Normcore: Cop or make it stop?

While normcore’s intentions are noble, it takes itself too seriously, even more seriously than fashion does.

Are you the billionaire owner of Apple Computers?” Jacob asks in Crazy Stupid Love. “No,” says Cal. “Oh, okay. In that case you’ve got no right to wear New Balance sneakers. Ever,” Jacob replies. Joke’s on you, Ryan Gosling. Now Urban Outfitters, the go-to outlet for the stylized youth, is selling New Balance sneakers. Included in the whiplash of microtrends brought on by the crowning of “normcore” as the latest anti-trend trend in fashion by NY-based forecasting group K-Hole, New Balance sneakers are not pretending to be cool now; instead, they have become the means towards a new philo-sartorial purpose: “To absolve oneself from fashion, lest it mark you as a mindless sheep.”

If this is the first time you are hearing about this, congratulations on being better than the Internet. It’s been going around the web for a week now, and it refuses to die despite John Travolta’s efforts. The concept of normcore is still a little fuzzy to me. The trend is just too abstract, which is expected, because K-Hole describes it as “a theory rather than a look.” To label it as a fashion trend is problematic, because it advocates the opposite. Is it then a statement? If so, the normcore statement can only be made by a multitude — one man in a Hawaiian tee, khaki pants and rubber shoes, looking very tourist-chic, does not make a movement. Who’s to say he’s not merely blissfully clueless about fashion? How do we differentiate the normcore from the fashion-blind, the guerrillas from the simply bland?

K-Hole identifies what normcore is not: it’s not one specific aesthetic, not about being simple, not rebelling against or giving into status quo, it’s not wearing cliché style taboos ironically. What it is is self-aware and it is this awareness that defines it and separates it from the uniform mass. Didn’t this mass inspire the normcore trend, though? Now designers are creating clothes the uniform mass will never be able to afford and actual normcores will never buy, for the very people the trend has labeled as mindless fashion sheep. I feel like I’m in Philo class all over again, and it’s giving me a headache.

Am I normcore? Are my friends normcore? My dad is definitely normcore, but I doubt he’s trying to make a statement with his slacks. On the street, I spotted a man who is very normcore: a cartoon T-shirt one size too big, straight-cut stonewash jeans, Vans and socks make up his look. I see him throwing on a cardigan in a very non-Pharrell way. To me, that is normcore — stubbornly resisting style and sticking to how he was perhaps dressed by his mother as a seven-year-old boy, for reasons we will never understand. In an age when following fashion has become a lifestyle, normcore is the hardcore patronage of the normal, not necessarily the norm. To this stranger: I respect your beliefs, but your jeans are making your butt look flat and wide.

On Oscars morning, Vogue culture editor Thessaly La Force tweeted: “Is Ellen doing a little bit of #normcore?” Vogue isn’t the only one on to it. Normcore has been associated retroactively with certain fashion week collections, with claims that it is being embraced and (here comes the higher compliment) even subverted by designers. Rick Owens was quoted saying, “Indifference is the biggest aphrodisiac.” And Dazed Digital described his Paris show as “gloriously average,” even calling it “avant-normcore.” GQ has compiled its top 10 normcore essentials for men — if you’ve seen Seinfeld, you won’t need to see this list. Some people are glad it’s a trend, some people say it needs to stop, some people claim it’s the story of their lives. But the folks at K-Hole insist it’s more than just about fashion. “We wanted this to be a term that celebrates openness and an ability for people to engage. It’s quickly turned into a stereotype to label people that dress a certain way and that was not our true hope,” says Greg Fong, one of the creators of normcore, in an article on TheStar.com. “You can still be different, you can be any way you want, but when being different becomes a barrier to engagement, that’s a problem.”

Let me break that down: It’s against the Mean Girls “You-can’t-sit-with-us” and “On-Wednesdays-we-wear-pink” culture. But if everyone in the Hollywood high school cafeteria wore Birkenstocks, shorts and hoodies — no goths, no punks, no cheerleaders, no jocks, no labels — a lot of teen movies would’ve immensely sucked. Also, where’s the fun in that? While normcore’s intentions are noble, it takes itself too seriously, even more seriously than fashion does. It’s become a source of comic relief because it’s trying to be so deep, it failed to anticipate how the colorful imagination of people in fashion would interpret it, how the Internet could bastardize it. So much for self-awareness, huh?

This needs to stop. Taste is not the enemy, and the absence of it is not going to magically bring us world peace. Fashion is engagement — just look how many friends you’ll make just by saying “I like your shoes.” Meanwhile, I’ve mentioned normcore more than 20 times here. Do I smell a nomination for Word of the Year? Let’s hope not, lest we be marked as mindless sheep. My vote is for “Travoltified.”