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Author Topic: Futuristic Clothing
Omega
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So I wouldn't be entirely surprised if this question has been posted before, but I couldn't find it so I thought I'd ask it again.

For those sci-fi writers out there, what kind of clothing do you have your people wear if it is set in the future? And, at least for my case, I mean FAR in the future. Is it unreasonable for people to wear clothes even similar to what people wear today? And if doesn't make sense, how would a writer go about describing these clothes?

Like, for example, in a very generic description, would it be wrong to say, "Bob wore his favorite black shirt with the low cut neck and short sleeves with a pair of blue jeans"?


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extrinsic
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Apparel reflects and characterizes the practical and fashion needs of a society.

Pants evolved through varying intervals from leggings worn to protect runners' legs when passing through coarse undergrowth, bracken and bramble and branch. Breech cloths serve a similar function. Sew a breech cloth onto a pair of leggings and pants are invented.

Collars and lapels emerged as protections for costly waist coats and jackets. They were removable, actually tacked on with a few stitches between washings. Pomades and hair powders were fashionable at the time. Today's collars and lapels are a leftover legacy of that fashion.

Vocations dictate uniform apparel. Printers wore visors with a shiny finish on the brim's underside so they could read a type galley in the reflection. Bibs and aprons and harnesses and suspenders and garters each have a practical purpose. Mechanics and workers with other cleanliness needs wear overalls. Bib coveralls are associated with farmers, the suspender straps eliminating waist belts and belt loops which will catch on machinery. Machine laborers rarely wear neckties for the same reasons. Tunics and pullovers for comfort or immodest quick changes or to protect street clothes, medical professional tunics, for example.

Nudity taboos, fashion extravagances, unisex apparel, gender specific apparel, new trends from new materials or traditional fabrics reimagined. Leather for durability. Wool for durability and warmth and comfort. Kevlar for personal armor. Sheer fabrics for coolness and comfort and immodesty. Cotton for its breathing fabric and low cost. Nylon, Rayon, Dacron, polyester blends, how they lay and cup and support on a selvedge, bias, or straight cut. Decorative darts and pleats, scyes and sleeve lengths, cuffs and seams.

Navy dress blue uniforms' thirteen-button fly, bell-bottom trousers were designed to come off with a tug of the bib fly in case a mariner fell overboard. Bell bottoms for quick removal over shoes. Lots of lore for other reasons why they needed to come off quickly. Bell bottoms have come and gone in fashion fads.

Button and zipper and Velcro fasteners for convenience and fashion. Other accessories for practicallity that merged into status and prestige symbols. Rings engraved with seals of office. Bracelets and necklaces from hand and leg cuffs and collar ties worn by captives, ritual or actual. Pins and brooches from fastening loose apparel like togas and kilts.

Tall head dress is a good way to pick out allies or a leader from a mob. Head gear still serves most of its early practical needs.

What will future milieus be like in how they reflect fashion desires and practicality of apparel? And characterize the society? How does apparel connect dramatically with a story?

[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited December 13, 2009).]


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Rommel Fenrir Wolf II
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well if it helps i read an ardical in a the army times about the combat soldger in 50 years, everything was intergrated including the clothing, the uniform will be able to tell medics where the soldger was hit and will be able to change color acordig to the background.

RFW2nd


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Teraen
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Along the lines of our werewolf, it depends on what you need. Is this a uniform? Regular clothes? Deep sea divers? Etc? It also depends on your level of technology in your society. Just cause its the future doesn't mean they advance

I envision all our technology (cell phones, ipods, GPS navigators, etc...) integrated into the clothing. Movement generates the power for them, and they are on hand for whatever the wearer needs. Basic fabric will still be around due to its simplicity, but then so could futuristic materials that don't tear, or get dirty, or require washing, etc. These could be constructed or bio-synthetic clothes based on biotech (like the aliens in Independence Day...)

Great thing about being a writer is you can invent whatever your story requires Start with the story, not so much the world building, and then things take care of themselves...


