A friend of mine at CSM said that students wear basic clothing. She doesn’t mean this in a derogatory way, but rather suggests a broader change, a shift in fashion trends. I’ll see for myself next time I pass through the King’s Cross campus. she’s right. In recent years, as the streets have been filled with increasingly eccentric students, DIY seems to be signifying a kind of performative “cool art school” – chronicled in the annual Youth Culture magazine has been social media scheduleand was parodied on countless anonymous accounts on the now-defunct Instagram. @thats_so_CSM – Today’s cohort favors algorithmic type matching. There are Pinterest girls and girl blogger types who wear a mix of vintage and second-hand designer clothes and accessorize them with Miu Miu. Lots of gray jumpers and blue jeans and brown boots. This is a simple fashion that liberal arts students would have worn in 2005. However, it is now considered cool and even desirable.
“People are becoming more skeptical about super-extra costumes and alternative styles,” a friend told me, pointing to the maximalist Dreyner and hyperpop aesthetic that dominated the post-pandemic years. It suggests a sharp change in direction. Are people simply embracing their inner basics, or is this a symptom of our sartorial paralysis, choice paralysis, nostalgia, and fashion NPC brain rot?
That night, I came across a meme from the account @meme_saint_laurent about a recent Snow Strippers concert. “The Snow Strippers concert felt like a casting for Jade London (derogatory)”, alluding to the instantly reproducible nature of ready-to-buy cool. Archive Fashion As with all niche subculture aesthetics online, clothing that may once have signaled some sort of insider status is now readily available, as TikTok has become increasingly popular. Just scroll through countless archived fashion “how-tos.” Reels or Pinterest boards. Similarly, the gradual rise in popularity of Drain and Rick Owens meme-ified a gothic aesthetic into the mainstream, and 2000s Japanese subcultures such as Cemetery and 2hollis inspired by visual kei. Refreshed by a new generation of hyper online music artists. I get the same vibe when scanning Jaded Man’s products. They are clearly based on the same reference. Alternatively, Jated Women feels like it’s tailored to self-proclaimed sexy girls who post selfies on IG wearing Mowalola’s WET tank tops. But this year is a new year, and the fashion NPCs called online are exchanging opium items for 2024 LGB fur hoods, supporting Hedi Slimane, and sleazy fashion from Dior and Babyshambles. (as opposed to the indie electro-clash fluorescents of the past) – which begs the question: has “basic” dressing become the new cool? If so, why?
Mina Le asks a similar question in a recent video. “The death of personal style”In , the YouTuber discusses her style transition “from maximalist to basic,” which she attributes to the never-ending onslaught of microtrends and algorithmic sameness that dominates today’s fashion world. is thinking. She concludes that the only solution for those in the know is to consciously dress basic. Admittedly, I first noticed this change in temperature last year, coincidentally around the time that four young people in jeans posted a new photo of themselves in baggy pants. Jade ThirlwallA mainstream British pop star in everyone’s eyes, she bleached her eyebrows and wore New Rock. At the same time, club kids who a year or two ago were dressed in full-fledged alternative (emo, pastel goth, ultra-maximalist variations on post-human tribalism) are now dressing noticeably more plainly. . Occasional post-ironic Hollister polo shirts and trucker hats It reminds me of a clear change in atmosphere. These days, what constitutes cool isn’t edgy clothing, but rather the quality of the clothes – knowing that the micro shorts or knit jumper you bought are from bespoke brands like Cafe Forgot and There seems to be a hidden layer of cultural prestige that exists in . Not Urban Outfitters or Target, but Lucila Safdie and Cherise. Roland Barthes once said: “One detail is enough to turn the outside into meaning and the unfashionable into fashion.” In other words, style may be basic, but subtext never is. Not.
Coinciding with the rise of ultra-fast fashion and the decline in manufacturing costs for increasingly elaborate garments, the idea of doing basics has appealed to a younger generation of techies who grew up with overwhelming access to brands and micro-trends. This may seem like a particularly new approach. . Temuization of everyday style saturates our smooth brains, and its infinitely reproducible nature, sometimes accelerated using absurd and low-quality AI images, prompts core product descriptions such as: Use in large quantities to confuse users. “Round Toe Belt Buckle Shoes Womens” and “American Retro False Flare Pants Women Low Waist Stretch” – UI-friendly titles highlight the variety of ways in which online fashion is optimized for machines, not personal tastes or style preferences. suggests a method.
Similar to competitors AliExpress and Shein, Temu stimulates users with virtual casinos, sugary addictive spinning roulette wheels, cash coupon rewards, and offers for fashion items, home gadgets, electronics, and novelty items. It is described as a virtual casino with endless offers. Add to basket. On TikTok, Temu carries unboxing videos and promo codes that generate thousands of hits, and functions as a de-virtualized fashion brain rot from the shopping cart, but with similar functionality to real brain rot. , theoretically speaking, reminds me of what Walter Benjamin meant when he said: He theorized that aura was lost in the process of mechanical reproduction, and argued that this was a defining feature of modernity. In contrast, what makes basic cool in today’s context is precisely its aura, or at least the aura of the person wearing it. The truth is that cool kids don’t seem to care what they wear anymore.
A similar phenomenon was occurring in New York ten years ago, when a group of artists known as K-hole first coined the term “normcore.” The collective anxiety of a younger generation under increasing pressure to put themselves out there online, and the hyper-individualism of Web2 that is now the norm, has taken over the city’s young creative landscape. brought something bland to the. Critic Joanna Lee Owen put it down in interview The retrospective says, “If you’ve ever wondered when middle school ‘popular girls’ started dying their hair purple and sociopaths started dressing like undercover cops, normcore is what you’re missing. It’s a link.” Much the same phenomenon can be seen today.
A lot has changed in the decade since normcore, but something clearly still resonates with today’s youth. vogue business is also quoted “Return of Normcore” As one of the predictions for 2025. Granted, this may simply be a return to the trend cycle for younger generations who were too young to remember the first fad, but the golden age of social media has turned all of us into content creators. It has become. There, everything becomes a marketing deck, especially individuals. But a lesser-known piece of the story is how the latent online surveillance of the 2010s contributed to normcore as an aesthetic.
“Normcore was a response to the mutual surveillance facilitated by social media,” Sean Monaghan, one of the term’s primary founders, told me over the phone. Similarly, the term “going gray man” refers to blending into a crowd to avoid unwanted attention or detection from state surveillance, and is often used among end-of-life preparations or targeted individuals. Equally popular. Yes, it’s unlikely that people will intentionally go basic out of paranoia, but about the fashionability of dressing modestly in a time of mass anxiety, AI surveillance, and a resurgence of fascism in the mainstream. There is something that could explain why this happens. Some people may not want to draw attention to themselves overtly.
Currently, the electroclash duo Bassvictim is Dressed up in swag from a small town mall Playing a set at Berghain. A group of IT kids from a New York art school post a photo of themselves wearing trucks, and it gets thousands of likes. Like everything else online, I’m starting to think so (images, text, music, video), fashion has also become flattened into an amorphous atmosphere, and more importance is placed on the aura a person emits than on the clothes they wear. This may also be related to a renewed interest in beauty, fitness, and wellness routines that contribute to an individual’s overall appearance. People in today’s fashion world may be wearing basic clothing, but maybe now they’ve taken it up a notch. SSENSE Starter Pack. Cool kids don’t wear cool clothes anymore, whatever that means, but what sets them apart from the norm is the indescribable vibe they exude.
