I am a bit torn on “solarpunk fashion” to be honest… certainly there are some images and designs going in that direction, but they tend to be somewhat too new-agish for my taste and also look not very practical.

I personally think practical use and easy repair-ability will be what would mainly decide the design of cloth in a solarpunk society. Maybe with some punk like embroidered patches on them for the individual touch.

This is quite a hard topic. If you look for solarpunk clothing online, you’ll find fashion clothing mostly in green and with leaf patterns or such, like this, but I find this to be too unrealistic, as most designer fashion, in the sense that nobody would wear that in a daily context.

But actual wearable solarpunk clothes, at least for me, would be a mix of work-focused very resistant clothing, like this work overalls or this cargo pants, with a mix of weather thoughtful pieces of clothing, like this cross pants, which are quite fresh while protecting your legs from scrapes, or, if you lean more into breaking the gender-norm, some long loose dresses are quite comfortable, specially in hot weather (and the flow is so nice!)

In my opinion, any durable and useful piece of clothing can be considered solarpunk, even more if it is field-work or nature-oriented, like mountain boots or cargo pants (also, any patched clothing does the trick, although it’s best that it happens organically rather than buying it). And as a final personal note, I find colourful or patterned clothes quite nice when they’re not overwhelming, so for example cross pants or a loose oversized shirt, although it is quite uncommon in male clothing (I could not find a picture of T-shirt and shirt other than with the flannel shirts or plain ones) and I’m not sure how environmentally friendly cloth dye is (but the same could be said about the clothing industry altogether). Hope this helps, even if just a bit :)

The things I of when I think solarpunk fashion is almost antithetical to modern fashion. I think of overalls, and practical garden wear (but that is probably my own limitation). To me the cool advances in fashion that fit in conceptually are almost invisible, they’re about eco/bio-materials, production, and durability, which are largely form agnostic. There are probably a number of artists who have envisioned clothing to adapt to a warmer climate.

• meta
  • buy-it-for-life and second hand
  • easy to repair, visible mending, patching, sashiko
  • natural fabrics and natural dyes
  • durable work clothes, comfortable home clothes
  • removable decoration – fabric bands, trim, strips that can be moved between clothes
• aesthetics
  • Art Nouveau
  • indigenous (careful of appropriation)
  • Afrofuturism (careful of appropriation)
  • all of the handcraft traditions – embroidery, cross-stitch, knitting, weaving, tie-dye, batik, mirror-work, beading, etc.

Thanks for posting this! I wouldn’t have thought to ask but you got some good answers and I think it’ll be a good reference for solarpunk art as well

To answer the question, I agree it’d include practical clothes for being outside in, layers as appropriate, shorts, or cargo pants etc. I really like the punk aspect shining through in more of a wear-whatever-you-want sort of variety. I’d also love to see reuse thrive, both through mending and patching (and embracing that as a style) but also in somehow working through the backlog of unused fast fashion corporations are dumping in deserts etc all over the world