Fashion in the Dark Future

For most denizens of the Dark Future, fashion is an expression of hyper-individualism. With the average Sol System resident easily being lost in the anonymous doldrum of toiling under corporate hegemony the desire to stand out and be noticed, to fiercely display one's existence and personal style, has never been stronger. All manner of class signifiers, cultural connections, subcultural affinities, and personal statements can be made with how one dresses and these expressions follow ever-evolving fashion trends that mark in-groups and resistances to in-groups for the average denizen of the Dark Future. Whether you want to fit in with your own unique take on what's popular, or reject conformity and show your divergence, there is a way to express it.

Prominent Fashion Styles

While the full breadth of fashion styles is exhaustively long and nebulously changing, fading, and being rediscovered at rates that can stagger the mind, there are nevertheless several overall styles that remain consistent in their ethos. An individual may follow one or more of these styles, alternating as they see fit or even combining them into new expressions. Chasing the avant-garde may be a lifelong struggle, but being on the cutting edge has its own rewards for the relatively short time you are on top, and besides...what dies out today may be next year's retro.

Entropism

Necessity Over Style. Easily the most affordable style, Entropism usually involves industrial clothing such as rubber boots over synthetic denim, patched shirts/tshirts/pants, clothing with some corpo advertising (IE Void Sisters Limited Edition Croptop), or other such easily-acquired and roughly-maintained items. Entropism represents making do with what you have easily available, and tends towards what works versus what makes you stand out.

Kitsch

Style Over Substance. Kitsch is the urban streetwear of the dark future, individual expression to the Nth power. Baggy pants, caps, loose jackets, fishnet tops/stockings, ripped jeans, sneakers, et cetera. It tends to be colorful, or coordinated with a 2-3 color scheme and will frequently employ drastically clashing color choices.

Neomilitarism

Substance Over Style. Neomilitarism is what you see corpos and corposoldiers wear. It's usually greyscales with one or 'maybe' two items of a different color (For example, black suit with a white shirt, and (shocker) a red tie). For the tacticool weekend warrior folks out there, it usually means uniforms of the PMC variety that may have some color but nothing terribly flashy for obvious reasons.

Neokitsch

Substance And Style. Neokitsch is what the ultrarich, the celebrities, and the rich kids of even richer corpos wear. Kitsch taken and elevated to unsuspected heights with a wardrobe budget equaling the annual net profit of several small businesses. Designer clothes with real fabrics and real textures for really rich people. A designer coat in this style could cost more than one year's worth of rent in an average Joe's apartment.