Casual clothes TNG to PIC - from terrible to far too 2020s?

[Arpy]

The contemporary clothes suck. If I wanted to watch any other show, I'd watch any other show. But I'm watching a show set in the future, and I expect an attempt made, even if it doesn't always work. I've often really liked the futuristic clothes even if I wondered what the hell the costumers were thinking time to time. But to quote Q, "If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."

 

[Alexander Corrino]

I don't really care that much what Jean-Luc wears, he looks good in both a space pirate outfit with leather gloves AND those tight silver speedos, he can literally wear anything and make it look fabulously fantastic.

I kinda get how the “more contemporary style” of PIC can be jarring for some but then, remember, the show is not supposed to be TNG 2.0, which is a rule that obviously also includes the fashion choices.

 

[Phil123]

The contemporary clothes suck. If I wanted to watch any other show, I'd watch any other show. But I'm watching a show set in the future, and I expect an attempt made, even if it doesn't always work. I've often really liked the futuristic clothes even if I wondered what the hell the costumers were thinking time to time. But to quote Q, "If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."

hooray haha! I agree entirely. Take a chance and have a guess. They aren’t using iPhones and Surface Pros, why would they wear early 21st century clothes?

 

[Richard S. Ta]

hooray haha! I agree entirely. Take a chance and have a guess. They aren’t using iPhones and Surface Pros, why would they wear early 21st century clothes?

100 years ago people weren't using iPhones and Surface Pros, but they still wore shirts with buttons down the middle, trousers, jackets with lapels, lace up shoes, ties and wristwatches.

 

[Phil123]

100 years ago people weren't using iPhones and Surface Pros, but they still wore shirts with buttons down the middle, trousers, jackets with lapels, lace up shoes, ties and wristwatches.

true but go back a bit further and no zips or elastic. Two vital technologies used in a lot of clothes.

Or watches or course. Or any synthetic fabrics.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

true but go back a bit further and no zips or elastic. Two vital technologies used in a lot of clothes.

Or watches or course. Or any synthetic fabrics.

I think clothing and fashion are something that have evolved over thousands of years, sometimes due to aesthetic, sometimes due to necessity (availability/durability of fabrics etc.) but as we've become more and more homogenised the western business suit has become prevalent all over the world. Over the last few decades we've seen tweaks and refinements of a centuries old idea, but it's a thing that people wear now and it's unlikely to change. It'll just undergo further refinements, possibly as others have said, becoming more minimal. Likewise things like overalls, jeans, t-shirts and cargo pants. These things refinements of centuries old ideas and I can imagine the things we wear in a few centuries won't be far off.

It'll take a seismic shift in culture for westernised fashions to die out and be replaced by togas. It's too prevalent a thing to shift for a start, but also... how do you improve a pair of cargo pants? Why try to reinvent the business suit?

These items of clothing are totally plausible to me as items that will still be common in a few centuries in a recognisable form. I'd hate to see Star Trek resort to sparkly loincloths and flowerpot helmets in an effort to be 'futuristic'.

 

[Phil123]

I want a sparkly loincloth now hahaha!

 

[Arpy]

I think clothing and fashion are something that have evolved over thousands of years, sometimes due to aesthetic, sometimes due to necessity (availability/durability of fabrics etc.) but as we've become more and more homogenised the western business suit has become prevalent all over the world. Over the last few decades we've seen tweaks and refinements of a centuries old idea, but it's a thing that people wear now and it's unlikely to change. It'll just undergo further refinements, possibly as others have said, becoming more minimal. Likewise things like overalls, jeans, t-shirts and cargo pants. These things refinements of centuries old ideas and I can imagine the things we wear in a few centuries won't be far off.

It'll take a seismic shift in culture for westernised fashions to die out and be replaced by togas. It's too prevalent a thing to shift for a start, but also... how do you improve a pair of cargo pants? Why try to reinvent the business suit?

These items of clothing are totally plausible to me as items that will still be common in a few centuries in a recognisable form. I'd hate to see Star Trek resort to sparkly loincloths and flowerpot helmets in an effort to be 'futuristic'.

I think what we have here is a good old fashioned “failure of imagination.”

A smaller world has brought us more homogeneity, but that’s a horizontal integration — all cultures today getting closer together. Vertically through time the same evolution style and technology will continue. Evolution does not stop here because it took all history to get here. It will take all history to get somewhere else too when somewhere else arrives.

