Brands and online wags cozy up to ‘Normcore’

by Haniya Rae

‘Normcore,’ the hipster trend du jour spotted by NY Mag’s The Cut blog, is all about ironically wearing mom jeans, baggy fleece pullovers and training shoes. You know, basically dressing the way carpool parents have dressed since time immemorial.

The trend forecasting company K-Hole, (arguably the source of the term, according to The Cut) wrote in a recent publication of its Youthmode trend report: “In Normcore, one does not pretend to be above the indignity of belonging. Normcore moves away from a coolness that relies on difference to a post-authenticity coolness that opts in to sameness.”

So is Normcore post-cool? Is it so uncool that’s it’s cool? Are we uncool for asking these questions? Many wags reliably took to Twitter to joke about the phenomenon — including a couple of major brands and even teen fashionista Tavi Gevinson. A few highlights:

 

 

 

It didn’t take long for brands to latch onto the buzz for some real-time marketing. For some, like The Gap, it was a perfect opportunity to play along:

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Red Vines went so far as to stage a photo of a ‘normcore’ looking dude (is that what an employee of Red Vines looks like?) along with a promoted tweet:

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Eddie Bauer even replied to a Digiday editor to say that they were otherwise engaged sponsoring a Mt. Everest assent:
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Dockers out-Normcored everyone with this tweet about trending topics:

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Though, not every brand was on the lookout. A retweet by The Cut from photographer Amy Lombard clearly mentions and showcases MuscleMilk, though the brand, which hasn’t tweeted in four days, has yet to respond:

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Elsewhere on the Internet, budding entrepreneurs are also looking to develop their own brands to capitalize on the trend:

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Non-ironic Image via Flickr

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