WE are living, culturally, in the era of peak dad. Everywhere you look, it seems someone or something is being accused of having some sort of “dad” element to it – from 'dad bods' to 'dad caps', 'dad dancing' to 'dadcore' fashion. Whether the term is delivered as a mocking jibe, with a note of irony or banterish affection, it does seem that our society is currently obsessed with all things dad. But what does that tell us about how we feel about traditional dads? What does it say about the way fatherhood is changing? And what exactly does dadcore even mean?

Dadcore

You may be wondering, particularly if you are a dad, whether you are already wearing dadcore, the latest fashion menswear trend. Well, there is some chance you are, particularly if your wardrobe features New Balance trainers, stonewashed jeans or a very big t-shirt. For this, it turns out, is a feature of dadcore – and that probably means a great many men out there are rocking the look without even realising it. Think oversized and bad taste. Use Jeremy Corbyn, whose look was an inspiration for Martine Rose’s recent menswear collection, as inspiration. Or think Barack Obama, not in his suits, but in his civvies - all baggy jumpers and big jeans. The kind of items which should dominate your wardrobe are stonewashed denim, tie-dyed t-shirts, shirts tucked into belted trousers and practical sneakers.

If you already are working this look then take a moment to celebrate how on trend you are.

For this is the dadcore aesthetic. It’s about looking like a dad who really doesn’t care, and wearing clothes that are over-sized, a bit ugly, and which generally until now were thought of as a comfortable way of avoiding fashion. The aesthetic has been hovering in the underground for few years. Last year the fashion website High Snobeity described outgoing president Obama as the poster boy of the style, picking out the “high-waisted stonewashed jeans he wore while making the first pitch at the Major League Baseball All-Star game.” But the reason we are talking about it right now is because it’s gone overground and become one of the big high fashion trends of this season. Dadcore, for instance, was what Balenciaga’s 2018 spring collection was all about.

Why, you may wonder, has this become so zeitgeisty? Well, to understand Dadcore, you have to understand that before it came the trend called Normcore. What, you ask, was that? Well, Normcore, the big daddy of Dadcore, was a trend for picking some of the least fashionable, and deliberately dressing in an almost unaesthetic way. As fashion writer, Calum Gordon puts it, “the dadcore trend stems from the fact that some notion of 'irony' is an integral part of the current fashion zeitgeist."

Perhaps you are wondering if you have to be a dad to do dadcore. Actually you don’t. In fact, dadcore is at its most hip when it’s not being worn by dads at all, which is a bit disappointing for the older dads with their dad bods and giant t-shirts. Dadcore is really youth wearing the kind of clothes a dad, possibly their own, possibly not, might wear.

Except, as with all these things, it’s more complex than that. For, much as dadcore seems to be poking fun at older dad style, it’s also celebration of modern fatherhood. Balenciaga designer Demna Gvasalia marched young men, real dads, down the catwalk with their children when he put on his collection. He said he was inspired by the young dads he saw in the park, and he spoke of how the relationship between the fathers and their children represented “hope”, a new generation.

Dad bod

What a dad bod looks like should need little explaining, but lest you are wondering, the best place to start is with a blog that was written back in 2015, by a student at Clemson University in South Carolina, which pretty much defined the physique. Mackenzie Pearson described it as “a nice balance between a beer gut and working out”. “The dad bod says,” she wrote, “"I go to the gym occasionally, but I also drink heavily on the weekends and enjoy eating eight slices of pizza at a time."” Pearson’s dad bods weren’t on actual dads, of course. They were “fraternity boys skipping gym for a few brews”.

But since then the concept of the dad bod has evolved - and it now lies somewhere between sexy (great news for our middle aged male readers) and body-shaming (not so great news for our middle aged male readers). There's been a trend for young millennial women saying they find dad bods sexy - though we aren't sure if that is all down to hipster irony or not. Older dads are now proudly talking about their dad bods - making it a badge of pride. But it's also become an insult too - making it a form of body-shaming. Like dadcore, and all things dad these days, it comes with a sense of it's 'so bad it's good'. You have to wonder how it would go down if people started talking the same way about the “mum bod”.