Have we gotten so used too smaller differences…it’s not the difference between the iPhone 12 and 13 but the pay phone and the iPhone.

Business suits are on their way out.

You reinvent cargo pants by making the pockets invisible til necessary. Easier still in the 32nd century when a micro transporter/replicator can conjure in your hand anything you might have stored in those pockets from the air.

Trek has for production and bad writing reasons been far too conservative in showing it’s futuristic clothes. We’ve gotten little hints at clothes having invisible seems, temperature controls, and microscopic identification tags and so on when they’re actively trying to be futuristic, but most of the time, like with replicates food not tasting “as good as the real thing,” they fall back on cheap tropes.

Future clothes should be tear-proof and self mending. Waterproof and self cleaning. Heck, maybe wearer cleaning. They should be able to stop a bullet, change color and texture, and act like computers you can okay a movie on — or camouflage you into your surroundings.

 

[fireproof78]

Future clothes should be tear-proof and self mending. Waterproof and self cleaning. Heck, maybe wearer cleaning. They should be able to stop a bullet, change color and texture, and act like computers you can okay a movie on — or camouflage you into your surroundings.

I loved it when Star Trek did all of these things! Oh, wait...

Also, bullet proof? You want my suspension of disbelief to fracture that will do it.

You'll never have to clip on the Tie ever again when it's modularly attached to your "Suit Jacket".

And you can close or open it from either side.

And if it gets dirty, you can swap it for another Tie.

Ummm...connecting the tie to the jacket is kind of dumb. It should connect to the "dress shirt." The jacket is an optional accessory, like the tie, but things usually connect to shirts. That would be like saying the watch connects to the "suit jacket." It's very strange.

Slightly pedantic but having worn ties for over ten years now it sticks with me.

 

[Arpy]

I loved it when Star Trek did all of these things! Oh, wait...

Exactly. Hackneyed writing Captain Proton.

Also, bullet proof? You want my suspension of disbelief to fracture that will do it.

This should be easier than we think. Some materials contract or tense up when impacted by great force (a bullet or a fast knife). In the distant future this is a no brainer.

Slightly pedantic but having worn ties for over ten years now it sticks with me.

Tell it to Steve Jobs or Elon Musk or most of Silicone Valley. The titans of the future are — by and large — not wearing suits, and not expecting employees to. Plus with the current move away from office work to work from anywhere, people will not be putting on the three-piece and the pocket watch to sit at their laptop.

There was a great bit in Katee Sackhoff’s recent series Another Life about starship uniforms(!) having gone out of fashion a generation earlier.

Things do change.

 

[fireproof78]

This should be easier than we think. Some materials contract or tense up when impacted by great force (a bullet or a fast knife). In the distant future this is a no brainer.

No brainer to who? I'm aware of such materials and I do not expect them to be able to rolled out in any great way any time soon. I've done my research on it. Also, does bulletproof mean no injury?

Things do change.

I am aware. I've lived through that change in my work environment, moving from dress shirt and ties, to dress shirt to polos and more comfortable shoes.

I'm saying that I would not be surprised to see those suits still used by some. I don't expect extremely ugly unitards to become in fashion, I don't care how far in to the future you go.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I'm saying that I would not be surprised to see those suits still used by some.

The day that the majority of the people who work in governments stop wearing suits is the day I'll believe the suit is going somewhere.

I think sometimes it's easy as a fan to get worked up over verisimilitude, but we also have to remember it's a TV show and costuming is a method TV uses to visually signify things. Someone is wearing a suit... must be in authority. Someones wearing oily overalls/cargo pants... must be a bit of an engineering type. If your'e going to put your future politician in flip flops and a t-shirt in lieu of a suit or if you're going to make all the pockets on cargo pants invisible then... Well, what's the point? Excepting a quick 'cool cool' scene where a section of the CGI budget is blown showing off self sealing leg pockets?

Really it goes back to what I said elsewhere regarding season by season changes to various bridges. I'm watching the characters, not the walls. If I'm watching a show and thinking "what is X wearing that for?" rather than "what is X going to do next?" then I'd say that show has deeper problems than costuming.

In terms of Star Trek specifically I can see how being part of the Federation and resultant contact with so many alien species may influence fashion, but even then I'm sure Trek's idyllic utopians would be above such crass cultural appropriation. :-D

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Ummm...connecting the tie to the jacket is kind of dumb. It should connect to the "dress shirt." The jacket is an optional accessory, like the tie, but things usually connect to shirts. That would be like saying the watch connects to the "suit jacket." It's very strange.

