2. Reason #1: Excessive consumerism exhausted consumers and fashion brands
In Chapter 1, I explained Normcore as a phenomenon. Then, the question is, why did Normcore become a fashion trend? In fact, the reasons are very simple and can roughly be divided in two. But to understand it comprehensively, let us first quickly go through the recent history of fashion.
A Brief Guide to the History of Contemporary Fashion
Fashion industry has been thriving by proposing new trends and encouraging people to change their style in a cycle.
Its speed has accelerated drastically in the 1990s. With the frequent merger and acquisition of luxury brands, profit became the companies’ first priority. Therefore, they have accelerated the trend cycle and encouraged customers to consume much more in a shorter term. For some brands, collections that used to be launched twice a year (Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter) have increased to 4 times a year, and the number of items launched in a collection has increased as well.
When luxury brands started to initiate more style changes in a shorter term, other apparel manufacturers followed this trend, trying to keep up and even exceed this pace. With the spread of telecommunication network including mass media and social networking services, manufacturers can copy luxury brands’ new collection on the next day of its launch and start selling the copied items at an extremely low price before the original is distributed. This is what is now known as fast fashion.
In the meantime, the speed of consumption has been taken to the extreme. This has caused not only the styles but also the designers that create these styles to be consumed by the fashion industry system.
Take notice of how often luxury brands’ designers have been swapped in the recent years. In the long history of fashion industry, the frequency of designer swaps has been rapidly accelerating. Especially from 2015 to 2016, designer swaps among world famous brands such as Dior was so frequent that it caused confusion within the industry. It is exactly when Normcore was becoming trendy that the frequency of designer swaps became high.
Then, Burberry began to launch only one collection a year instead of two per year. Burberry discarded the usual system where the brands launch their collection before the season, start receiving orders, and have the ordered items delivered 6 months later when the season begins. Instead, they shifted their focus on the system where consumers can get the items right after the collection is launched. This system is called “see buy now,” which was later adopted by other luxury brands.
It is more than just a mere coincidence that when the cycle of designer swaps accelerated, the fashion industry updated its system and Normcore became a fad.
The system driven by excessive consumerism is eating people up and has simply reached its limit. This fact proves that a change within the system is inevitable.
Hurray to skimping and deceiving! Superficial Fashion Style
With such history in mind, I believe that Normcore was “beneficial” both for consumers and apparel manufacturers; consumers can follow this style very easily and apparel manufacturers can benefit from the relatively low manufacturing cost.
For example,
・Collarless shirts
By eliminating the collar which requires a time-consuming sewing process, manufacturers can reduce labor expenses and material costs. The material for interlining that goes inside a collar is no longer needed. Moreover, if they claim that they purposefully aimed to achieve a roomy silhouette, they no longer need darts, the folds sewn into fabric in order to provide a sterical form to a garment.・Striped pattern
Perfect pattern to cover up low-quality material and to reduce the cost of designing intricate patterns.・Wide pants made of synthetic fiber
Sewing and pattern making are relatively simple and easy for these kind of pants. If the waist is elasticized, they can fit various sizes and therefore prevents the risk of losing their business opportunity.
Items manufactured under these purposes actually sold well, as long as the word Normcore was attached. The exhausted consumers intimidated by the rapid cycles accepted this trend without any doubt. Normcore was such a “convenient” trend for the fashion industry too, who were exhausted of new ideas. (Needless to say, I do not mean to say all such items are made with the above mentioned intentions.)
Fashion industry has been encouraging extreme consumerism and now the industry itself is being consumed. Ultimate normal was the last resort for exhausted consumers and the industry, however, even this turned into a “new fashion style”, an object of consumption. Normcore as a fashion trend, symbolizes all of this mess.
In fact, there is more to the story. There is another factor that contributed Normcore to become so popular. In the next chapter, I will analyze the current social structure through the lens of this phenomenon.
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