Since the subject came up in some of my edit comments, and since it’s also something that’s of great interest to me, I wanted to try and open a discussion here about it.
Many of us are writing in settings that diverge greatly from our contemporary modern world. Whether it’s a fantasy world, an alternate history, or a far-flung science fictional future, some amount of worldbuilding is called for. Some aspects of everyday life are gonna be different from how we live our own life, and the aspect that interests me now is: clothing, fashion, and how society views them.
There are a few aspects of fashion that I’m interested in, in terms of their potential for characterizing the PC’s situation in life, the different NPCs they encounter, and the society in which they live.
I’m interested in class differences, and the ways in which impractical clothing is used as a class marker to show that the owner does not do their own physical labor–and especially in the way this trend subtly changes around the industrial revolution. I’m fascinated by the relative scarcity of different dye materials, and how that impacts which colors are seen as valuable or luxurious. I’m also interested in the development of different categories of fashion for high society, such as the strict differentiation between day wear and evening wear.
Of course, no society exists in isolation, and any society with strict sartorial codes is going to react particularly to foreign fashions. Often, that means looking down on them as primitive or barbaric. Sometimes, though, there’s an element of fascination or exoticification, where elements of design are taken in isolation and integrated into existing fashions. While the results can be very aesthetic, they also reveal a lot about sociopolitical power dynamics.
Among all of these various considerations (and others that I’m sure are slipping my mind), gender presentation is also something that I want to give thought to, especially because it’s a subject that’s important to a lot of CSG readers. If a game allows the player to choose one of three genders for the PC, as the COG house style calls for, that gives a range of options for how to deal with gendered fashion. Assuming, that is, that the author doesn’t choose to leave out all mentions of fashion, but I’m going to ignore that possibility, for now.
Option 1: establish a standard fashion for your world and apply it across gender lines. This allows you to draw on the full history of fashion and choose something as near or as far from contemporary fashions as you see fit. Often, however (especially in sci-fi), authors will establish a gender-neutral fashion that hews closely to modern male fashions, in the belief that a simple shirt and trousers are the most neutral choice of clothes that suits everyone. Questioning this belief is a worthwhile exercise.
Option 2: create a third fashion gender to complement the male and female fashions. For example, if women typically wear gowns and men wear hose and doublets, a third fashion option could consist of loose-fitted trousers, or robes, or combine elements of the other two to create a skirt-and-doublet combo. While this method allows for some fun creativity, one potential downside is that you’re replacing a two-gender system with a three-gender system, which could end up feeling only slightly less restrictive. There is also the potential that readers will find these introduced fashions silly, but consider this: with the benefit of a few centuries’ hindsight, many people find hose and doublets silly, even though they were perfectly dignified fashions in their day.
Option 3: free-for-all gender anarchy. Under this system, any fashion choice is available to PCs of any gender. Players who are comfortable with gender nonconforming fashion might be delighted by the possibility of putting their bushy-bearded berserker warriors in silken evening gowns (I certainly would be). Other players might be startled by the option but comfortable ignoring it if they prefer a more traditional ensemble. Naturally, some people would be seriously put off by this, but I’m not worried about that. One thing that I think is worth considering, though, is whether the NPCs show the same level of variety as is available for the PC. If all characters but the PC dress in a more traditional or conservative fashion, this can undermine the effects of the free choice of outfit, because instead of society as a whole being a free-for-all, it’s just the PC alone.
Option 4: allow the PC all available fashion choices, regardless of gender, despite a gender standard of fashion being established in the world. This would allow the PC to be gender-nonconforming, and let nonbinary gendered PCs choose out of a range of gender presentations. However, the clothing retains its gendered social connotations. It’s still nonconforming behavior, but it’s socially acceptable. Whether this is considered eccentric or just a point of characterization is up to the writer. Likewise, whether some NPCs also have gender-nonconforming presentations. This social arrangement might be easier for (some) readers to understand than complete gender anarchy, though it still allows for maximum freedom of individual expression.
Any of these four options would be “pushing the envelope” in some ways, and I think all approaches have merit. Does this cover all possibilities? No, of course not. There must be other options that I haven’t thought of. Also, it’s possible to try and mix elements from two or more of these approaches.
I’m curious to know which options you find appealing or intriguing, and which games you can think of that have done something interesting with gender and fashion.