Slightly pedantic but having worn ties for over ten years now it sticks with me.

I'm trying to do my version of 'Futuristic Fashion', having a "Tie" around your neck seems primitive to me, nobody should need to wear any piece of cloth around their neck as part of "Formal Fashion" that can potentially choke a person. I like my clothing to be OSHA approved.

This should be easier than we think. Some materials contract or tense up when impacted by great force (a bullet or a fast knife). In the distant future this is a no brainer.

We already have this, right now. There's nothing futuristic about it, you can literally go buy it.

Miguel Caballero's Fashion oriented Body Armor designs have literally protected VIP's around the world for years.
His policy to assure Quality Control is to have randomized testing of his apparel, and EVERY employee will wear said clothing and get shot while wearing it.

The CEO is no exception, he's been shot multiple times.

"Several times I've shot my wife, I've shot my lawyer, my brothers, and I've shot myself," Miguel Caballero told me, pointing to his abdomen. "It's in order to get a good quality product."

That's how he assures the QC on his Body Armor Fashion Apparel, your life is LITERALLY on the line, every day.

One of his Tank Tops, that is Body Armor, is $1500 USD back in 2017.

 

[fireproof78]

I think sometimes it's easy as a fan to get worked up over verisimilitude, but we also have to remember it's a TV show and costuming is a method TV uses to visually signify things. Someone is wearing a suit... must be in authority. Someones wearing oily overalls/cargo pants... must be a bit of an engineering type. If your'e going to put your future politician in flip flops and a t-shirt in lieu of a suit or if you're going to make all the pockets on cargo pants invisible then... Well, what's the point?

As I said, there is a balance to be struck. Yes, it's a future show to enliven the imagination. But it is also a show written for audiences of the 21st century. If I am looking at the costumes and going "Oh, man, those are ugly" I am not engaged with the characters. For me, that's a problem.

I'm trying to do my version of 'Futuristic Fashion', having a "Tie" around your neck seems primitive to me, nobody should need to wear any piece of cloth around their neck as part of "Formal Fashion" that can potentially choke a person. I like my clothing to be OSHA approved.

It literally isn't around the neck. It is clipped on to the dress shirt. Unless we are removing collars now too since no one should have a piece of cloth around their neck?

Da fuq?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

It literally isn't around the neck. It is clipped on to the dress shirt. Unless we are removing collars now too since no one should have a piece of cloth around their neck?

Da fuq?

I'm talking about the traditional Tie, the one that is literally wrapped around your neck, not open collars.

Open Collars aren't the danger that a traditional Tie wrapped around your neck would be.

 

[fireproof78]

I'm talking about the traditional Tie, the one that is literally wrapped around your neck, not open collars.

I was attempting to adapt your modular idea and still use a tie as a matter of formal wear. Nowhere did I state "use the tie as we use it today." No where did I suggest wrapping cloth around your neck. I said that the modular tie would be appropriate on the modular shirt rather than the modular jacket.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

If I am looking at the costumes and going "Oh, man, those are ugly" I am not engaged with the characters. For me, that's a problem.

More so for me if i'm looking at characters and wondering who the hell they are supposed to be or what they are supposed to do.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I was attempting to adapt your modular idea and still use a tie as a matter of formal wear. Nowhere did I state "use the tie as we use it today." No where did I suggest wrapping cloth around your neck. I said that the modular tie would be appropriate on the modular shirt rather than the modular jacket.

We can put the shirt clip on the back if you want to make it attachable to the shirt, but I still want the central Tie-Connector to hide the closing fasteners on the jackets.

You should literally never see any "Zippers, Buttons, Snap Fasteners, Velcro, or any other connector" on the 'Suit Jacket'.

The clothing should look like it closes up without showing the method of how it closes.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I personally think the classic "Suit Jacket" needs to get rid of the Lapel, and have the Jacket close together with a traditional Tie-style middle piece that is modular.

For some reason, I find myself thinking of a certain wardrobe item from a certain other science fiction movie, that had a rather incongruous-looking built-in tie.

 

[fireproof78]

We can put the shirt clip on the back if you want to make it attachable to the shirt, but I still want the central Tie-Connector to hide the closing fasteners on the jackets.

That makes very little sense to me.