Is Gorpcore Dead?
A trip to the REI store in Soho with Avery Trufelman.
In October, it was reported that REI’s Soho store will close by the end of 2026.
“As markets and customer needs evolve, we must adapt to position the co-op for long-term success,” the company said in a statement.
The news didn’t come as a huge surprise. As Curbed explained, the company had already announced plans to lay off hundreds of employees and shutter parts of its business. I’d read about union strikes and seen workers picketing outside the store, which opened in 2011. Leasing a 35,000-square-foot space in Soho also can’t be cheap… But people were so upset. It was one of the top stories on NYMag’s website the day the news broke.
“This really sucks!” wrote one commenter, who bought two bikes there.
“This is so depressing,” said another.
It certainly marked the end of something. But was it gorpcore, the trend of cool kids wanting to dress “like they can tie a Yosemite bowline,” as writer Jason Chen put it in his defining article for the Cut in 2017?
A few weeks later, I visited REI Soho with Avery Trufelman, host of Articles Of Interest, a podcast that unpacks what we wear and why we wear it. This season, her focus is on gear, and it’s a fascinating look at the history of the American outdoor industry and its deep ties to the military.
As Avery argues in the sixth and final episode of “Gear,” out today, gorpcore isn’t dead; it simply moved elsewhere. “It isn’t just me, right? Like, this has turned into gorp-corridor,” she said of Soho.
As we chatted in front of the REI store, Carhartt WIP, or the high-fashion offshoot of the workwear brand, was visible in the distance. Arc’teryx and North Face are a block over. Patagonia is also nearby. “REI has a lot of competition here,” said Avery. (If you want to hear a snippet of our conversation, it starts around the four-minute mark in “Chapter 6.”)
Walking around the store, I spotted a pair of rock-climbing shoes that looked a lot like a $690 pair of sneakers by Proenza Schouler, only a fraction of the price. We tried on some Oakley sunglasses for fun, but agreed that we both looked ridiculous, and not in a good way. Ultimately, we just didn’t need anything that the store had to offer, and the products weren’t exactly making a proposition beyond function, which is what fashion brands are for. The Arc’teryx section didn’t have any “cool” colors. I wasn’t actually going to wear rock climbing shoes on the street…
On our way out, we noticed a long-ish line at the register, which seemed like a good sign that at least other people were still interested in enjoying the great outdoors. But I had a sinking feeling that they were mainly buying protein bars…
Upon closer inspection, this appeared to be true. In their hands, shoppers held mostly small items: winter socks, a gaiter. One guy bought a pair of rock-climbing shoes, but probably to use at Brooklyn Boulders rather than on an actual boulder, if I had to guess.
For a better, more in-depth analysis of the evolution of gorpcore and why people are still “wearing Arc’teryx to get eggs,” as Avery puts it, I suggest you listen to her podcast in full.
But, speaking of boulders… We concluded that the most covetable item in the REI Soho store is the giant fake rock in the basement, which, who knows, could be up for grabs soon… Lounging on a warm rock in your New York apartment? Now that, Avery posited, might be the “ultimate luxury.”
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The Articles Of Interest Gear series is so so good.
I got my Oakleys for beach volleyball season then could not take them off cause once you taste the superpower of staring at the sun, you can’t go back…and eventually I started wearing them to work on my computer in the garden on summer months. This was a great hack and I highly recommend. I think as long as it is adaptation of function into fashion (the desire bring superpowers into your everyday life), they’ll live, but if it’s the other way around like you “start with” fashion/trend, it’s a different story.