Normcore A term made well-known in 2013 by trend-watching marketing/consulting outfit, K-Hole, normcore is a deliberate effort by people who have a non-mainstream identity to adopt the fashion sensibilities of “normal” people. What’s so noteworthy about wearing basic clothing? It is quietly, radically metamodern in that it emphasizes relationality, the ability to connect to one’s own and other people’s inner experience, over externally focused preoccupations with cultural groups and with categorical identities that seek to differentiate one from others.

You may have heard about the term before, which trended in 2013. Normcore is a deliberate effort by people with non-mainstream styles to adopt the fashion style of what they deem “normal” people, mainly in the form of wearing basic closing. So what’s metamodern about this trend? Well, normcore is all about overcoming external differences to better connect on a deeper level. When Jimmy Fallon stated that he decided to wear suits when he took over The Tonight Show because that would be the normal thing to do, it was a deeply metamodern thing to do. Not modern (“wear something new!”), nor postmodern (“who cares!”) but metamodern (“mainstream fashion is a fashion statement”).