Author | Christiane Nickel | Fashion Editor
Featured image taken by Craig McDean for W Magazine
Why not innovate a style completely unexpected? With shows like Game Of Thrones and mass popularization of nerd culture, how about propagating a whole new “core” like Rencore?
Normcore: a trend, aesthetic, and street style that has saturated Williamsburg, Shoredirtch, etc. and is garnered as the new frontier in fashion. Trickled down from W to Lucky Magazine and into Buzzfeed Top Twenty lists, Normcore is everywhere. Given its early ’90s and Jerry Seinfeld-inspired pretensions, Normcore has provided a bounty of fodder for social commentary. According to the New York Times, Normcore can be defined as…
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. (See Jeans, mom. Sneakers, white.)
2. A sociocultural concept, c. 2013, having nothing to do with fashion, that concerns hipster types learning to get over themselves, sometimes even enough to enjoy mainstream pleasures like football along with the rest of the crowd.
3. An Internet meme that turned into a massive in-joke that the news media keeps falling for. (See below).
But with all the pomp and circumstance surrounding Normcore, there is nothing particularly enthralling or revelatory about fashion’s new modus operandi despite countless articles remarking it as being a “fashion revolution.” Normcore has been a long time coming and quite frankly with all these recent early 90’s throwbacks, it’s a tad predictable and I don’t understand this unnecessary hype. Furthermore, hipsters, a subculture which can be traced back to the 1920’s with Norman Mailer’s essay “The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster,” have appropriated ’90s culture and especially mainstream Americana countless times. Once in 2002 with the Americana hipster donning foam trucker hats, Lee Jeans, and plaid shirts, and in 2006 with the “Mountain man” hipster where deep flannels and full beards were all the rage. But why appropriate mainstream 90’s fashion yet again? This is as predictable as the vegetarian options for a big American suburban wedding: it’s either vegetable lasagna or grilled portabella, pick your poison.
Why not innovate a style completely unexpected? With shows like Game Of Thrones and mass popularization of nerd culture, how about propagating a whole new “core” like Rencore?
Taking elements from Renfair (New York Renaissance Fair) and incorporating that into your boozy Sunday Brunch at Northeast Kingdom? Chainmail wallets would compliment Bianci’s all too well. And nothing screams machismo like a codpiece, or how about replacing those high waist shorts with a Spanish Farthingale to go with your punchy printed crop top?
Lets even take it back a little further and tip our tricorn to the 1780’s with the Incroyable and Merveilleuses, initiated after the French Revolution by a group of young nouveaux riche reacting and rebelling to the fall of the French Empire. The Incroyable and Merveilleuses were known for wearing loose barely there empire chemises, severe cutaway coats also dubbed the Robespierre, and an excessive amount of neckties as if to (subconsciously) protect oneself from being guillotined.
Cutaway coats would make for a rather stately yet sexy seasonal piece you could wear at any genderqueer party (KUNST would be fun place to wear this), a date, or a low-key fashion fete. If the idea of Rencore and the Incroyable is a bit too raw to swallow, why not look at other throwbacks ASIDE from anything between ’20s and ’50s-’90s? Because lez be honest, the ‘80s for an example isn’t funny or interesting anymore. It’s yet another genre like a scoop neck is just another neckline.
How about taking inspiration from Zazous, a subculture in France (in America known as Zooties) that existed shortly before the outbreak of World War II, critiquing and protesting the Vichy Regime and its fervent collaboration with Nazi Germany. The Zazous were known for their unconditional love for jazz, loud clothing, which included oversized checkered suits, short plaid skirts, and striped stockings. Oversized trousers accessorized with suspenders and an airtight tee (which looks smashing if you bind, but also if you don’t) would make for one handsome option instead of a Chicago Cubs sweatshirt and cargo shorts which is iconically Normcore.
In any case why Normcore, why the ‘90s (again), and why not anything else? I think fashion is in a general mid-summer slump and this is partially due to Brooklynaztion of the world, the Normcore hype, and general lack of urgency to re-innovate how we dress (WITHOUT blatantly culturally offensive appropriation like the recent surge of the East LA Chola Girl) because hindsight is 20/20 and that’s the biggest problem in our current fashion culture.
