Grayson Perry dismisses normcore trend: ‘They're so frightened of being wrong they have exempted themselves from being fashionable’

The artist says that the personality-free trend shows just how scared the fashion world is

Grayson Perry with the Louis Vuitton trunk he designed

Grayson Perry has a bone to pick with one of fashion’s key new trends – normcore.

For those who aren’t familiar with this most innocuous of fads, it’s a look based upon dressing in the most inoffensive, nondescript way as possible.

While Vogue describes it as "hyper-normalised styling", it is essentially about wearing detail-free bland clothes that make the wearer look anonymous. Those who want to express themselves should steer clear.

“It's interesting that the term normcore came out of the fashion world,” Perry said at the Vogue Festival this weekend.

“It's like they are so frightened of getting it wrong they have exempted themselves from being fashionable.”

For Grayson, who is known for his colourful, outlandish dresses, good taste is overrated. After all, who wants to look safe?

"Good taste is that which does not alienate your peers, that's the nature of taste," he said. "Ridiculousness for me is a compliment. When people meet me as a man they say I'm quite good-looking and I say, 'I don't dress up to look better.'"

The artist joined Lily Allen and Jasper Conran at the panel discussion, which took place at London’s Southbank Centre. He says that his alter ego gives him much more freedom.

"What a nightmare to be fashionable as then you can only not be fashionable," he said. "Now I'm Grayson Perry I can get away with anything, basically.

"I have to try and do that awful thing and be myself. It's like animals grooming one another. Taste is often set around rigid systems, relating it to tribes."