clothes are worn by men and women alike, making normcore a unisex style.

"Normcore" is a portmanteau of the words "normal" and "hardcore".  As far as we know, the word first appeared in webcomic Templar, Arizona before 2009 and was later employed by K-Hole, a trend forecasting group, in an October 2013 report called "Youth Mode: A Report on Freedom".

As used by K-Hole, "normcore" referred to an attitude, not a particular code of dress. It was intended to mean "finding liberation in being nothing special."  However, a piece in New York magazine that began popularizing the term in February 2014 conflated it with "Acting Basic", another K-Hole concept which involved dressing neutrally to avoid standing out.  It was this sense of "normcore" which gained popular usage.

The word was named runner-up for neologism of the year by the Oxford University Press in 2014.

Don't worry, you don't have to be normal.