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Omega
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some good points raised! Truth be told the clothing isn't important at all to the story, but there are some good ideas there. All I really needed to know is if it would be reasonable to wear clothes made of basic fabrics, and it seems like the consensus is, yes
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Lyrajean
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Hey, right up my alley...

I went to grad school to study historic textiles.

My advice as far as clothes go is to largely let the reader fill in his imagination. People take clothes for granted. Unless mentioning the clothing gives you added information about the character or is neccessary to the plot etc...

The same way using terms we are already familiar with (like shirts pants etc... is okay too.

People wear clothes for various reasons, but excepting climatic extremes or occupational protective clothing we primarily wear clothes because we want to.

That said clothing give lots of information about the person wearing it, gender, age, social and economic status. People also attach culturally specific messages to clothing like sexiness, fashionability etc... that are hard to understand without the context.

General trends over the past couple hundred years are: the move away from custom tailored and handmade to manufactured clothing in a set range of sizes. This may reverse in the near future as the technology needed to do quick and cheap measured and fit to order with computer aided sizing, pattern making and manufacturing becomes reality. As manufacturing got better clothes became less of an expensive neccesity (people in the 18th and 19th centuries could spend as much as half their income on clothing) to a disposable commodity (people no longer leave their clothing to others in their wills).

As for styles new types of clothing are generally introduced at the less-formal end of the spectrum and gradually become acceptable for more formal wear. Some finally reach a stage where they develop other associations and become fosilized before finally becoming obsolete and disappearing. Court costume, military dress uniforms and Japanese school uniforms are good examples of fossilized clothing. Things like neckties and what we now know as formal suits and tuxedoes are more likely to disappear soon than bluejeans.

300-400 years ago most clothing was linen or wool. 250 year ago people started wearing lots of cotton (we've never really stopped)and silk has become increasingly more affordable and easy to produce lessing its status as a wealthy fabric. Jersey knits became popular in 1880s and we now wear more knit and elastic clothing than ever before.


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Owasm
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Clothing? What clothing? Everybody will wear a belt over their birthday suit called a PEG. Personal Environment Generator. It will be programmable to coat the wearer with a force field for protection and a holographic distorter that will provide any style of clothing the wearer wishes to emulate.
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rstegman
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they loved to show the future people in highly reflective jump suits or three piece suits, made of space age materials not yet invented.

In one book I read, all they wore was a apron that hung from a belt and that was in case of leakage. That was a zero G environment. When I read that, I did not ask how the flapping cloth would cover anything when any movement would send it flying around.

Essentially, if you have a reason for the way they dress, anything will go.


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MartinV
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As far as I can see it, there was a period in human history when clothing turned from simple to complex. Today, I feel it is the opposite. Clothing is about being simple.

I don't go into detail when it comes to clothes, unless it is vital to the story. In my current story, sometimes I hint they are in equatorial climates, meaning it would be quite hot and humid. Not much clothes needed there.


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tchernabyelo
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quote:
In one book I read, all they wore was a apron that hung from a belt and that was in case of leakage. That was a zero G environment. When I read that, I did not ask how the flapping cloth would cover anything when any movement would send it flying around.

Velcro is your friend here


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Crystal Stevens
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I rarely describe what my characters are wearing unless it's vital to the story. I usually concentrate more on the action and the plot.

I've also started reading a series that takes place in the present day but revolves around fantasy. The writing isn't the greatest, but the thing that drives me crazy more than anything else is the author's obsession with describing everything everyone is wearing in detail and by the individual. Even the MC get a fashion review every time she's dressed in something different. I don't mind when it's nice to know what she's wearing because of what she's doing in the story. But the fashion review isn't even necessary about 90% of the time.

Sorry for my vent. I'm still reading this series, because I do like the stories to an extent. I'm going to read the next book or two before I decide whether to quit the series or not.


