Hi,

This was a part of a thread that I wrote for Dawn of the Artifacts, but I thought I would share with everyone else. Some things have been updated.

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At the moment cultural and national dress is in as a fashion model. Vashoun Island has a whole Cleopatra to Pocahontas line. It's one part fancy dress and one part "fashion". Big in North America where you want to show off your roots. Everyone else in the world looks at you weird for wanting to dress up in plate or as Mel Gibson's William Wallace.

Vashoun Island's jewellery line is great if you want pick up authentic replicas of ethnic jewellery, but the prices are incredible, a silver byzantine diamond necklace will easily set you back 5,000 nuyen.

Mortimer of London is trying to push in a steampunk style, but it has not take off in Seattle as much as it has in Europe. It will likely peter out well before it hits anything past Boston, where it will continue to survive for about five years and take on a clockwork punk style.

Clothes are expensive, for accessories you really have to troll though antique shops or go on the Matrix auction shops. Even a fake silver pocketwatch will cost you 200 nuyen.

Mortimer of London is still one of the best places for a man to shop. If you are in London, I recommend their smaller shop in Chelsey.

Zoe is probably the only line that anyone would willingly wear. consisting of natural fibres and utilising natural elements of the body, they seek to highlight the person instead of covering them with clothing and artificial bust enhancements. They are known for being elegant and chic. Zoe also has some nice purses and bags. It's mid to upscale, definitely what you wear to parties or to impress the boss at work.

Actioneer business suits, do business suits. Style is taken from the Japanese sarariman outfit. While good quality and often armor padded they have about as much personality as an airport hotel room. Good for hiding in a crowd, but not if you want to dress for success.

In short:

What's in:
Traditional styles
Natural fibers
Ethnic jewellery
French lingerie (since everythign is very generic, you have to dress special underneath)
Medium sized leather handbags (the 3.5 litre bag, enough to keep a commlink and a chihuahua, not an assault rifle and armored vest)
Piled hair and accented make-up

What's out:
Artificial fibers
high-tech designs
fibre optic hair
heavy make-up (Sorry Vashoun, but your cosmetic line is bottoming out)
bling jewellery
clutches

and i JUST dropped three grand on a head full of glowing rainbow dreadlocks. WHAT THE FRAK!!!! i should have listened to my mom when she warned me that those things were permanent

How much would a "Fashion" or "Make Over" foci cost for the fashion conscious? It seems to me like vanity based magic would be in immense demand.

Those spells are Permanent. They don't need a Focus.

As permanent as any makeover is at least

I remember reading somewhere about mages making a killing with spells like healthy glow for the rich and fabulous.

Also the foci would not work for the mundane targets of the spell. Only the caster can use one.

Seriously? I mean we have people who can turn people to Goo, and whipping up some new threads on command is out of bounds?

That's not true. Fashion is a permanent spell. No need for a foci. After Force CTs you no longer need to sustain it.

I really like spells like makeover and heathly glow. They really save time, seriously, who has time to lay in a tanning bed? While spas are nice they are big time wasters as well. You all know what they say time is nuyen.

I will admit I don't know much about the feeling of magic in SR4, but in the other ones, like SR3, a lot of people were, to some degree, afraid of magic. In a case like that, what we're looking at for a magic boutique casting fashion to make clothing for people and makeover spas, we are ending with a smaller client base.

Tan in a bottle. Nanites which stimulate your melanine content.

You can even get a bed which stimulates your body while sleeping so you will feel like having been to the gym for eight hours.

Let's face it, when you have said to your parents you have been in Aruba for six weeks fishing and looking paler than a fish, you have to think about ways to make yourself more believable. A weekend in a spa and a little surgery can make you look like you spent 6 weeks living on a beach and spear fishing. A linguasoft with the local pidgin and you are set.

But I think people are missing the point: You need money to get these effects. Even Dan your drinking buddy and local mage still has to eat and not blab to your parents what you actually were doing. You can't get something for nothing.

With the surge in odd things out there I can only imagine what Halloween is going to be like this year. The foxy girl you chat up at the bar might actually be a foxy girl.
I can't even imagine the fashion that will result when high end designers finally ignore the public unease and embrace this new wave as inspiration.

So far high fashion has ignored body types that are... large. I think we can safely say that high fashion will continue to decide what is the ideal picture of a person, which will have very little bearing with reality.

Fashion thrives to a certain degree on differing from reality.
Historically, when voluptuous curves and over the top brocades were the height of fashion, the average person was not built that way or could support a lifestyle that would lead to it.
Once edible goods (I wouldn't call that soy drek food) became plentiful, a steady shift occurred going to a new extreme that has it's own rarity.

