A Street Style Photographer Just Called My Dad's Grocery Outfit 'Transcendent' and Now Nothing Makes Sense

An opinion piece. A reckoning. A formal apology to every father we made fun of at the mall in 2003.

Gary Kowalski did not wake up on a Saturday morning in June intending to become a fashion icon.

He woke up, as he has every Saturday for the past thirty-one years, with the intention of attending a brunch — in this case, a rooftop situation in Columbus's Short North neighborhood, organized by his daughter, who had described the event as "casual, Dad, just like, normal clothes" — and then stopping at the Kroger on the way home because they were out of the good mustard.

He wore his New Balance 608s (white, with a silver accent, purchased in a two-pair value pack from Dick's Sporting Goods). He wore cargo shorts in a color the manufacturer calls "khaki" and Gary calls "my shorts." He wore a blue polo shirt, tucked in, because Gary Kowalski does not leave the house with an untucked shirt; he was raised a certain way and that is simply how it is.

He was approached before he reached the rooftop stairs.

"Sir, Can I Take Your Photo?"

The photographer — a 24-year-old in wide-leg trousers and a deconstructed blazer who shoots street style for a blog with 340,000 Instagram followers — later described the encounter as "one of those rare moments where you see someone who just gets it without even trying."

Gary described it as "confusing, but she seemed nice."

The photos ran the following Tuesday under the caption: "Effortless utility. Functional silhouette. Unself-conscious masculinity. The dadcore aesthetic has never felt more urgent." The post received 47,000 likes. Gary was tagged in it by his daughter, who sent it to him via text with no accompanying message — just the link and a single period, which Gary's wife, Deborah, confirmed is their daughter's way of expressing emotions she cannot otherwise process.

Gary read the caption twice. He showed it to Deborah. He asked her what "unself-conscious masculinity" meant. Deborah said she had no idea but that the shorts were, in fact, from 2009 and she had asked him to throw them out on multiple occasions.

The shorts are now being described online as "archival."

A Brief History of Dadcore, Told From the Perspective of Actual Dads

For those unfamiliar with the cycle, here is a compressed timeline of how fashion interacts with the average American dad:

1987–2003: Dads wear comfortable, practical clothing. White sneakers. Pleated khakis. Fanny packs. Polo shirts. Socks with sandals, because their feet are hot and sandals alone provide insufficient toe support on uneven terrain. Nobody calls this anything. It is just what dads wear.

2003–2012: Their children become teenagers and spend the better part of a decade being mortified by these clothing choices in parking lots, Applebee's locations, and every single school drop-off from September to June.

2013–2018: Fashion blogs begin using the word "normcore." Runway designers start incorporating "utilitarian influences." Chunky sneakers appear in lookbooks. Critics call it a "reclamation of the mundane."

2019–2022: The New Balance 990 — a shoe that Gary's neighbor Dennis has owned continuously since 2004 — is resold on StockX for $340. A pair of Levi's 550 relaxed-fit jeans that every American dad has owned since the early nineties becomes a "vintage silhouette" retailing for $195 at a boutique in Brooklyn.

2023–Present: Cargo shorts, socks with Birkenstocks, tucked-in polo shirts, and fanny packs are featured in GQ, Esquire, and approximately eleven thousand TikTok videos about "embracing dadcore energy." Actual dads are unaware that any of this is happening. They are at the hardware store.

Gary's Saturday: The logical endpoint of all of the above.

An Interview With Deborah Kowalski, Who Is Not Surprised But Is Still Furious

We spoke with Deborah Kowalski, 56, licensed dental hygienist, Gary's wife of thirty-two years, and a woman who has spent the better part of three decades trying to get Gary to wear "literally anything else" to social events.

Couture Cringe: How did you feel when you saw the photos?

Deborah: I mean, I'm glad he had a nice time. I'm glad people were kind to him. But I want to be clear — I told him to change those shorts before we left for Megan's birthday dinner last September. I said, Gary, those have a paint stain on the left leg. He said it was small. It was not small.

CC: The blog called the outfit "archival."

Deborah: The shorts are from Old Navy. I have the receipt somewhere because I bought them during a 40% off sale and I kept the receipt because Gary is hard on shorts. They are not archival. They are cargo shorts.

CC: Does Gary have a personal style philosophy?

Deborah: He has a personal style practice, which is: he finds clothes that fit and he wears them until I throw them away. Then he finds them in the donation bag and puts them back in the closet. We have been doing this for thirty-two years.

CC: And the New Balances?

Deborah: He bought those because his feet hurt. His podiatrist recommended a wide toe box. I'm genuinely asking — when did a podiatrist recommendation become a fashion statement? I would like someone to explain this to me.

We could not explain it to her. Nobody can.

What This Means for the Rest of Us

The Gary Kowalski Incident — as it has been dubbed by absolutely no one except us, starting now — raises a question that the fashion industry has successfully avoided answering for decades: At what point does the cycle of ironic reclamation eat itself entirely?

Fashion has now completed the full loop. It took something practical, mocked it, ignored it for twenty years, rediscovered it, declared it revolutionary, charged $400 for a recreation of it, photographed the original on a rooftop in Columbus, and called it transcendent — all without once acknowledging that the man wearing it just wanted to get to the good mustard at Kroger.

Gary, for his part, is unbothered. He has been told his photo is "going viral" and responded by asking what that means and then, upon being told, shrugging and asking if anyone wanted more potato salad.

He is, in the truest possible sense, exactly what the fashion world keeps saying it wants.

He is also still wearing the cargo shorts. Deborah has accepted this. The fashion world has celebrated it. The shorts remain, as they have always been, just shorts.

The New Balances, however, are gone. Gary's daughter bought him a new pair for Father's Day — the same model, same colorway, sourced from a resale app.

She paid $280.

Gary's original pair cost $64.99.

Fashion is a flat circle, and it is wearing a tucked-in polo.

Gary Kowalski has not started a fashion blog, an Instagram account, or a Substack. He did, however, find the good mustard. It was on sale.