Has Gorpcore Passed Its Peak?

At first, it happened pretty slowly. Patagonia fleeces and jackets from The North Face started to slip into mainstream retailers. Frank Ocean wore an Arc’teryx beanie at fashion week in 2019, and Drake donned a number of Stone Island parkas (though obviously not all at once). Then, like an avalanche, the landscape changed at speed, and now streetwear’s infiltration from performance-based brands is hard to ignore. Whether your TikTok FYP last year was full of kids showering in their Arc’teryx jackets, or you can no longer walk down your local high street without spotting a pair of Salomons, our penchant for technical sportswear and outdoor clothing is really having a moment. According to Statista, the Sports & Outdoor Clothing market is expected to reach around $19.6 billion in 2026, but with trends coming and going faster than ever, is there really that kind of longevity in it?

Gorpcore had actually started to break into the scene as early as 2017, but rather unsurprisingly, 2020s lockdown was a huge catalyst for the switch-up of streetwear as we knew it. Not long before, the fashion world was still dominated by loud and garish luxury streetwear styles - think Off-White belts and the Balenciaga Triple S, with an extra helping of logomania thrown in for good measure. As the world went into lockdown, the opportunities to flex your ‘fit were few and far between, and instead, comfort became key. Locked in our homes, logos were infinitely less important, and people’s dress sense began to evolve into something more cosy and casual.

Though it’d been bubbling away for a while, it was here that the (separate) athleisure trend was really able to boom. Soon, popping to Tesco became an occasion - the equivalent of an off-duty model’s pap walk, and therefore required an outfit to match. Leggings, socks and oversized jumpers worked their way back into rotation for the girls, topped off with a pair of New Balance 990s - a move that would help to propel the Boston-based brand back into the spotlight just a few years later. While looking good was certainly a priority, comfort remained key, and this helped to set the tone for the next couple of years

But an essential trip to the shops wasn’t the only highlight of those dark days. For many of us, our daily hour of exercise became a saving grace. Those stuck inside took the opportunity to explore the great outdoors for a bit, and as restrictions lifted, people began to increase the time they spent outside in an effort to reconnect with nature. A quick glance at Google Trends shows that over this time period, more people started to take up more outdoor pursuits, with hiking and cycling leading the way. But taking up new hobbies means buying new equipment, and often that doesn’t come cheap.

At the risk of looking like they had all the gear but no idea, with fewer places to spend money, some ended up spending their hard-earned furlough cash on fancy outerwear to further mark the occasion of being able to venture outside. It led to mainstream fashion retailers extending their buys to include more technical brands: a quick scroll of the likes of END. sees cycling brands like Pas Normal Studios, and running brands such as SOAR sitting amongst its roster in response to the increased demand. Of course, Arc’teryx, Patagonia and other outdoorsy brands also saw bigger buys, as more and more people invested in the gear that would protect them from the elements and improve their performance. Finn Morris, a buyer at END. clothing was one of the first to pick up on this and made sure to factor our new-found penchant for performance into the retailer’s buys. “During the lockdown, the only thing people could do was go into the outdoors and of course, if you’re going outdoors, you need the right kit,” he says. “This went hand in hand with our knowledgeable customers that always want to be at the sharp tip of the spear when it comes to all things clothing and footwear. They’ll go and research the best possible gear for their needs. This led to the explosion in demand for brands like Arc’teryx and The North Face for clothing and Hoka and Salomon in footwear.”

Even while niche markets were growing, brands were well aware that there was untapped potential within the lifestyle category. In the footwear market, Salomon’s 2015 collaboration with French fashion retailer The Broken Arm had been well-received, and the brand had started to look for its breakout lifestyle hit under its Sportstyle division. Special projects manager Jean Phillipe Lalonde had been tasked with that very job and struck gold in 2016 when he received an email saying that the XT-6 moulds were about to be destroyed. Recognising the model’s untapped potential, he was able to revive the silhouette, and a few years later the style is an undeniable success.

In 2019, Salomon also joined Palace for a collaborative take on its Speedcross 4, and then in 2020 the skate brand also proved that they were ahead of the curve by teaming up with Arc’teryx (more on that later). It was a wake-up call that proved London’s youth were after something different from the brands they’d been wearing just years before - and evidence that these outdoor brands were just as sought-after in the city as they were in the countryside. Everyone wanted a slice of outdoor life, or to at least look like they did - as one fashion meme put it “everyone wants to be gorpcore until it’s time to do gorpcore shit.”

Fast forward to 2022, and the Salomon hype train doesn’t look to be slowing down any time soon. In fact, site searches on The Sole Supplier in the three months to October were 71% up on Q1 of 2022, which was driven by both an increase in searches, but also an increase in styles and colourways that came to market this year - a sign in itself of rapidly increasing popularity and demand.

You can’t talk about Gorpcore without mentioning Arc’teryx. The techy Canadian label has been a firm fixture of the scene for a while, but it's deeply rooted in performance. Designed by a group of climbers for, well, climbing, Arc’teryx was a fair way from home when it became the focal point for TikTok’s shower trend in 2021. Soundtracked by rapper YT’s track ‘Arc’teryx’, TikTok teens stood under their showerheads and feigned surprise at how the water just ‘beads right off’ - as if that wasn’t the bare minimum requirement for a £400 rain jacket.

