Simple is the new black in New York, ‘normcore’ fashion on the rise

NEW YORK -- Young New Yorkers are known for their cutting-edge apparel, but more and more are turning to 'normcore' fashion lately, a portmanteau of 'normal' and 'hardcore' that sees its followers in such basic items as jeans and sneakers.

U.S. makers of casual wear brands, including The Gap Inc., are promoting that ordinariness to customers. Some observers see the new trend as young people's attempt to distance themselves from the rapidly changing nature of fashion.

Clad in a Lee brand jacket and Levi's jeans, Nathan Metallo, 28, recently stepped out of a secondhand clothing store in Brooklyn, where the fashion-conscious are known to gather. People in the neighborhood tend to dress trendy, he said.

Not only ordinary people, but lately fashion models too have started to sport such basics as T-shirts, jeans and sneakers in lieu of the latest pieces from high-end brands.

The word 'normcore' was coined by K-Hole, a trend research company in New York. It refers to a preference for blending in with the group rather than standing out, and began to catch on in the fashion world around the beginning of this year.

According to 28-year-old freelance stylist Jeremy Lewis, people have gotten sick of throwing away clothes as if they were disposable to keep pace with fashion trends that quickly and constantly change. The fact that large fashion and retail chain stores like Sweden's Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) and Spain's Zara, which bring style trends to the masses instantly and distribute them throughout the world at low prices, have come to dominate the commercial market is also fueling the normcore movement, Lewis said.

It's a big movement affecting brand makers and consumers alike, he said.

U.S. investment bank Piper Jaffray sees the movement as simply part of a 20-year cycle, as there was a similar casual fashion boom in 1990s.

U.S. casual wear makers are also responding. Shortly after the term was reported by media, including the New York Times, at the beginning of the year, The Gap tweeted that the company had been delivering normcore since 1969. The company's autumn campaign was 'Dress normal.'

U.S. denim maker Levi's also started to develop advertising focusing on its 501 jeans, the company's flagship product, this autumn. Jonathan Cheung, senior vice president of global design at Levi's, said the return to simple, functional things would continue for a while, as there are too many choices today.

Adam Fetcher, director of global PR and communications at Patagonia Inc., a U.S. outdoor products maker, said normcore reflects a change in values among young people, who care more about product quality and environmental impact than ever before.

The movement's impact on corporations has varied. Nike, Inc., reported $7.98 billion in sales in the first quarter (June-August) of 2014, a 15 percent jump from the same period last year, as sales of its Converse shoes and other products were good. The U.S. sports apparel company reported a profit of $962 million, a rise of 23 percent.

On the other hand, The Gap's figures for October dropped by 7 percent from a year earlier as sales at its existing stores were slow.

In the United States, sales of jeans for the year ending March 31, 2014, fell by 5 percent. According to U.S. analyst Marshal Cohen, it is difficult to increase sales of jeans, and everyone already has ordinary jeans. Corporations likely will consider new strategies after watching how normcore spreads.

Signs of normcore are beginning to appear in Japan, but it seems to be taking some time for the movement to take hold here. In the United States, Japan's Uniqlo is regarded as a normcore brand.

Uniqlo shortened the length of some of the down jackets in its autumn collection this year, hoping to get customers to treat the jacket as inner wear. An official in charge at Uniqlo said: 'We've designed our products so people can enjoy wearing them in various ways. We hope the normcore trend spreads in Japan, too.'

Parco Co., the operator of the Parco fashion malls that are popular among young people in major cities, is also monitoring the normcore movement in New York. 'It's a trend that has the potential to dramatically change things,' a public relations official said.