Cyberpunk Fashion - The Chronicles

High tech. Low life. High heels. Low cut.

As with every subculture under the sun, the definition of cyberpunk is constantly changing. We have our usual suspects and household names in literature and film, whether Neuromancer and Snow Crash or Blade Runner and The Matrix. Then we have newer shows like Altered Carbon and The Peripheral that have been adapted from cyberpunk literature. Yet something is clearly missing from this picture. One of the most influential yet often overlooked aspects of cyberpunk is fashion, which is evident in all these projects yet rarely discussed with equal complexity. I’m going to do my best to change that and chronicle how cyberpunk fashion has influenced the cyberpunk genre and made it what it is today. Let’s do this.

Present day. The video game Cyberpunk 2077 infiltrates the minds of a new generation, drawing inspiration from the cyberpunk fashion of the 90s and early 2000s. Now we see Instagram influencers cosplaying characters from the game, creating a cyclical cultural exchange. It’s all so Spenglarian. Yet where did the fashion element of cyberpunk begin? Surely it wasn’t William Gibson or Keanu Reeves who brought it to the runway. Molly Millions from Neuromancer was iconic, and maybe she inspired Trinity's character from The Matrix, but who and what inspired Trinity's clothing?

Alexander McQueen, one of London's most accomplished designers, comes to mind. A predecessor to cyberpunk, he showcased models dressed up as cyborgs in his luxury couture, crafting a world where underground culture could rise above we’re gonna rise above. Elaborate headpieces and makeup facilitated this experiment, creating a vivid display of human-meets-technology on the runway. Much like Andy Warhol's use of The Factory, McQueen transformed the runway into a vibrant canvas, weaving together diverse threads of society under a unifying tapestry. A philosopher of high fashion, he infused his creations with vitality by orchestrating his models in dramatic, epic escapades in which technology became a chic component of artistic rebellion.

Louis Vuitton was another designer who brought cyberpunk to the runway. By embedding LED lights into jackets and dresses and weaving them into the fabric of shoes and handbags, he created dynamic patterns and motifs that pulsed and changed color, evoking the futuristic noir aesthetic of cyberpunk. He became a household name among the elite and their aspirants, putting himself through the high-tech and low-life of society in order to build his own empire. Becoming a fixture on Parisian runways, he branded himself 'the enemy of couture’. It wasn’t long before the brand of Louis Vuitton was anywhere and everywhere. As we all know, the counter-culture is always a few dances away from the mainstream.

These designers produced a distinct mixture of art and technology that influenced generations to come. Cyberpunk fashion was its own unique domain before literature, film, and video games entered the scene. Fashion came first, paving the way for the cinematic, literary, and cultural innovations that would follow in its wake.

From Body Modification to Biohacking

“There were 25 Body Suspensions with hooks into the skin over a period of 13 years in Japan, USA, Germany and Australia. The body was suspended in different positions, in varying locations and diverse situations. Not all the performances were static. The body swung, spun, swayed and propelled itself. It was also moved by motors and machines. And in some of the suspensions heartbeat and muscle sounds were amplified, providing an extended acoustical aura for the stretched skin body.” -Seaside Suspension: Event for Wind and Waves", Jogashima, Miura 1981  

Sterlarc, an iconoclast and performance artist inspired by the eras of McQueen and Vuitton, took the fusion of technology and the human body to a bonus level. He headhunted surgeons who could turn his fantasies into a reality by implanting an ear onto his arm. His body was remotely controlled through electronic muscle stimulators connected to the internet. During his live performances, he made use of a robotic third arm, creating a spectacle that captivated audiences of artists, entrepreneurs, and students alike. This agitprop hybrid of man and machine served to demonstrate the potential of human augmentation.

In a similar universe, we had BMEzine (Body Modification Ezine) which emerged as the most popular body modification website on the internet, reaching its peak in the mid-90s. People showcased their tattoos, piercings, transdermal implants, and scarifications to the world, promoting their skills and personas in order to connect with like minds. Embracing digital ownership of one's body as the ultimate cyberpunk statement, this early online period was accompanied by sensual and taboo IRL events.

Los Angeles nightclubs hosted cyberpunk-themed parties, where groups like AMF Korsets produced shows in which models were suspended by hooks in front of live audiences to the soundtrack of industrial and dark ambient music. Magazines like Skin Too and Propaganda Magazine captured this era well, blending fetish and fashion with music and machinery. While most people think of fetish culture as a sexual thing, it also represented an aesthetic that focused on pushing the boundaries of both the mainstream media and human form. In the tradition of Sterlac, the late Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle took body modification to a subversive conclusion, redefining cyberpunk by making transsexuality a posthuman statement.

Victoria Modesta, a songwriter and creative director who suffered a leg injury at birth, had her leg voluntarily amputated and reinvented herself as a bionic pop artist. Now sporting a bionic leg, she has performed at festivals across the globe, melding cyberpunk and luxury fashion while presenting at tech conferences. Her appeal is both creative and intellectual, embodying the DIY spirit of biohacking.

Cybergoths and Club Kids

In the mid-2000s, cybergoths began showing up at alternative nightclubs, acting as a living subculture blend of goth, rave, and industrial. Many were models for MySpace bands (you had to be there) or SuicideGirls (think OnlyFans for goths), while others simply dressed up as themselves. Cybergoth, unlike cyberpunk, did not have an entire canon of literature. Yet it had a rich universe of music from the goth, rave, and industrial realms that continues to influence what we refer to as cyberpunk today.

