We’re not in the business of making jackets. We’re in the business of making warm friends.
HAMILTON CARHARTT
Normcore is a label that generally applies to the way I have dressed since high school. Basically, I have dressed in a way that doesn't stand out from the normal. I was never into bell bottom jeans, skinny jeans, suit jackets, bow ties, biker wear, or anything else distinctive. What has made me distinctive is my tendency to choose workwear over more casual wear. For instance, I choose Dickies and Carhartt over Levi's. I choose steel toe workboots over Timberland hiking boots. This is known as the workwear option.
I have a casual set of clothes that I wear to church or the doctor's office. I call this my normcore uniform. It is a buttoned down shirt paired with a pair of Carhartt pants. This casual uniform is to be distinguished from my work uniform that I wear 90% of the time which would be a buttoned down work shirt paired with some Dickies work pants. The key difference is that my normcore uniform doesn't have dirt and grease on it or holes and patches. Because I wear the normcore uniform rarely, it stays clean and presentable.
With these two basic uniforms, I go with the workwear option. The reasons for this should be obvious. Workwear is durable, functional, economical, and basic. Whenever possible, I exercise the workwear option when buying clothing.
The variable in my wardrobe is the footwear. When I work in the yard, I wear boots. When I walk for fitness, I wear New Balance sneakers. When I wear the normcore uniform, I go with some brown Skechers. Function determines what goes on my feet.
I do not wear athletic gear in the style known as athleisure. This trend grew out of the gym rat and endurance athletic culture. If you spend a lot of time in the gym or running for exercise, it would be obvious that you might wear the same clothes to the grocery store or for other errands. It has even gotten to the point that some people wear this athletic wear as their primary uniform. Needless to say, I am not into this.
I do not wear shorts or even own shorts. I don't own any dedicated athletic gear. I wear a Carhartt hoodie around the house and a vintage Starter windbreaker if it gets wet outside. Those are the only things that come close to athletic apparel in my closet. Generally, I don't wear athletic apparel because I am not an athlete. Most people are not athletes, but the apparel makers have sold this vanity to the public to get them to buy things they don't need.
I got clued into this when it became fashionable for a season to wear work boots to the gym. I think this began accidentally as blue collar workers would hit the weights after work. Work boots provide a more stable platform than sneakers, and steel toes are great for protecting your feet from a dropped plate or weight. Yet, this is frowned on now by the gym cult. Some gyms will ban you from the premises for wearing workwear instead of gym wear.
I don't go to the gym, so the gym apparel is a moot point for me. I walk for fitness and do a modest regimen of strength exercises that I call "bodywork." I wear my work clothes for all of this. I only change my shoes and socks. I don't see the point in changing out of sweaty work clothes into sweaty athletic apparel. As for freedom of movement, work clothes are designed for this. Somewhere in our culture, we forgot that work is exercise.
I would never recommend workwear for a game of basketball or baseball or running a marathon. Athletes play sports, so they dress as athletes. As I said before, I am not an athlete. I am willing to gamble that you, Gentle Reader, are not an athlete either. I find that most people are pretenders fantasizing about being athletes. That fantasy is what sells all of that athletic apparel.
These athletic fantasies are a species of larping where people pretend to be something they are not. We laugh when a kid wears his cowboy outfit, but adults do much the same thing when they wear the apparel of their athletic heroes. This is people attempting to live up to their fantasy selves, so they buy the costume for the person they want to be instead of who they are in actuality.
When you get old and busted up like me, you aren't aiming to become an Ironman triathlete or Mr. Olympia. You're just trying to keep the parts moving. My physical fitness regimen is derived almost entirely from physical therapy and not the gym. My "heroes" are the old ladies that I used to see walking the mall. They wore normal clothes paired with comfortable shoes.
There is another trend that has emerged over the last few years known as gorpcore. This is when people wear outdoor gear in non-outdoor settings. I don't know what makes gear qualify as outdoor gear as virtually everything I wear is made for being outside. The key difference is this gorpcore outdoor gear uses Gore-Tex and costs a fortune. One jacket I researched for this blog post costs 900 bucks.
Now, the entire outdoor industry and culture is a gigantic exercise in larping. I see people each weekend with all sorts of outdoor gear on their vehicles including kayaks and mountain bikes. Yet, in all my time visiting outdoor places, I never saw people kayaking or mountain biking. They buy this stuff and transport this stuff, but they don't actually use this stuff. It is all pretentious fantasy. But I digress. . .
Do you need a $900 Gore-Tex jacket to brave the elements between your car and the front door of a store or an office building? Personally, I find an umbrella and a cheap windbreaker to be sufficient for the task. When I go for my walks in wet weather, I wear a cheap rain poncho I bought from Walmart and a windbreaker. My only concessions to the outdoor apparel industry are the cheap fleece jackets I bought from Walmart. Both were made by Starter. I have never owned anything from those big name apparel makers.
I find that the best apparel you can wear for the outdoors is workwear. When it gets freezing, I bust out the $80 Carhartt active jacket I bought from Tractor Supply sometime back in 2008. I don't care for those puffer jackets from Patagonia or The North Face.
It's not hard or expensive to buy a warm coat. Just buy the coats the farmers, ranchers, and workers wear. If those jackets can survive the rigors of heavy and demanding physical labor, they will certainly suffice for your hike in the woods. But that is where things get nasty.
Somewhere, gate keeping has crept into outdoor activities. You can't ride a cheap beach cruiser from the bike section at Walmart. It has to be a $3000+ name brand mountain bike. Similarly, you can't walk the trails without a Patagucci outfit. People forget that these activities existed before these companies did.
I think it is perfectly acceptable to wear a pair of thrift store Red Kap work pants on the trail paired with some New Balance sneakers. I wouldn't wear this to climb Everest, but I'm not climbing Everest. I'm just walking.
The final thing I can say about the workwear option is that it saves you money because you don't need separate outfits for your activities. You don't need one outfit for the gym and another outfit for the trail and another outfit to mow the lawn. The workwear option is like the play clothes you wore as a kid for everything from climbing trees to building forts to digging in the dirt. Ultimately, you want clothes that can take some dirt and abuse. Workwear is made for this.
