Streetwear, Gorpcore & the future of menswear.
Menswear is changing. Even Virgil says streetwear's gonna die.
Meanwhile, there's this growing trend of urban dwellers wearing camping gear like they're headed Upstate...
Meet Gorpcore.
Is it replacing streetwear?
[thread]
So let's unpack:
1/ What Gorpcore is + where it came from.
2/ What makes something Gorpcore.
3/ Its place in the culture.
4/ Predicting just how mainstream outdoor-wear can go.
What is Gorpcore:
Ever heard of "good old raisins and peanuts?"
It's another phrase for trail mix. Yep, that's it.
So how's this related to Gorpcore?
Gorpcore is someone who wears a (trail) mix of: technical, utilitarian, function, outdoorsy-wear on the regular.
... you know, clothing *traditionally* reserved for trail runners. Hikers. Campers.
Kind of like this:
In 2017, The Cut's Jason Chen coined the phrase Gorpcore as a way of describing this budding species.
But it ain't new.
It's been around for years, gaining steam in the late 2010s.
Chen says Gorpcore represents a style-shift away from minimalism (what's known as Normcore).