Josephine Collins, University of the Arts London

Putting together words like normal and fashion feels like a contradiction, but that’s exactly what Gap is doing with its autumn/winter 2014 advertising campaign, called Dress Normal. It makes a virtue out of the normality of its clothes and proposes that individualism comes from authenticity, not flashiness.

Gap is following the flurry of media discussion about “normcore”, a term coined by a New York-based trend forecaster K-Hole that has been present since last spring and early summer. Normcore elevates ordinary clothing – basic jeans, T-shirts and trainers, for example – … Read the rest