Introducing borecore. Imagine a film star, a proper big one. Imagine her off-duty wardrobe. A blazer, shirt and jeans? A monochrome outsized trouser suit? Really? It all seems a bit, I don’t know, David Brent. The likes of Elizabeth Taylor wouldn’t have been seen dead out in common-or-garden garb like that.
But this tends to be even the most glamorous of celebrities’ day-to-day MO now, whether it’s Margot Robbie on the streets of New York this month, or Katie Holmes, patron saint of a particular variety of 2020s wardrobe, promoting her new collaboration with APC, which includes — no prizes — a navy blazer, white tee and jeans. (The only outré thing in the line-up is a patterned bedspread.)
It’s the same with the fashion pack. Peacocking has been supplanted by a phenomenon that might be called peahenning, wearing clothes that are neutral of colour and — whisper it — practical of bent; clothes that are definitely not designed to grab anyone’s attention. What’s happened to all that red with pink? All those feather-trimmed pyjamas? The gold shoes? (Asking for a friend.) Borecore has no place for such frivolities. Effortless is where it is at.
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Yes, even the fashion crowd are sporting the same stuff as Robbie and Holmes pretty much every day, perhaps with the swap-in of a mannish shirt or vest for the tee and/or a plain knit or sweatshirt. And on TikTok people who might easily be mistaken for mid-level management, what with all the boxy blazers, are bandying about references to “effective outfits” and declaring that “not every day needs to be a slay”. The occasional kitten heel (black) or neckmess is as risqué as it gets in the world of borecore.
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Something is afoot. Even I, an avowed lover of colour, embroidery, beading, of you-pretty-much-name-it, found myself, while sorting through my wardrobe at the weekend, wondering if I needed to, I don’t know, dial things down a bit? Maybe less really is more? Maybe it’s time for me to start thinking about — can I even bring myself to type it one more time? — effective outfits.
Why is borecore the most exciting phenomenon in fashion right now? It’s probably partly to do with that liberation that comes with not trying so hard. I suspect it’s also related to the fact that so much else in the world is exciting, for which read, all too often, alarming, whether we are talking the geopolitical macro or the paying-the-rent-on-time micro. If ours are the last days of Rome mark 2, if this is our existential Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, perhaps dressing as if it were Monday morning is one way to keep our fingers in our ears.
At the same time wearing what amounts to a uniform, keeping things simple, is also a good idea when there’s a lot of other stuff taking up headspace, and certainly more parsimonious than engaging with what’s left of the once inescapable trend cycle. What’s more, dressing to exude competency, to signal that you are in control, is another way to pretend that you are; both competent and in control, that is.
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Could there also be something in the fact that this is probably along the lines of how your dad dressed when you were a kid? He was, after all, the one who supposedly knew what to do, or at least did a good job of pretending that he did. Let’s face it, we all need to pretend that at the moment.
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Where to shop borecore? Well, you probably don’t really need to. By definition you will have a fair bit in your wardrobe already. But the best brands for it include, in suitably boring alphabetical order, Albaray, Aligne, Arket, Baukjen, Cos, Everlane, John Lewis, Navygrey, Ninety Percent, Uniqlo and With Nothing Underneath.
A special shout out for Albaray’s jeans (like the light-wash turn-up, £99, albaray.co.uk), Aligne’s oatmeal linen wide-legs (£99, aligne.co), Everlane’s blazers (the Tencel oversized single-breasted, in black, navy, camel or white, is £169, everlane.com) and John Lewis’s suiting (the camel trouser suit is reduced to £75 from £125 for the double-breasted blazer and the trousers are £51, down from £85, johnlewis.com). Then there are Navygrey’s sweatshirts (from £120, navygrey.co) and With Nothing Underneath’s shirts (the Boyfriend starts at £95, withnothingunderneath.com). Borecore? What can I say? It’s piqued my interest.
@annagmurphy
