Fashion

In the future of Cyberpunk, 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 2078

Entropism (Bag Lady Chic)

Necessity over style. Entropism is the style of poverty. We encounter it in the neglected parts of Night City, where the bottom rung of society has been left to its own devices. The products of Entropism are crude—ugly, even—yet durable. As its catchphrase suggests, it is design governed by necessity, not esthetics. The breakdown in the wake of the 4th Corporate War lead to the emergence of a new style that valued cost efficiency and getting the job done above all else. Corporations and tinkerers alike started producing cheap, crude implants and vehicles, hacks to get people through hard times.

Who wears this?
The poor people in the slums of Night City don't have much other choice than opting for Entropism. But there are those who embrace this style as an anti-fashion statement with the purpose of looking dirty rather than being dirty.

Streetpunk

Loud, proud and in your face. The streets of night city is mired with punks, thugs and gangsters all dressed to show that they're hard, tough and dangerous. With a street culture where any sign of weakness puts you in the risk of being, if you're lucky, robbed at gunpoint, Night City's people has developed a first line of defense - fashion. It's simple, the harder you look, the less chance someone's gonna mess with you. Then again, it can also have the opposite effect where some street punk might be looking to square off against the toughest choom around. Chrome spikes, synth-leather, combat boots and bomber jackets, this style is somewhat harder to define than most others where different gangs and streetpunk cliques have developed their own niche for what is tough and what is preem, but the gang colors and the uniform jewelry usually tips one off.
Who wears this?
Gangbangers, Streetpunks, bodyguards and anyone frequenting the more dangerous neighborhoods of Night City after dark, looking to scare off any unwanted attention from gangster keeping their eyes out for easy prey.

Generic Chic

This is your everyday run of the mill street wear. Regular belts, coats, and boots predominate this sub-sect. This is the cheapest clothing out there, reserved for street scum and the lower classes. This is the stuff you would find in mega-stores and megabuildings. 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. Not the ultra-chic, but people who like to look good while recreating or partying. Many Scavengers have adopted a style of Leisurewear combining tracksuits, flatcaps and other garments.

Nomad Style

Utilitarian, sturdy, denim and a little bit of real leather.

Kitsch (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 clubbers, 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.

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. If you don't have the rep to dress like an Edgerunner, others might try to put you in place for trying to pull off the look. The Edgerunner style 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.

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.

Neo-Militarism (Businesswear)

Neo-Militarism adds a layer of deadly elegance and corporate, militaristic fashion to the stylistic mix of its predecessors. It is mostly encountered in the wealthier parts of the city, especially corporate zones and business districts. The Neo-Militarist statement chooses substance over style according to which products should be forceful, functional and high-quality rather than flashy. Neomilitarism's distinctive features are its cold, threatening elegance and formality, highlighted by the visible presence of militaristic accents.

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

Neo-Kitsch (High Fashion)

Neo-Kitsch. The style of celebrities, braindance stars, magnates, heirs to corporate fortunes and corporate CEOs—the point-one percent of the wealthiest and most influential Night Citizens, those who have become bored of the chrome, black and graphite of their suits and armored vehicles. Surrounded in everyday life by the cold style of the corporate overclass, they abandon it for gold, silver and platinum, for the warmth of real wood, ivory and natural furs—rare and exclusive materials only they can afford. Neokitsch is, in a certain sense, a return to the roots of Kitsch, while also acting as a show of forceful luxury by people with so much money they need not care about the opinions of others. It is the style of demigods, the living legends of this world.