Although Arc enjoyed a huge year for sales, it was only a few years earlier that the brand had been pretty vocal in its condemnation of the streetwear scene. During 2020, Virgil Abloh sent the Hadid sisters down the runway in Off-White ball gowns fused with Arc’teryx jackets. Quick to vocalise the fact it was an unofficial collaboration, Arc’teryx caved later that year when it linked up with Palace for its first street-style collab, much to the disgust of its core fanbase, who accused it of becoming ‘the next The North Face’ over on Reddit.

Unsurprisingly, as we enter the rainy season, searches on The Sole Supplier have shown a steady rise month on month, and according to Google Trends searches are up 27% year on year. If we’re talking peaks, though, it's not quite hitting the numbers it was during its TikTok challenge: Google Trends shows that last December to January saw 608k searches for the brand, whereas October - November this year saw around 478k searches.

Though Gorpcore will always be defined by certain brands, there’s no doubt that the trend has transcended beyond these labels to become a more widely recognised aesthetic. As always, savvy fast fashion retailers have been paying close attention to the key styles that have come along with the trend and have released their own interpretations. A quick scroll on TikTok will bring up thousands of results for ‘Arc’teryx dupes’, including Uniqlo’s parka jacket (which given its Blocktech technology is a fair alternative for £70) and more worryingly, H&M, whose £25 windbreaker isn’t even water resistant. Techy-looking ‘parachute’ style pants have also been trending this year, with retailers like Motel Rocks and Pull and Bear leading the way. In a slightly different vein, a lot of high fashion brands are also looking to capitalise on the trend, with Gucci x The North Face, Jil Sander x Arc’teryx and MM6 x Salomon all offering an elevated take on each brand’s outdoor staples.

So, is Gorpcore a trend doomed to fall victim to trend cycles? Or is there some longevity in it? Right now, it’s hard to tell. Searches for Arc’teryx and Salomon have risen year on year, but now the aesthetic has been adopted by the mainstream fashion crowd, many of the early adopters are looking ahead to the next big brand. For those who were early to jump onto the Gorp-style look and Instagram’s techwear trend, brands such as Archival Reinvent and GOOPiMADE offer a techy aesthetic at a lower price point and opt for Teflon over GORE-TEX, which, if you’re not climbing mountains on the weekends, will probably suit you just fine. In terms of brands that also offer up the performance benefit, and wander (+19% YoY) and Snow Peak (+13%) are both brands that are (rapidly) gaining popularity, but compared to Arc’teryx still have that ‘IKYK’ factor.

As with all trends, there’s a high chance that the Gorp effect could wear off when the next big thing comes along. However, if you’ve just forked out for an Arc’ there’s no need to panic just yet, as there are a few things that suggest the outdoorsy trend could be here to stay for a while.

There are a couple of reasons why Gorpcore became such a big trend, and they’re also reasons why it might just stick around for a while. One reason could be that we’re simply feeling burned out by the sneaker offerings we’ve seen recently. Though we think of trends as fleeting, footwear trends actually move pretty slowly, and since Dunks and AJ1s have dominated the past couple of years, it could just be that we’re feeling fatigued and are looking to branch out into something different. As well as this, the current sneaker scene is plagued by unfairness - an issue that made Nike issue its SNKRS Pass after customers claimed they felt ‘disenfranchised’ by launch methods. Though it's getting trickier by the day to get your hands on a pair of Salomons, they’re not as susceptible to drop culture yet, and a restock is nothing some speedy typing or autofill can’t handle. In a similar vein, sneaker and streetwear brands still seem to be struggling with stock levels after the fallout from COVID. At the time, more niche brands were likely to have a bigger amount of stock readily available, whether that was due to (a generally lower) demand or where their goods were produced.

Alternatively, it could just be that we really are getting outside more. Even before the pandemic, millennial and Gen-Z consumers were thought to be much more focussed on experiences than ownership, though that might not appear to apply to your typical hypebeast. Of course, these activities also bring the opportunity to forge social connections, with more and more community initiatives and groups popping up by the day - something a lot of people realised they missed out on during lockdown. As our interest in our hobbies grows, our preference for performance gear does too, with buyers like Finn betting big on the success of SOAR and Satisfy Running, and Rapha in the cycling world.

Finally, don’t be surprised to see high-performance clothing stick around. ‘Gorpcore’ as a search term has seen a 368% increase this year, but with economic pressures, a changing climate and a cost of living crisis to contend with, it's natural to gravitate towards clothes that are better made, that will last longer, and that will help protect against the elements. It's something that retailers have put a huge focus on, as Finn adds “I think it’s moved past being a trend and has become part of a lot of people’s lifestyles. Once people deep-dived into the technical sportswear world, I think they began to appreciate the design, fabrics and details that go into making each piece functional for different environments and sports, showing why all these products have a reason to exist. Function and purpose are key to it all, along with authenticity in the space these brands play in.”