gorpcore

Gorpcore is wearing outdoor and hiking gear as everyday city clothes: fleece jackets, technical rain shells, cargo pants and trail shoes, even if the closest you get to a mountain is the coffee shop.

What gorpcore looks like

• Fleeces, puffers and waterproof shell jackets
• Cargo or hiking pants, sometimes with zip-off legs
• Trail runners and hiking boots
• Brands like The North Face, Arc’teryx, Patagonia, Salomon and Snow Peak
• Practical accessories: carabiners, crossbody bags, bucket hats

The joke is that it’s technical gear built for extreme conditions, worn to the grocery store. Part of the appeal is that it’s comfortable, durable and doesn’t try too hard, at least on the surface. Some of the jackets cost as much as designer clothes.

Examples

• “He wore a $600 rain shell to a dinner party. Peak gorpcore.”
• “My dad’s been dressing gorpcore since 1994. He just called it ‘clothes.’”
• “Salomons with a fleece is the official gorpcore uniform.”

Where the name came from

“Gorp” is a name for trail mix, the snack hikers carry. It’s often said to stand for “good old raisins and peanuts,” but Merriam-Webster lists the origin of “gorp” as unknown, and the acronym is probably a backronym. The “-core” part comes from normcore, the deliberately plain style that was a big talking point in the mid-2010s.

Writer Jason Chen is credited with coining gorpcore in a May 2017 article for New York magazine’s The Cut, “First Came Normcore. Now Get Ready for Gorpcore.” Dictionary.com says he used it partly to poke fun at the trend. Know Your Meme says it took off on TikTok in late 2020, helped along by the pandemic boom in hiking and outdoor activity.

Gorpcore vs. normcore

Normcore is about looking aggressively ordinary: plain jeans, plain tees, nothing that stands out. Gorpcore is just as practical, but the gear is technical, branded and often expensive.

Related terms

• quiet luxury: expensive clothes without logos
• old money aesthetic: inherited-wealth style
• coastal grandmother: relaxed seaside elegance
• indie sleaze: messy late-2000s party style

See more terms like this in our internet aesthetics guide.