Fashion

In the Cyberpunk future, style is everything. What you wear can determine everything about you. Not everyone can afford the best styles, nor can anyone throw on an outfit and look good in it. Style in Cyberpunk is as much a skill as it is an art. In some cases, certain people can never pull-off certain styles - a smelly, unkempt gutter-rat would never look professional in Businesswear, while a high-level Corporate would look out of place in Generic, and only the hard-edge can carry the Edgerunner look.

Styles
The clothing styles of 2020 break into six basic fashion statements:

Generic Chic
This is the stuff you would find in mega-stores and mallplexes. It's one step beyond plain jean and t-shirts - minus the cotton. Cotton and other natural fibers are luxury items these days. Generic clothing are 100% synthetic, modular, recyclable, and vary common. This is fine for casual wear, but you'd better plan on donning something with a bit more bite, if you want to score.

Who wears this?

Mallplexers, kids, average collage types, beavers, junior model wannabees. Ronin who don't care much about fashion or don't like attention, and older folks who don't care much for fashion anyway. In other words, people with an eye for style, but vary little money to fill it.

Leisurewear
Athletic wear is a version of Generic clothing with more style and pizzazz, tending towards the chilled look. Imagine sweats being taken to the level of designer jeans. Wearers usually don't have something to prove but do enjoy interestingly decorated and upbeat fashion with more originality then Generic-but not as much glitz as Urban Flash. An example maybe the type of clothing '90's athletic stars wore on their days off. These are the clothes most TV ads will try to sell you.

Who wears this?

College kids, young professionals, Movers out of the town, hip street Ronin, Bohemians. Not the ultra-chic, but people who like to look good while recreating or partying.

Urban Flash
Video jackets, color-shift fabrics, cammos, leathers, metal trim, logo-wear ... the wildest wear around. Chromer and Boostergang stuff. Rich mallplexer kids and Edgerunner wannabees wear this usually. It is all flash and has no subtlety, with skin-tight and see-through styling. Although transparent plastic panels are not exactly when you'd wear into combat, they are pretty frosty out on the town if you don't mind attracting a lot of attention. The latest fashion trends appear on the street is Urban Flash mode first.

Who wears this?

Image-conscious mallplexers, dance club sluts, Chromers and metal-heads, vidstars and other minor celebs, senior gang members, and Ronin who like to attention or don't care what you think anyway.

Businesswear
Suits, semi-formal dress and other pricey, natural fiber attire. Ties are mandatory with this stuff. No combat Edgrunner would be caught dead in these cloths; on the other hand, a good Mover or Corpzoner wouldn't wear anything else. Fixers in large organizations, some Rockerboys and a few Corp enforcers wears these, Babes go for guys in suits and dudes watch Corp-ettes wearing those frosty silk business skirts.

Who wears this?

Almost all Corps, respectable security operatives and Corp bodyguards, Eurosolos, real uptight types. You know — people who make good targets.

Edgerunner
Recently come into its own as a discernible style, Edgerunner is more then old surplus miligear, a bit more subdued then the glitz of Urban Flash, and not as status-conscious as Leisurewear. You have to be pretty damn cool to wear this stuff and not look like a poser wannabe.

Edgerunner is predominated by stylishly functional gear that looks armored and/or combat ready, without being olive-drab miligear. Edgerunner style uses synthleather, metal hardware, and padding in flat, non-reflective colors that don't attract attention in the Combat Zone. "Tough!!" is the adjective most used by those young urban gangers who can't afford it, nor pull it off when they do wear it. This look is rather intimidating and "biz-only," so don't expect to draw the opposite sex to you while wearing Edgerunner (unless they're into that sort of thing). Of course, its designed to look better and better the more use you get out of it — the more bullet holes and slash marks, the chiller it is. Try patching it up with materials of differing styles and color. One anything else, it's looks like you couldn't afford to get it done right, but with Edgerunner style, you advertise your abilities — you show that you're at home in a high-tek dance bar, or facing down gutter-scum in the 'Zone.

Remember, this stuff is an attitude in itself, so expect street punks to screw around with you more if you don't look like you should be wearing it. And they may try to kill you just to get your jacket...

Who wears this?

Edgerunners of all types who don't mind advertising, rich kids who think they're Edgerunners, and some Gangers who've taken down a Ronin who wasn't as good as he thought.

High Fashion
This is the stuff that you see all the super-glam models wearing. This is what Urban Flash and Generic Styles try to imitate year after year, but High Fashion features quality materials and workmanship that is second to none. The superwealthy don this clothing, and most Braindance and Vidstars wear it as well. If you're not wearing High Fashion — or Urban Flash that's imitating High Fashion — in the trendiest clubs, you're nobody.

Who wears this?

Middle-/upper-class Euro-types, glam-rock stars, supermodels, trendy Corps, Goldenkids, Media celebrities. etc.

Clothing and Costs
All prices are in Eurodollars (eb). Leather or its equivalent increases the cost of some item by 50-75%. The cost of an article of clothing is the base cost, times the style and quality (see below).

(all info cited from Chrome Book 4 — The Cyberpunk Style Guide Vol. 4)