The future of fashion is in video games

At Paris Fashion Week, Pakistani-origin designer Rohan Mirza’s showcase had disheveled models emerging from the rubble of an apocalyptic aftermath as sounds of gunfire collided with trap beats and opening dialogues from the slasher video game, MadWorld. Appropriately titled Nuke Town, the collection quickly went viral for its 3D-printed dress whose silhouette mimicked the explosive ascent of a nuclear mushroom cloud, jerseys made of prosthetic skin, and a trompe l’oeil leather dress moulded to mirror a bandolier of bullets. It was almost as if characters from Resident Evil or Cyberpunk 2077 had stumbled out of our screens and into the real world.

Mirza, known for drawing inspiration from video games and sci-fi movies, is part of a new breed of South Asian designers steering fashion’s futuristic direction.

With its endless churn of climate catastrophes, war-ravaged realities, intergalactic ambitions, and apocalyptic scenarios, our news cycle can seem like an endless doomscroll, one that forces us to confront the fragility of our future. From this context comes a new guard of designers, intent on envisioning how we’ll dress as we crash-land into a dystopian reality.

The fear of an imminent apocalypse has long fuelled the fashion world’s imagination: we saw it stomping through the mud at Balenciaga’s spring/summer 2023 show, in Rick Owens’s ‘cashmere spacesuits to wear in a concrete spaceship’ for fall/winter 2024, and in the merging of Mad Max motifs with samurai influences way back in John Galliano’s fall 2007 menswear show.

For most designers who are ushering in this era of fashion, it isn’t just about playing with avant-garde aesthetics for the sake of looking futuristic. It’s about thoughtfully future-proofing fashion to carry us into a potentially terrifying tomorrow.

That was the starting point for Outbreak Lab, an emerging Indian brand that leverages cutting-edge technology to create Dune-coded utilitarian uniforms. “Futuristic fashion or art can sometimes be very gimmicky, but that’s not actually what our tomorrow will be like,” says Divyam Jain, the brand’s co-founder. The vision of Jain and his high-school friends Sayasha Chopra and Arnav Shah—who had no formal fashion education or training—Outbreak Lab harnesses technology like 3D printing and generative design to craft its post-apocalyptic pieces, many of which are inspired by video game mechanics. “Growing up, I was always sad when I found out that things I saw in sci-fi movies or video games didn’t exist in real life. So, [my aim with] the stuff I’m creating is to try to [bring those ideas] into the real world.” The brand’s most recent drop draws heavily from the design features of Jain’s favourite video games. Standout pieces include the Armadillo jacket, a bulky silhouette modelled after the high-tech vambrace worn by the titular character of the game Ratchet & Clank to give him super strength, and the Diffuser denims, inspired by the aerodynamic efficiency of cars in racing games.

As the global obsession with gaming creeps into fashion, it has birthed designers who once thrived only within the confines of cosplaying circles.

Take the case of Saurabhsingh Rawat, an art director and animator who operates under the moniker Metalbender Studio. While he first experimented with fashion by cosplaying characters from video games like Final Fantasy and Overwatch, he is now best known for creating impossibly constructed mobile statement pieces for fashion rebel Uorfi Javed. “When you use technology like CGI, anything is possible, but I wanted to make those designs in real life,” he says, giving the example of a black dress with moving butterflies and 3D flowers that he built using the technology of wind-up toys.

While some designers mine fantastical video game worlds to imagine the future of fashion, others are captivated by the unknown potential of a universe we are still untangling. "When I design, I think about how I can make pieces that are relevant in today’s world, yet support the future,” explains Akshat Bansal, the founder and creative director of Delhi-based Bloni. Bansal has built a reputation for his gender-agnostic approach to design and innovative use of sustainable fabrics and emerging technologies. While the brand’s statement pieces, like the Capsule dress, Rubber Sculpted dress, and Metal Teardrop, could easily fit into the worlds of movies like The Matrix or Avatar, Bansal is quick to clarify that it’s the environments of these fictional stories, rather than the props and plotlines, that capture his imagination. “I think about how an alien world would be: their ecosystems, what they breathe, what their blood is like, what they eat, and what they wear,” he says. For Bansal, Bloni symbolises a way to stay connected to our earthly origins even as we contemplate a future in outer space. “Bloni is earth matter: it’s from the earth, for the universe. I mean, we’re talking about building a society on Mars and the moon, and we’re not talking about the clothes there? We need to respect where we come from because you can only navigate your future if you know where your past is.”

Matters of the universe also inspire Akshay Sharma, the founder and creative director of Vulgar, a label that uses futuristic, fluid clothing to question gender politics. Vulgar’s signature pieces include the Target Maze logo, which represents how people with non-conformist ideologies are targeted, and the Screw-You bra, featuring spikes jutting out of a leather bra. Its latest collection introduces the digitally developed Doomsday print—a visceral maelstrom of debris and earth. “I [live] in constant fear of what will happen on doomsday, when everything falls apart, which is where this [print] came from,” confesses Sharma.

As we confront an increasingly unpredictable future, fashion is emerging as a tool for many to navigate this evolving reality. From aftermath-inspired ensembles to cosmic contemplations, these designs are a commentary on the fears and hopes that shape our era, serving as a means to process and embrace the uncertainty that lies ahead.