Back to the present. Cyberpunk 2077 has drawn inspiration from cybergoth models and musicians, and we now recognize ourselves in these video games after witnessing our underground statements being propelled into the mainstream. There was a time when every girl in the scene resembled Lara Croft from the video game Tomb Raider – or maybe it was Lara Croft who resembled us.

There was also Lizbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a hacker who became a fashion prototype in the infosec community or – again – the other way around. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo featured this same archetype of the Empowered Female Hacker. EFH. Angelina Jolie, who played “Acid Burn” from Hackers, inspired Lara Croft as much as our bands and fetish shoots. She had the meta-experience of playing herself in the film adaptation of the same video game. How did we get so postmodern and self-referential? 

Repo! The Genetic Opera, was a musical that featured everyone from Ogre of the industrial band Skinny Puppy to Paris fucking Hilton. Repo! The Genetic Opera inspired IRL performances in front of the big screen. Focused on the quintessential cyberpunk theme of genetic modification and the dystopian fantasy of surgery-as-trend, it became the Rocky Horror of our era. The costuming showcased a blend of gothic and futuristic styles featuring dark hues, asymmetrical designs, and an array of eclectic accessories.

Then there was Cyberdog, an avant-garde fashion company founded in London’s Camden Town. Cyberdog established its own cybergoth fashion store that was popular with the digital crowd. People would dance at the UK nightclub Slimelight, dressed up like cyborgs while sporting Cyberdog clothing that included UV-reactive fabrics, neon goggles, and circuit board-inspired designs on latex and leather garments. 

Cyberpunk fashion has been with us for a long time, yet somehow its history has been obscured by the chaotic algorithms of Hollywood. It nods as far back as the club kid parties in NYC, which can be seen in cult films like Liquid Sky and modern retellings like Party Monster. Yet before Michael Alig murdered his friend Angel to a backdrop of heroin-chic-cyborg-models and military-fetish-drag-queens, girls with early access to the online world transformed themselves into living dolls.

Lolitas and Living Dolls

Like Alice in Wonderland became the default style for young women in the mid-2000s, Lolita fashion held onto a similar theme of curiosity and innocence in the 90s. 

Inspired by musicians like Courtney Love and Fiona Apple and Japanese street-wear magazines like Fruits, a new crop of girls could suddenly be found wearing brightly colored babydoll dresses. The fairytale-like clothing turned them into feminist characters out of Nabokov’s Lolita. Again, we’d see the ownership of one's body as both a political and fashion statement. Armed with poetry about self-mutilation and eating disorders, the lolitas took back the night by turning themselves into living dolls. Emilie Autumn, a gothic musician, stepped in to command the night.

“I'm Gothic Lolita

And you are a criminal

I'm not even legal

I'm just a dead little girl

But ruffles and laces

And candy sweet faces

Directed your furtive hand

I perfectly understand

So it's my fault?

No, Gothic Lolita

I am your sugar

I am your cream

I am your worst nightmare

Now scream” -Emilie Autumn

This rise of this taboo dark woman archetype, this cybergoth lolita girl now making waves at the tech conference, is a dollification of the #bossgirl. Join us at the Sad Girls bar. These dolls have now come to life. We have transformed ourselves into avatars of IRL models, who are the predecessors to video game characters and AI avatars. At last, after all these years, we have become ourselves.

Are you there, Neo? It’s me, Capitalism.

The creator class has always expressed itself through fashion, a language of beauty and self-expression, weaving stories of war and enigma that span entire centuries. A mere glimpse of a skirt or a necklace can transport you to another era or alternate timeline. With each outfit we wear and each accessory we curate, we tell a story about ourselves, our culture, and our inner world. Whether we are being ironic or serious or something in between, we are setting the foundation for a sincere future.

By incorporating our perspectives and experiences into our living personas, we create a visual language that speaks to the posthuman experience. Why has cyberpunk fashion been overlooked and undervalued in the broader fashion industry? It deserves its own research and chronology. It deserves its own lexicon. It deserves a place in the history books alongside the other great fashion movements.

The history of cyberpunk fashion is vast and spectacular, and it's surprising that I’m among the first to chronicle it in this manner. Or perhaps, by writing this article, I’m unknowingly gentrifying it, with countless others having come before me. Everyone believes they're Neo from The Matrix, but few are willing to accept the possibility of being Mr. Smith. It's a complex web of characters, where your Mr. Smith may well be someone else's Neo.

Yet I digress. As we uncover the roots of cyberpunk fashion, we can inspire a new generation to push the boundaries of what it means to be posthuman. We can inspire everyone from the kids on the streets to the executives in Hollywood to embrace this intersection between art and technology in the most transgressive way possible. We can shift the narrative with the drop of an acid tab. We can build the hallucinations of tomorrow as we watch our creations come to life in the theater of existence. We can watch AI generate sci-fi novels from our all-too-human posts. We can play ourselves in our video games and/or reinvent ourselves as new characters. Choose your own adventure, user. We can shitpost. We can aesthetically engineer. We can do literally anything. 

This is cyberpunk. This is fashion. Cyberpunk fashion is the sphere in which cyberpunk film, video games, and literature have found their inspiration. It’s the runway. It’s the cosplay. It’s everything high and low and in between. This is us. The club kids, cybergoths, and living dolls. The pin-up girls of our story have emerged from the depths of the underground to star in the most popular film adaptations of our algorithms.  Our story is a tale as old as time and a song as old as God. What is fashion? Fashion is the muse of the media.