What exactly is normcore?
That’s what everyone has been asking recently with the new trend gracing blogs, magazine spreads and city streets.
Normcore is defined as the trend of losing all singularity and dressing plainly with off-brand clothing. New Balance sneakers, Hanes T-shirts and simple blue jeans is an example of a normcore outfit.
Jerry Seinfeld, Steve Jobs and, more currently, Barack Obama are just some celebrity examples of the normcore trend at work.
While magazines, blogs and fashion aficionados are embracing the normcore trend, I don’t find this to be a trend at all. When every magazine and company starts advertising a new trend, readers and consumers are surrounded by new products they think they need to buy to restart their wardrobes and embrace something new. It’s all a business plan to sell more and tell the public how they should be dressing right now.
However, the difference with normcore, as compared to a trend like palazzo pants or rompers, is that most people already own their fair share of cheap white T-shirts and blue jeans. Plus, people who normally dress in normcore fashion most likely don’t care about fashion at all.
These people are parents with no time to get dressed, young adults with no care for personal style and people who like to be comfortable on a budget.
So how do you tell the difference between someone embracing normcore and someone who just dresses in normcore fashion?
You don’t, and that’s another reason this trend is irrelevant.
How can a look of cheap T-shirts, plain sneakers, jeans and hoodies be considered style when for so long we have used these items as our day-off outfit?
While I love the fashion industry, it doesn’t need to put everyone and their clothes in a little labeled box. Leather and lace? You’re edgy. Conservative and pastel? You’re preppy. And now no definition at all? You must be normcore.
There should be no reason to consistently label someone by style alone. To define someone by the items in a closet is about the equivalent of labeling someone by hometown, school grades or a group of people.
If you feel like dressing like a rock star one day and a hippie the next, do it. And then if Jerry Seinfield inspires you for the day after that, go for it, but feel no need to define yourself as one style or trend.
Putting it simply, normcore is a trend that needs to die out quickly. A trend representing no trend at all is unnecessary and I’d like to keep my Hanes T-shirts the way they are: label-less.
Meg Ryan is a 19-year-old mass communication freshman from Philadelphia.