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Omega
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Thanks for all the help guys. I never really felt the need to describe my clothes unless they were important, but while I'm re-reading the Wheel of Time series, i started to wonder. Anyone who's read anything by Robert Jordan should know that he can spend whole paragraph's talking about people's clothing.
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Robert Nowall
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I try to bring up a few things about the clothes my characters are wearing, because they're always taking them off or putting them on. You can't just say "He took his clothes off" or "He put his clothes back on" without some additional comment---jeans and a T-shirt---what about underwear?---shoes and socks?

Besides, it's a good way to differentiate a change in the background, both from the here-and-now and also between the characters in the stories. Right now I'm working on one of those collapse-of-civilization things I seem so fond of writing, and changes in costuming over a several-hundred-year period are inevitable, I'd think.

(Some of the things you see characters wearing in SF / fantasy movies or illustrations are borderline ridiculous when you break it down to the nitty-gritty.)


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tchernabyelo
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quote:
Some of the things you see characters wearing in SF / fantasy movies or illustrations are borderline ridiculous when you break it down to the nitty-gritty

Very true - but so are some of the things that were worn in the past, and some things that are worn today (e.g. the utter purposelessness of the modern tie with a suit) - it's al a matter of perspective.

Clothing has always been a matter of practicality if that's all you can afford (peasant clothing, for instance, changed comparatively little from the dark ages through to the Industrial Revolution) or if it's for working in, but a matter of much more than that if you have the wherewithal (see the sumptury laws used in much of late medieval/early Renaissance Europe).


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Kitti
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I don't worry too much about clothing in general, but I do let my characters be sensitive to messages conveyed by clothing, esp. social status (is it really expensive? really trashy? worn to bits? brand new?) or with respect to what it says about the character (uniform part of a group, out on a date, dressed for work, conservative, flamboyant, recently lost/gained weight, a drastic change from the usual mode of dress).
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Robert Nowall
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There's usually some reason for the way clothes are put together and the way they're worn---"because they look cool on us" is a reason, whatever one might think of it---but the illustrations in SF / fantasy often lack even that for a reason. (Sometimes it's neglect---the writer fails to provide detailed descriptions.)
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Architectus
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Sometimes one of the greatest places for inspiration is artist. Check out deviant art and go to the sci-fi section. I bet you get ideas for clothes and all sorts of things.

-------------------------
How to write engaging, suspenseful scenes like Dean Koontz (Inhale Scenes) Blogspot


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thayeller
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It depends on the society and how far in the future. Clothes take a long time to change really. I mean women, haven't been wearing pants all that long and men used to wear wigs and make up. There can be some big changes but clothes are still clothes.

I thought of startrek - in that society fashion doesn't matter. So the clothes are very simple. But if its a society with a class system then the higher society people would likely have more complex looking clothes.

I would look up styles 50, 100, 200, etc years ago and look at the changes - then apply changes to today clothes.


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Lyrajean
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That's not true. Women have only ben wearing pants in public in western countries since about 1930. Women ahve been wearing pants in other cultures for centuries, like China.

Clothing can change quite rapidly due to technological developments like aniline dyes in the 19th century and sythetic fabrics like polyester in the 20th. Also political change like the French Revolution, or even the Islamic revolution in Iran can change the way people dress in short time.


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rstegman
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A lot of clothing style is dictated by the elite of society. The elite is essentially an exclusive club that everybody wants to be in. The elite decide what is in style and what is not. The general public then copy what the elite wore, so they look more elite.
If one cannot join the elites, one should appear as much like them as possible.

A lot of times, it is what costs the most. When the business people (they are the middle class or those with some money to dress more than utilitarian) could not afford silk, the elite wore silk. When the designer names came out, the elite wore designer clothing.
Now in olden times, especially during the middle ages, there were the elite and the poor, and not many in between. It was easy to stay ahead of the middle class, so styles stayed the same for generations.
Nowadays, the middle class is so prevalent and wealthy that whatever the elite has, the middle class ends up with within a few years.
This is why styles change so fast today. The elites cannot stay far ahead of the middle class.

For your stories, you decide what stratification in the society there is, how easy it is to become a member of the elite or fall out of favor.
The easier it is to become the elite, the faster the styles will change. The more difficult it is, the slower the styles will change.