Dad dancing

And speaking of 'so bad it's good', if you really want to go viral in today's online culture, all you need to do is be videoed doing some really epic dad-dancing. A quick potted history of some of some global favourites: well, for starters there was hapless American dad John Lawless, caught on camera throwing wild shapes and spinning on the spot to the Jackson 5. There was Michigan dad Steve Haddad’s leotard-clad performance to Beyonce’s Single ladies. And even Prince William has done his bit for dad dancing. Such performances have prompted a certain amount of academic interest. A recent study found that the age that men start dad dancing is around 37 years old. And one psychologist, Dr Peter Lovatt, even suggested that it may have an evolutionary purpose. “The message their dancing sends out says stay away, I’m not fertile.”

Centrist dad

Dad bods and dad dancing are something we can feel affectionate about. But there’s nothing loving in the term, Centrist Dad, which is, essentially a political insult. Back last year, this became a favourite of Corbynistas, thrown around on Twitter, particularly at older men. Corbyn’s former adviser Matt Zarb-Cousin helped coin the term. These figures were, he said, “middle-aged men who cannot come to terms with the world and politics changing, and think that they must know better because they are older and wiser.” To begin with these dads were actual dads. But now it’s possible for almost anyone to be a centrist dad. And it’s never a compliment.

Daddy cool or not?

At this point you may be feeling confused. You may be wondering if it’s cool to be a dad or not. This is a tricky question to answer. The obvious answer seems to be no as too much of the whole dad bod and dad dancing trope is about poking fun - declaring all things father a bit naff. Even dadcore is a little bit mocking. It’s suffused too much hipster irony. It’s also worth noting that two fashion branches sprung from the Normcore root. One was dadcore, the other was named menocore, and was essentially menopause-inspired clothes. But it was dadcore that really took off, possibly because, as we all now know, the white male patriarch is the figure we maintain most license to laugh at ... and it's deemed not okay to laugh at older women.

But the dad trend isn’t only about meanly laughing at dads. There is a warmth. Dadcore also celebrates dads. It puts dads at the centre of life at a time when we are seeing a profound revolution in how we parent, and share child-rearing. There’s an inescapable affection for those fathers pushing their kids around the park in their buggies, dressed in bad trainers and functional jeans. Yes, the trend seems to enjoy laughing at dads. But it’s also another expression of how much we love them. And that’s nothing new. Kids have long revelled in poking fun at their dads. It’s an expression of their love for them, but also how they rebel.

Famous Great Dads

David Beckham. Says his family are his proudest achievement, described himself as a house-husband, and made sure Brooklyn got a weekend job so he knew the value of working hard.

Prince William. From the first moment we saw him grappling with tiny Prince George in a car seat, it was clear he was going to be more hands on than his dad.

Barack Obama. He clearly strove hard to be a connected dad while being in office, to be there for his kids in a way his own absent father had not been.

Joseph, earthly father of Jesus. Even though he was cuckolded by God, he raised Jesus with love.

Bill Gates. He didn’t let his kids have mobile phones till they were 13, and in spite of his wealth has tried to give them as normal an upbringing as possible

Rio Ferdinand. We’ve seen him struggle with being a single father to three kids since losing his wife Rebecca.

Yu Xukang, a single dad from the Sichuan Province in China. He walks 9 miles every day with his disabled son, Xiao Qiang, strapped to his back so that the child can get an education.

Terrible fathers

AA Milne. Just watch Goodbye Christopher Robin to see the kind of dad we’re talking about. Christopher Robin said that the author, his father, hated children and was mostly absent. After using his son as the basis for his Pooh stories, he packed him off to boarding school.

Evander Holyfield. In 2012, he was held in contempt of court, and forced to begin a payment plan on over half a million dollars he had not paid in child support for this 12 children by six women.

Alec Baldwin. Remember that rant of a voicemail in which he called his 11-year-old daughter, a rude and thoughtless pig?

Ivan the Terrible. Killed his son in an argument by beating him over the head with his sceptre.

Josef Fritzl. Kept his daughter a prisoner in her own home for 24 years, forcing her to bear seven of his children.

Woody Allen. Was he or wasn’t he a terrible father who abused his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow? If you believe the allegations against him by Farrow, there’s no doubting it. But Allen has denied them. We do know, for sure, however that he romanced and married his step-daughter Soon-Yi Previn.

Christopher Foster. Shot dead his wife and daughter and all their pets before torching their home - just one of a list of men through history, who have carried out the very worst of crimes - familicide.