Amid all the cries for "authenticity," "uniqueness," "difference" the real cool comes under the trend Normcore. It adheres to the principles of blending in vs. standing out, melting into the crowd instead of attracting attention, and being just like everyone else.
It is an expected and, honestly, quite welcome backlash to the crazy advertising machine telling us we are unique, just like everybody else. Credits go to K-Hole for coining the term that captures a general attitude of "the self-aware, stylized blandness. It's an attitude embracing sameness deliberately as a new way of being cool, rather than striving for “difference” or “authenticity.” In fashion, though, this manifests itself in ardently ordinary clothes. Mall clothes. Blank clothes. The kind of dad-brand non-style you might have once associated with Jerry Seinfeld, but transposed on a Cooper Union student with William Gibson glasses."
Gotta go buy my Uniqlo hoodie now. In gray, of course.