Another thing to look at, is practicality of the clothing. If one is going out into a space suit at a drop of the hat, the hatches are tight, low gravity dictates that clothing be worn close to the body, then the poofy dresses of the Renaissance, (could be the men wearing them instead) will not be practical.

Also, Masters do not want to be mistaken for slaves, and slaves are not to be mistaken for the master. Clothing and hair style, if skin color or other features do not do the job, will be different enough to where there is no question which is which at a glance.
in a society where one sex dominates, such as where muscles still count, the dominant sex will not want to be mistaken for the submissive sex. They will have very different clothing and hair styles. That was the biggest reason men wore pants and women wore dresses over the centuries.


The poor or lower classes tend to dress practically, hardy clothing or used clothing, not for show. If they are working, they wear their work clothing all the time. One glance and one knows the profession.


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Robert Nowall
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At this late point in the debate, I'll add there are a number of delightful science fiction stories with the plot turning on just what the characters are wearing. Theodore Sturgeon's "The Skills of Xanadu" comes immediately to mind, along with one by Piers Anthony whose title I can't remember.
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Kitti
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Actually styles in the middle ages went through some pretty dramatic changes, enough so that the nobility would know who was out of style and who the height of fashion (though it might not be obvious to the modern eye).

I think my favorite style trend was the pointed shoe, which then had to be elongated and pointed, which then got so impractical that you had to tie the point of your shoe up to the bottom of your leg. :-D


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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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Anyone noticed how pointy women's shoes are lately?

signed,

Not one to follow fashions all that much


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extrinsic
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And that era when shoulder padding was all the rage. Stiff shoulders project a confident posture. Soft shoulders a humble posture.
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Lyrajean
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The shoulders thing is because traditionally we've associated more masculine traits with projection of confidence or authority than feminine traits...

If humans had evolved with the female gender being dominate in society we would associate conficence and authority with a large bust perhaps?... rather than square shoulders.

These types of associations are very dependant on culture. Here in Japan guys don't seem to get hung up on wearing pastels, traditionally femine colors the way they do in America, just as an example.

Don't get me started on gender issues and clothing...


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Kitti
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Pink used to be considered a very manly color. Only in the past hundred or two years has that changed.
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extrinsic
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My experiences with posture around feral horses tell me that stiff shoulders isn't a gender trait, not when I've seen horses alert to rigid posture of men and women and young adults equally. Surprising to me to see cross species communication when it was unexpected. Monty Roberts: The Man Who Listens to Horses, 1997, Random House, five million copies sold, taught me how. Being able to read horses' expressions and advise how to pose one's body when approaching saved a few of my otherwise oblivious tour clients a swift kick from an angry horse. I imagine a clothes whisperer consciously reads a person's apparel in the same way.

[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited December 19, 2009).]


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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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quote:
Pink used to be considered a very manly color.

I have heard that the reason for that is because pink is the color a man's white shirt turns when he has been injured and is bleeding on it. So pink was symbolic of violence, as red was symbolic of anger.


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rstegman
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I saw a film about an island off Africa where, when it was colonized, there was only four women. The women became the ones who were masters of the society.
In the film, men were applying makeup and decorations to keep their women satisfied with them, since the women supplied most of the food, gathering and growing it. The men hunted what they could to add to the food.
The women could drop the man for a new man at any time.
The film was interesting where the men were talking about being essentially pretty and worrying about their looks, much like the women in western countries had been, caring for their hair, the complexion, their clothing, their smell.

When one sex depends on the other, it will do what is needed to keep the dominant sex happy, Looking attractive to keep them, will always be a given.

I just had a wild idea. A society that spends most of their time in space suits. They might only sleep in a bedroom clean up, maintain their space suits.
The submissive sex decorates the space suits to look pretty, to keep the dominant partner happy.
Now if it is a society where the dominant partner can be male or female, depending on who is doing better in life.
someone picks up a date, and while everyone thought the person was dominant, suddenly starts decorating the suit.


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