How Normcore Staples Became This Season’s Biggest Luxury

When it comes to clothes, familiarity doesn’t necessarily breed contempt. While winter has always been high season for warmth, comfort, and outfit repetition, the pandemic’s homebody mandate has rendered our attachment to our comfort clothes even fiercer. And though you couldn’t pry me out of my house shoes and softest seal-gray half-zip right now, I could be convinced to consider a surface-level upgrade. Even supermodels agree: Bella Hadid and Hailey Bieber have stepped out in fleeces from MM6 Maison Margiela’s collaboration with The North Face, and Emily Ratajkowski has taken to padding around her NoHo sidewalk in slipper-like booties.

Emily Ratajkowski takes Uggs to the streets of NYC.
Jose Perez/Bauer-GriffinGetty Images

Given the fraught times we are living in, is it any wonder that sartorial ideals like comfort, nostalgia, and ordinariness have been injected with a strong dose of fashion cred lately? Looking “normal”—not knowing, normcore-circa-2014 ironic normal—suddenly feels not just desirable again, but cool. After months of a more cloistered life, the call for a luxed-up iteration of our utilitarian wardrobes has grown louder. And the fashion world has responded, with a parade of high-low collaborations bound to make even the most staunch pajamas-only WFHer consider something different. Quotidian brands like The North Face, Levi’s, and Ugg have paired off with high-fashion dance partners: Gucci, Valentino, and young designers Telfar Clemens and Molly Goddard, respectively. Their projects answer the question, Who will save my quarantine wear from sheer, maddening everydayness?

Molly Goddard Spring 2020 included a collaboration with Ugg.
Courtesy of the designer.

A festive dress for a festive party has been the logic from time immemorial. But we’re now approaching a year in which COVID-19 has taken a firm hold on our lives, with four seasons of canceled, abbreviated, and compromised events. So for spring 2021, luxury brands are asking us, Why hold out for a party to wear your best? Let us visit you at home. Valentino is eyeing our most-worn pair of jeans, donned 400 days in a row, and pleading, as gently and softly as the wash of those Levi’s: Give us a chance. We can make those for you. We can make them special! Gucci is looking at our workaday walk-around-the-block jackets and asking, Would you like…

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Source: elle.com