In the beginning it was about being: we are what we wear, is the aphorism that underpins the identity expressed through clothing. Gender and class, profession and position, everything is revealed at first glance by the clothing, which may never have created the monk, but has always helped. Until the social dynamics changed and the verb changed from being to having: We have, therefore we are, the logic of capitalism. And there we were, still intoxicated by materialistic accumulation (more clothes, more sneakers, more bags, more logos, without feeling or suffering), when we were hit by the perverse twist that defines us today: being. In a time when our relationships are mediated through images like never before – what we are reduced to in networks and the digital environment – all that matters is appearances, what we appear to be. And reality is no longer just a series of deliberately constructed situations, a game of masks and fictions. Life passed through the filters and effects of TikTok and Instagram. The current fashion favorite is the filter of normality.
Welcome to the era of new normcore, are the headlines. This alleged stylistic revolution of the beginning of the second decade of this century, an ode to clothing that had no other purpose than to cover the body for functional reasons, without fashion meaning, is back, also in the ready-to-wear collections more or less exclusive. Is this behind the fantasy of Y2K infantilization? You could look at it like this. Does it have to do with a socio-economic context of precarity and fear of the specter of inflation? Don't rule it out. “In general, unless it's something devastating, like a major recession, financial uncertainty isn't that big of a factor. “I think it has more to do with a different twist on the script, a minimalist response to the maximalism that emerged after the pandemic,” admits Valerie Steele, director of the museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Sean Monahan, the American trend analyst who dubbed the art of boring dressing normcore in 2013, defines this revival of (supposed) normality as a “total collapse of casual wear.” As soon as you leave the neighborhood, you no longer know whether people are going to the office, the gym or visiting friends.” And that’s without irony, not like a decade ago.
A year ago, Monahan (still on the front lines, now at the helm of consulting firm 8Ball) wrote an article in The Cut in which he already hinted at what was to come, a “vibrational shift” that would be noticed in the anger of became the Cowboys as a mother and Sports Shoes as a father. A kind of digital grunge, spurred by the anger of the new Zeta youth who preferred second-hand stores to exclusive boutiques, despite the widespread centennial spread of tracksuit/sneaker vulgarization from, say, Balenciaga. And he called Billie Eilish a Normcore 3.0 heroine. Just as it did against the hipsterism that dominated the early days of social networks, the idea is to restore the unfiltered normality of offline existence and try out everything that has fashion meaning or is imposed by it. However, what the analyst does not seem to have taken into account is the deceptive capacity of the clothing business, which is not only an expert in cannibalizing aesthetic-social movements, but also practices the art of post-truth. Because there is currently no bigger fake than the new fashion normal.
Thanks to this tool, which offers the ability to add or provide context to content, X/Twitter users criticized Dua Lipa in mid-November for the vaunted normcore outfit she wore during a visit to a Los Angeles radio station to promote his new one advertise melody, Houdini. Well, if not for her, then for the media, which celebrated the normative simplicity of the pop diva's look to the point of disgust: a red knit sweater and jeans. One from Bottega Veneta, more than 1,000 euros; the other from Acne Jeans, about 500.
In fact, it is the price that defines or expresses the value of the garments associated with the current fiction in which designers and brands abound since the semblance of normality in luxury fashion with that trompe l'oeil of jeans, Checked flannel shirt and shirt tank top from Matthieu Blazy's debut at Bottega Veneta (fall-winter 2022). “Although we've left the '90s behind as inspiration, the minimalist aesthetic is still there, but this time in a less austere way,” says Valerie Steele, referring to the transformation of current normcore climbing as a much more complex trend points out The “old money style” – the supposed thrift in clothing the destinies of rancid ancestors – underlies so much boredom. In other words, we no longer invoke the sloppiness of Elaine Berre's Seinfeld, that stylistic hook flag of original normcore, but rather the minimalism of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.
Of course, despite appearances, there is nothing normal about the proposals of the last few seasons (and the coming ones, from Miu Miu to Fendi, via Ferragamo or the Coperni and Gucci, which to date are not at all suspicious of normativity). Designs devoid of imagination and grandeur, reducing garments to the minimum of cut, silhouette and fabric. The jargon of the media, always using reductionist labels for the convenience of the writer, has classified it as a quiet luxury, when we should speak of situationist luxury: a fiction of reality artificially constructed to respond to one's own advantage, the from the industry. the high-end fashion. “Timeless design and comfortable fabrics come together in the new wardrobe basics,” says the statement, glossing over Loewe's fall-winter 2023-2024 collection, which features oversized cardigans that aren't even your grandmother's , and the jeans, oh, Japanese denim. Nothing under three and even four digits. The only normal thing about the new normcore pantomime is its price. v