APOCALYPSE FASHION

Happy New Year, Bobcats! I wish a lovely 2025 for you. 2025 is one of those years that has been difficult for me to wrap my head around. It’s taken a while for me to get familiar with writing the new date. It sounds futuristic, a year I never imagined would actually come. The world around us is currently a very tense place, and sometimes it feels as if impending doom is actually nigh. This feeling has translated into fashion for me–post-apocalyptic, futuristic wardrobes have recently caught my attention, especially in pop culture and media such as in video games and TV shows. 

This style can be grouped in with functional, survivalist, military pieces. The main attribute of ‘post-apocalyptic fashion’ is functionality. In a dystopian world where survival is top priority, clothing must be comfortable, protective, and utilitarian. It consists of heavy layering, a neutral, earth-tone color palette, and shredded/distressed clothing. This kind of style heavily incorporates secondhand pieces, “Y2K” style that can be found in thrift stores. I think the recycled, secondhand nature of the clothing is a large aspect that gives it the “apocalypse feel.” 

Obviously, an apocalypse is very anxiety-provoking and we are already living in scary, strained times. It is not an ideal situation, but it is fun to watch on TV, and there could be some things to learn about from the apocalypse media. I think it is also fun to take inspiration from what they wear on screen, especially to dress for the weather. 

Post apocalyptic fashion has been on a rise for awhile, but not in the most obvious way. Us as humans have always been wary of the end of the world, but let's take a look back as to how it manifested into pop culture. 

The year is 1999, and the new year is approaching. Y2K is short for Year 2000, also known as the millennium bug. It concerned potential computer problems that might occur when the clock switched from 1999 to 2000. This caused a panic amongst people; they thought that when the clock struck twelve and the new year began, computers would not be able to comprehend the year change and there would be a mass power outage and chaos would ensue. 

This is what I believe this style is to its core–people have always been wary about the end of the world. It’s just in our human nature. It has a timeless feel to it, an age-old anxiety. Humans are repetitive and formulaic. The term Y2K has been recycled to refer to the fashion, culture, and aesthetic of the 2000s. Y2K fashion is the most commonly thrifted article of clothing. When I shop secondhand and think about the owners of the clothing that came before me and what kind of lives they live. It’s an eerie thought of wearing something that belonged to someone who might now be deceased. It’s uncanny. 

Costume design for movies and TV shows pull inspiration from this idea, and must take the wear into consideration. There was a surge in dystopian worlds, new post-apocalyptic media that started roughly around 2012. There was The 100, the Dune remakes, Divergent, Mad Max, The Hunger Games, The Last of Us, Lost, and many more. Why was there a rise in popularity of these end-of-the-world, post-war, rebuilding society stories? I believe that it is attributed to the malaise of 2012. 2012 was another one of those years where the world was predicted to end by the Ancient Mayans on December 21st, 2012, and a supermassive black hole was to appear and then the Earth was to collide with a planet called Nibiru and doomsday would occur. You get the picture. 

In order to cope with these feelings, all this media about the end of the world was created. And when depicted on screen, wardrobe is a key factor to bringing the world to life. One of my favorite wardrobes belongs to The 100. I watched the first few seasons with my mom, she watched the whole thing–they just lost me when they got into the complexities of the mountain and the Grounders. However, Clarke deserves an honorable mention as one of my favorite 2000s bisexual representations. No one was doing it like her back then.

Clarke Griffin, The 100, played by Eliza Taylor

Their costuming calls for heavy layering, and often seems thrown together. Their outfits depict their status of survival. Their clothing is practical and used--it is clothing that has been worn, handed-down, stitched back up, and then handed-down again. It embodies the Y2K feel of being used over and over again, since it's all the 100 have.

The mastermind behind The 100 costume design is Katia Stano, who is also known for her work in Jennifer's Body and She's The Man. She received a positive response for her costuming with the 100, and has been praised for her attention to detail, and using symbolism with her clothing to present the status of the characters. She understood that the 100 are stuck on Earth, and their clothing should appear to be recycled and scavenged from before the world ended.

Jackie Taylor and Shauna Shipman, Yellowjackets, played by Ella Purnell and Sophie Nélisse

I particularly love the attention to detail in apocalypse media--I love the trope of clothing being recycled amongst the group. In the 100, as the show progresses, we can see them make clothes from animal skins, buckles from parts of their dropship they came to Earth in, and various materials being used as weapon holsters, or straps. In Yellowjackets, a show about a high school soccer team that gets stranded in the woods for over a year after a plane crash to nationals, their wardrobe is completely recycled throughout the show. The girls do not have a whole lot of other options than to share each other's clothes, and we see a lot of repeats during their time in the woods. It adds to the nuance of survival, that they don't have any other options.

Costume Piece from The 100

Costume designer for The Last of Us, Cynthia Summers, said, "...but I still want to show humanity, and I want to show that this could happen to us because these people look like us and they dress like us to some degree. They’re going through the same challenges in life that we are going through.” She is saying that we are not too far from these characters we see online. Their clothing represents their humanity, since that is a way that us viewers can relate to. Apocalypse fashion is a very niche interest of mine, and with particular attention to detail, you too can dress like your favorite post-apocalyptic character!

Written by Kira Naomi Utter