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 person would look out of place in Generic, and only the hard-edge can carry the Edgerunner look.

Cyberfashion
It's hip and aware to have high tech grafted onto your body somewhere. If you can afford it, you probably have at least a couple of "enhancements"; a few software chips installed in your nervous system to interface with your computer, remember your appointments (the ever popular Daytimer™ chip for example), and improve your raquetball reflexes. If you're cybered up you probably have interface plugs to operate computers and vehicles mentally. Maybe your eyes are cyberoptics with a recording function and the latest iris tint (polychrome is in this year), or your hearing is boosted to better hear the gossip in the Executive Lounge.

If your job involves some type of security or combat function (and most occupations of the 2000's have at least some type of combat aspect), you probably have two or three types of combat software, as well as plugs and interfaces for a smartgun. As a Solo, you may have had one or more limbs replaced with cyberware prosthetics, allowing you to hide a variety of tools and weapons in your body, as well as giving you an edge in speed and strength.

As a cyberpunk, you're going to want to get your hands on the best of this exciting and expensive new tech. And expensive is the word. The average enhanced character with, say, one cyberoptic (Targeting scope & IR enhancement), a reflex boost, one superchromed arm with a .25 cal submachinegun, interface plugs and chipware for Martial Arts, Rotorwing Pilot and Handgun is an investment of tens of thousands of euro.

Of course, the ambitious Punk already knows at least twenty-five ways (most of them illegal) to raise that sort of paltry sum.

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 jeans and t-shirts — minus the cotton. Cotton and other natural fibers are luxury items these days. Generic clothing is 100% synthetic, modular, recyclable, and very 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 college 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 very 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 may be 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 no subtlety, with skin-tight and see-through styling. Although transparent plastic panels are not exactly what 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 in 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 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 clothes; 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. (This requires an intimidate and wardrobe/style skill-check for newcomers to pull off.)

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. On anything else, it 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-tech 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.

Other Styles
Within the world of fashion, there are other, more unusual trends and styles.

Bag Lady Chic
This is the embodiment of anti-fashion. Where most styles emphasize looking expensive and stylish, this one is about looking dirty and ragged. Clothing is made of recycled bits of tattered scraps, arranged in mismatched layers. Hair is usually made into dreadlocks or made to look tangled. Makeup is used to appear dirty. Oddly enough, wearers are not typically dirty and unkempt. The point of this style is not to be dirty, but to appear dirty.

Who wears this?

Bohemians, eccentric weirdos, anti-fashion malcontents, people trying to keep a low profile or naive affluent people wanting to look like they are "slumming it."



Minimalist Fashion
In a world where people treat their bodies like sports cars to be customized and modified to fit one's personal needs and tastes, and to parade for everyone to see, folks are not shy about their bodies, especially ones with a lot of alterations. On top of that, years of sexual exploitation in mass-media had desensitized people to nudity. In this environment, people can strut around in the nude without anyone batting an eye.

This style is about dressing in little or no clothing. This could be limited to jewellery and accessories, scantly-cut lingerie, ripped Tarzan-styled loincloth or even one loose article of outerwear. Such articles and accessories are about highlighting ones body. They are usually reflections of other, more popular styles; everything but Businesswear, Edgerunner and Bag Lady Chic, but with Urban Flash and High Fashion being the most common.

Who wears this?

(...so to speak.) A common phase for teenagers who received cosmetic surgery for the first time and wish to show off their new look to all their friends, along with those who became "Exotic" for the first time. Beyond that, there are people who, as a personal preference or a professional requirement, are active nudists.



Exotics
Bodysculpt jobs that emphasize the alien or inhuman are known as "Exotics." Vat-grown tails, furred skins, hooves, animal-like faces and ears, cats' eyes and other semi-human features are the highlights of this style. Exotic fashion is incredibly expensive, time consuming and usually a hobby among only the very rich and very bored.

Who wears this?

Entertainers who desire a particular look, wealthy individuals with a sexual "furrie" fetish, or expensive prostitutes who accommodate exotic sexual fetishes.

Naturalists
Although rare, there are people who reject cosmetic and cybernetic alteration, as well as synthetic materials. This can range from people who limit their views to medically necessary alteration and material availability, to staunch technophobes. What they all have in common is a respect for a more-or-less natural appearance. This view could even include cosmetics, but that is rare even for this fringe outlook.

If they could have it their way, food and clothing would be "all-natural", but such things are rare and expensive, so most are forced to live like everyone else. Those who do seek out "all-natural" clothing tend to buy them at outlets that make them in particular ways (usually lacking in the style and flash of most conventional clothing). As such, they tend to look drab and old-fashioned. Such outlets are rare and generally cater only to a curtain clientele.

Who wears this?

Hipsters, new-wave hippies, religious fundamentalists, and extreme health-nuts.

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 (average quality generic fashion), times the style and quality (see below).

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