February 22, 2024 | OPINION | By Charlotte Maley
The average young person in America does not engage with fashion by attending Prada runway shows, or even by studying the works of Giorgio Armani. However, they are far more likely to understand contemporary fashion by using the language of ‘cores:’ cottage-core, ballerina-core, mob-wife-core and so on. By taking any stylistic trend, attaching a thematic term to it, and following this term with the modifier “-core,” anyone can put a name to a pertinent fad. The study of any such “-core” is not only interesting in terms of aesthetic principles, but it also provides a clearer lens for the study of social phenomena and class politics. What I like to call Colorado College-core is a shining example of this.
It is no mystery to anyone who steps onto the Colorado College campus what gadgets CC-core is composed of. In warmer weather, it’s a thrifted T-shirt, chinos and Tevas. Every eighth(-ish) person is in a skirt, wearing earrings made up of collected garbage scraps, and every tenth(-ish) is barefoot. However, in the colder months, what defines common fashion trends at CC is name-brand jackets, hand crocheted beanies and Blundstone boots.
Backpacks are made for camping, not the classroom. Tattoos are no foreigner, and neither are nose piercings. CC-core is made up of outfits and accessories that suggest a certain laxness while simultaneously alluding to a particular kind of wealth. What I’ve noticed is that these students, cross country skiing in Japan instead of sunbathing in the Bahamas, are the runway examples of CC-core, and they want you to know it. CC-core can best be described as “backpacking…because you have so much stuff that a vacation is getting away from all your stuff,” said Kirstin Varallo ’26.
If Barbie-core communicates that a person is suggestable to trend-based feminism, and coquette-core demonstrates a desire to appear childlike and innocent, then CC-core illustrates an audacity, and even desire, to dress laid-back and crunchy while simultaneously wearing North Face jackets that cost upwards of $300. Once and a while, one of these can be thrifted, but presumably only for the vibes.
This style is plain and androgynous, and yet it communicates something so pungent; CC-core alludes to an individual who has no time to change between their liberal studies class and rock-climbing session.
What makes CC-core so enticing is that it gives the illusion that appearance is of no concern, and that the only thing of value is a relationship with nature. However, the connotation is that outdoor activities are weekend trips to some of the most famous ski resorts in the United States, and not just mere hikes open to anyone. Environmentally friendly liberal arts student by day and beneficiary of a one-percenter parent by night is the model for the CC-core aesthetic, representing the best of both worlds. They are wealthy, however, look how their family takes them “traveling” instead of “vacationing”! This style is the epitome of the greenwashed socialite.
This type of wealth is supposed to be concerned with the currency of experience rather than the monetary value of simple objects. The practitioner of CC-core would rather spend their allowance on a Patagonia fleece than designer handbags, and in this way, it retains the chic quality of historically vogue fashions for its relationship to rich society, and yet removes the clear class signaling that a Gucci purse would be better able to set off. Fjallraven is too niche to be showy in just any circle, and yet it’s still high quality. The CC wardrobe, in fact, may be the last category of garb that can’t possibly be considered trashy because the middle-class doesn’t even know that they should want it yet, and so it only exists on the backs of the supposedly less pompous wealthy.
This isn’t a hate campaign against CC-core. It’s Portland-ish and cozy, easy and chill, and I can almost always rely on a person rocking the CC-core style to pay full tuition. CC-core is not, however, exempt from the regular rules of in-vogue fashion. This rule is the one which knows fads do not happen in a vacuum, and each reveals a certain desire to signal a popular, or even just unique status in American society. Goth-core, anime-core, and devil-core are all expressions of identity, which allow an individual to communicate something. However, unlike the patrons of beach-core or fairy-core, who will gladly tell you of their intentions, the wielder of CC-core never will, for it would break the silence that makes their oud to money so elegant. Even that unwillingness to identify with it outright is a principal necessity to take on CC-core.