Normcore was proposed as a principled rejection of fashion-status signaling through blank clothing

Evidence

While hip-hop style thrived on eclectic mash-ups of luxury and streetwear, a different philosophy was brewing in post-hipster circles. In 2013, millennial trend consultancy K-Hole published a pdf called Youth Mode: A Report on Freedom, proposing “normcore” as a rejection of omnivore tastes and fashion status wars. The concept was initially abstract, advocating a principled refusal to reveal personal preferences through apparel. But an article in The Cut soon associated normcore with a specific aesthetic: “Mall clothes. Blank clothes. The kind of dad-brand non-style you might have once associated with Jerry Seinfeld.” The look included gray sweatshirts, Patagonia fleeces, and the full “Steve Jobs”: mock turtlenecks, stonewashed jeans, and New Balance sneakers. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 406

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines normcore precisely — its K-Hole origins as a rejection of omnivore tastes, plus the concrete Seinfeld/Steve Jobs aesthetic.
• XREF: Directly serves the reading purpose: normcore is the flattened, status-renouncing endpoint of the omnivore monoculture Marx argues defines the 21st century.