Normcore UP198

Normcore is a unisex fashion trend characterized by normal-looking clothing that includes jeans,
t-shirts, sweats, button-downs, and sneakers. Clothing is considered to be normcore when it is attractive and comfortable and is viewed as "normal" by the majority of people.

Normcore is a portmanteau of the words normal and hardcore. The word first appeared in the webcomic Templar, Arizona before 2009 and was later employed by K-HOLE, a trend forecasting group, in an October 2013 report called "Youth Mode: A Report on Freedom".

As used by K-HOLE, the word normcore referred to an attitude, not a particular code of dress. It was intended to mean "finding liberation in being nothing special." However, a piece in New York magazine by author Fiona Duncan that began popularizing the term in February 2014 conflated it with what K-HOLE referred to as "Acting Basic", a concept which involved dressing neutrally to avoid standing out. It was this sense of normcore that gained popular usage. The characters featured on the television series Seinfeld are frequently cited as exemplifying the aesthetics and ethos of normcore fashion.

The word normcore was named runner-up for neologism of the year by the Oxford University Press in 2014. It was added to the AP Stylebook in 2016.