Normcore

About the project

NORMCORE – Accessible Fashion showcases clothes made for people living with physical disability. The works have been produced in the institutional framework of Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design. TransferLab, the incubator for the design and the documented process displayed at the exhibition, is one of the research labs of the University, and its primary aim is to provide support and strengthen the social visibility of those living with disability.

We borrowed the title Normcore from contemporary fashion theory, a term which describes the toolkit for an excessively simple, and extremely “normal” way of dressing. This concept is a perfect point of departure for examining what questions are worth asking about our relationship with normality. Does a normal body exist? What is normal? What is our responsibility in the forming of these concepts in
society? Fashion design undoubtedly has an immense role and a communicative potential to shape this dialogue.

The idealistic, healthy body prototype is only a social construct, which deems disability a quality that is other than normal. Disability, however, is not an illness, but a condition, mostly due to the violation of the right to participate in social roles. We experience disability, when due to a temporary or an elderly physical state we are deprived from benefits that all members of society are entitled to. These situations are often caused by a constructed environment, thus are consequences of human decisions. Among many, one of these responsible decisions is fashion design.

The exhibition displays designs which have been created for and in active collaboration with the affected. While the clothes fitted for people with limb deficiency or for wheelchair users are completely functional and wearable pieces, they are at the same time carriers of social constructs, that prompt our prejudices of disability to be re-evaluated. The exhibited fashion photographs portraying affected models aim to show what happens, when fashion design meets real needs and communicates about the person wearing the piece of clothing with meaningful gestures. The photos are accompanied by sketches, video interviews, statements from the creators in order to give a well-rounded picture about the design process.