Normcore on my mind.

We were talking about "normcore," the fashion trend — for all I know it's a hoax —  of "embracing sameness deliberately as a new way of being cool, rather than striving for 'difference' or 'authenticity.'" One wears "ardently ordinary clothes" — "Mall clothes. Blank clothes... dad-brand non-style...."

Once you think about this nonstyle being a style — and, seriously, I do not know whether that linked article in New York Magazine is a satire or not — it affects how you see fashion advertising. I opened an email this morning from Shop Bop and saw this...



... and my feeling was: This is the kind of marketing that drives consumers to normcore. Whether normcore is a real trend itself or not, the word aptly expresses consumer resistance to excessive prodding to see the trends as constantly changing, one's possessions seeming to require endless "editing," and the speciousness of the assertion that something random — like, here, splattered patterns — is suddenly what looks exactly new right now.

And if you're feeling the call of the normal — if you've been searching for something great to wear, man — remember there's always Randy Normal Jeans: