The Rise of the Gorpcore Clothing Cult
Fashion Almost Crumbled in 2020
If you were working in the fashion industry last year, you were likely on red alert after learning about the lockdown news. You might have been a small business owner or even an employee working in the retail space.
Like most essential businesses, smaller retail and fashion spaces operate on similar criteria. They tend to rely on physical storefronts to generate a majority of their income.
Before the onset of the lockdown, many businesses were still establishing early e-commerce platforms. They only had the pandemic to thank for expediting that process. Shit hit the fan and it was time for businesses to adapt. It made sense.
I worked for two years in an identical system. I was a retail employee working in a typical 9 to 5 job. Like many people on Medium, I wanted to achieve financial freedom, location independence, and a passive income stream.
Luckily enough the pandemic hit. I know that sounds terrible, but it provided me with an unusual opportunity to break free from the mundane grind, in favor of a promising field.
My first writing role came with an alluring half-remote and half-office schedule. This tempting entryway to my goal lifestyle only required two days of being at the office. I said goodbye to the stagnancy of the retail trap and embraced situational discomfort for the first time.
Moving from content to copywriting was no easy task but I knew with hard work and persistence I could be successful. The fashion industry was in a challenging spot, but I had high hopes.
I was unaware of how contentious the market would actually be. During my first week, I was immediately bombarded by a series of worrying headlines from Business of Fashion about the industry’s impending collapse.
But again, the news made sense.
Of course, people were gravitating toward essentials and away from high ticket, non-necessities. Survival was the obvious priority and many people were more than willing to forgo frivolity for stability. Including myself.
People were in survival mode, not hunting for designer deals.
As the pandemic went on, more difficulties ensued. Stores were boarded up around Vancouver’s downtown shopping core. More and more small businesses were raising white flags. Established brands and household names had to cut budgets, close stores, and fire employees.
I noticed at work that it was difficult to stay in tune with what the public wanted. Terrible news always seemed to be on the forecast, both on television and on online streams. Whatever excitement people had for clothing came in novel bursts, but would rapidly fizzle out.
I even wondered if trend culture was dying.
Then I began to notice the resurgence of something familiar. An interesting dressing style was coming back and generating a cult-like following in youthful circles.
What was this new craze? Gorpcore.
What is Gorpcore?
“Gorpcore” is a humorous expression coined by The Cut writer Jason Chen, meaning “Good Ol’ Raisins and Peanuts.” A new term for a dressing style that’s been around since your Dad’s time. Hell, he probably introduced the style to you.
What “Gorpcore” really refers to is technical clothing designed for an outdoor lifestyle. On the surface, your dad’s Patagonia jacket might seem dry and outdated, but more and more people are adding new and vintage outdoor additions to their wardrobes.
The look wasn’t new to me. As someone who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, I’ve seen more people in North Face gear than Vans. But this trend wasn’t just emerging where I was from. Kids in Arc’teryx Jackets were popping up on Instagram in places where wearing an insulated layer could be incredibly impractical.
Aside from Arcteryx, think of brands like Salomon, Oakley, and even District Vision. Stuff your dad used to wear but elevated. Ridiculous to some, but with most fashion trends, newness comes in cycles and everything is game.
Gorpcore and Pandemic Fatigue: Reconnecting with Conceptions of Nature
Wherever I looked, more and more fashion accounts dedicated to outdoor gear were satiating an audience forced to be inside. Some of my favorite pages emerging from this new wave were Organiclab.zip and Hiking Patrol.
Also, my experience working from home left me with severe burnout and an equally severe sense of disconnection from nature. But something was energizing about looking at these accounts. Here the natural world was not only celebrated but aestheticized in a refreshing way through fashion.
After all, clothing is the only thing separating you and your body from being fully in tune with nature, minus your connection to society.
Being surrounded by nature is also a key spiritual need, essential for the happiness and wellbeing of humans. It’s known to elevate mood, melt anxiety away and create the mental conditions for your best ideas to emerge.
There’s even a celebrated cultural practice in Japan called “shinrin-yoku” or “forest bathing,” where participants walk through a lush forest to clear their minds and ultimately escape the distractions of the material world.
But what if people found peace in nature through material curations? Were people forced to substitute experiences they would have in the outdoors with outdoor clothing?
I wondered if it was all a product of being stuck inside.
What “Gorpcore” Really Means for Consumption
There was a certain energy to hiking that felt inseparable from the feelings I had when I viewed those accounts. Nostalgia and curiosity moulded together purposefully — that was the pull of Gorpcore.
While it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why this style became popular, it seems to point toward a generational mindset shift. At least, when it comes to consumption.
Key brands in the Gorpcore rotation have expressed strong sustainability sentiments — the main label being Patagonia. For a brand that urges its customers to shop less, Patagonia has seen a resurgence with over 30% market growth in 2020.
Their popular ad “Don’t Buy This Jacket” has contributed to the sales of more jackets than ever. Vintage Patagonia pieces are now a growing commodity. Being on the hunt for a rare piece, Gorpcore adherents unwittingly buy into an ethos of sustainability, since the acquired pieces are usually vintage ones.
Of course people interested in outdoor gear would naturally maintain some sustainability sentiments. I’ve noticed these values aligning when accounts like Organic.lab point out examples of overconsumption in their posts. Those posts tend to garner high levels of positive engagement.
Letting Go of Mindless Consumption
Many people in the fashion industry, including myself, would love to see the death of fast fashion. One of the earth’s largest waste producers, fast fashion continues to fill landfills, while over-saturating developing countries with material waste. Over 92 million tons of waste produced and over 79 trillion liters of water consumed. Every single year.
The re-emergence of Gorpcore signals a new age of fashion where sustainability takes precedence. People were already redirecting focus away from essentials and towards things that matter anyway. Becoming financially stable is about changing your consumption habits, just as much as it’s about landing a well-paying job.
I’m still unsure what the root cause for the rise of Gorpcore is. But as I wear my puffer jacket and journey to my first hike of the summer (since 2019), I feel a familiar freedom that I was searching for during last year’s job grind.
I’ll gladly trade a full year of uncertainty and stress for the warmth of fleece, down feathers, and resistant-nylon, borrowed from your Dad’s closet.
