Is Normcore a By-product of Memes?

When you’re dressed as though you’re not dressed at all, it’s hard to draw the comparisons that arise in the wake of a bright pink couture dress like the one Rihanna wore to the Grammys, which was largely mistaken for a confectionary landfill.

We would have cogitated that beneath her dress, there lay such absurdities as the entire cast of Game of Thrones, the red carpet’s hottest nightclub or devoted fans on miniature ponies who she snuck into the show. It would have been impossible not to quip about how her dress ran across more square footage than the average city apartment does, and then follow up with something dumb about storage and inner-skirt space.

But the rest of the Internet did that for us. The moment her Giambattista Valli couture — a beautifully sculptural fantasy — hit E! during the pre-show coverage, the meme-generators that be began pumping out, as though a de facto joke mill, the parodies. She was likened to Glinda the Good Witch, a spottable monument from outer space, and from the truly uninspired: a giant pink cake.

But never mind Rihanna.

Say you’re wearing something as prosaic as a tracksuit — a silhouette that has been co-opted by Normcore for its level of comfort. Here’s the caveat, though: your tracksuit, like Kanye West’s (and Jennifer Lopez, Cool Mom Poehler ca. Mean Girls and any number of the females who have had Bat Mitzvahs before him), you not only run the risk but guarantee the proclamation of semblance to either an effusive woman indigenous to the early aughts or Ben Stiller’s dad.

Or consider Ariana Grande — The Cut likened her dress to a car with a broken window repaired in duct tape. Helen Lasichanh, wife-o-Pharrell, appeared in what was perhaps our favorite meme of the evening:

Of course, Pharrell himself wasn’t safe — never forget The Hat. And while we’re doing that, let us not forget Kim Kardashian’s comparison to Mrs. Doubtfire and a couch at the 2013 Met Ball, either.

So here’s our question: is Normcore an institution that has been appointed by a lab of sensitive professors who were frankly tired of watching Margiela not just co-opt but supplant their look?

At Man Repeller we are nothing if not a bunch of excitable stalkers who praise authenticity when it comes to personal style. It is precisely why we ask if red carpet fashion is actually, you know, fashion. But now that no celebrity formalwear is safe to the world of (sometimes clever, sometimes hilarious, often stupid) memes, it makes a little bit of sense that we should feel compelled to revert to the safer choices.

What do you say in the wake of a navy suit, anyway? Certainly not that a dancing shark is caught in your pants. And if you’re in a little black dress, offset by white Birkenstocks, who are you after the obvious Janis Joplin example? Indulge in a simple blow out and you will always be pretty; test out a set of braids and you are liable to be called pizza-crust, or challah bread-head.

So, how does eccentricity fare among the largest known group of photoshop zealots? If you’re damned when you look like a couch, damned when you look like you spent too much on the couch, shouldn’t we just wear what we want, get in on the joke and submit ourselves to the Justin Bieber roast?

– Leandra Medine and Amelia Diamond