Based on it's history of elevating rare and sometimes unique traits (blond was not ubiquitous at one point), I had almost expected a surge towards the new fringe, but every shift has taken it's sweet time in getting there.
At least I never had to hear someone proclaim "chrome is the new black".

So, you've gone a good deal into what is considered high fashion, but you haven't said anything about what the boys like their joygirls to wear (Besides something easy to remove ). Or what you wear to the local rave or underground Combat Biker race. And what does joe average wear when he isn't in the office and isn't worried about dressing up?

I have a few ideas, but I am saving them for an article I am hopfully going to write with Ravensmuse.

Alright, should be a fun read then

This is something I loved about CP2020. The fact that fashion actually meant something. It gave you statistical effects, more than just 'This has this much armor'. Which made it worthwhile to think about what you're going to wear.

Some games when I've asked players what they are wearing, their response was always "My armor rating is.." or "This armor vest with that body armor and this long coat", not "I'm wearing a tshirt of such and such band, a pair of stonewash jeans, and my black combat boots". They only cared how much armor they had, because social interactions were usually affected very small by what they wore, at least for anyone but the face who would say he was wearing his tres chic clothes, or his Armante suit, or whatever. Still nothing more than 'I look the part'.

Your game seems to differ from mine.
Our team recently spent an entire day (in-game) shopping for the right threads for a situation that involved a dress-code (granted, they are trolls and orks from the barrens so dressing up was a new concept in of itself).
One player's choice in threads got him more attention than he wanted from a group other than intended.

Next Shadowrun book: Threads? Shadow-chic?

Or "Chrome is the new black" that I like.

It depends on the players and the game itself. I mean, SR4A doesn't even spell out the different types of clothing really. Just a lot of armour. For a Face character that's not enough.

It might be a little much to make an entire book out of, but it could certainly be a large part of another book. Maybe some setting type things. It could also include a bit more fleshing out of lifestyles (The advanced stuff is nice, but is often still a bit vague on if you should pay for a cab or if your lifestyle picks up the tab.)

That might actually make a real good 'setting' type book. Include things like common floorplans for apartments, massive selection of fashions (Everything from clothing to jewelry to other accessories, and everything from high society to street fashion) There is a fair amount of info about things like that out there, but it is all small quips of fluff that are scattered through all the books.

Most of the stuff is either heavily out of print (back when looking like MacGyver or Indiana Jones was in style) or then ludicrous.

The steampunk line is really impossible outside of a niche market. The number of accessories needed to have a good wardrobe make it impossible. It's not an extension of existing wardrobe designs, but its own.

The same problem with Vashoun Island, not to mention the impracticality. I mean I can understand that Vashoun Island has been included so PCs can dress in plate and carry big sowrds, but most ethnic clothing is neither flattering for the person nor something you can wear casually. The equivalent of Vashoun Island's line is to dress the PCs as characters from the play Peter Pan.

I don't think most people wear suits or evening gowns or anything like that casually either though. I believe that is a part of fashion, is that 'this is something expensive that only those with too much money can afford to have'.

They could revive, update, and expand the "Neo-Anarchist's guide to real life."
Information about apartments, fashion, travel, the daily grind, how stuffer shack and McHugh's have changed, etc.
If Jackpoint won't go there, I bet Datahaven might have a thing or two to say on those topics.

While I am more into medical trends, its been 20 years so I am waiting for the resurrection of insect shaped lapel pins. When I was an undergrad in 2050, they were all the rage and I kept every one I had. As fashion is cyclical, they will surely come back.

Thinking back, there was also a trend to have a poorly set nose. Set to look like it was broken during one's "Rough and Tough" youth. I recall walking into the bar at Laubenstein Plaza, where everyone else had such a nose.

Perhaps I should have taken more coursework in plastic surgery?


The White Dove

The more I think about this, the more an article seems to be in order.

The ethnic lines seem to be more for people with more money than sense. My family roots are from Bordeaux and I'll admit to trying the Marie Antoinette line stuff. Seriously, the neck line was so low I was nearly bare chested , had trouble breathing from the tight waist and while the hoop skirt was big enough to smuggle a dwarf with a minigun, you couldn't sit down in the damn thing. Well ok you can but as it rises up you can't see anything and everyone else can see everything. OK I was among friends!

There are classics in the wardrobe that are as decent and wearable now as they were a century ago. a well fitting pair of jeans, a tweedy jacket, good boots and of course the ever relaible LBD. A pencil skirt with a man cut blouse works well.

while big jewels are soemtimes in fashion, sometimes they aren't. Small and delicate always works so if you've got limited nuyen, unless you want a big flashy look, go for small and descreet.

Guys for your part, a decent leather jacket can always look stylish.