Style Guide: Totalitarian Regimes and How to Dress
- Hal Tarren, Esquire.
- Dec 1, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 3, 2023
Here I am, at 5:15am on a Tuesday afternoon, wondering why this headache refuses to shift. A quick internet search suggests a few state-sponsored cures, but none of these seem to work. And anyway, on a moral level, I completely disagree with naked jogging. This is drivel, I say to myself whilst shutting the computer down and demanding, with a quiet mumble, the health minister’s immediate sacking.
What's all this got to do with anything? Well, you may ask... No? Well, I'm going to tell you anyway.
STRESS!
Yes. Stress causes headaches, and nothing causes stress headaches like the anxiety caused by being un-fashionable. Luckily, however, it looks like a totalitarian regime is just around the corner. And one thing we know about totalitarian regimes is... they like to keep their styles within a narrow to non-existent margin of choice. As long as you know which basic styles go with which type of tyrannical regime, you’ll never go wrong and will never get fashion-anxiety ever again! Boosh!
Read on for an overview of which styles go with which regimes.
Dystopia One: The Village
Everything is prim and proper. People are nice to your face but gossip behind your back. Things seem pure and nice, not bleak at all. Colourful flowers adorn the streets, the air smells sweet, and the birds sing. Anything new is discouraged in public; conspired against in private. The smiles of the people never drop; unlike the disappeared transgressors who swing deathly out of sight. But what should one wear under such a regime?
Keep it simple. If you’re an underclass male, then go with a straw hat, simple cream cotton shirt rolled up to the elbow, grey chinos, and either sandals or clogs. In the summer, simply swap the chinos for navy blue chino shorts.
Make sure you have plenty of pocket space to keep a notepad and matches. The notepad will come in handy for jotting down acts of dissent by your fellow villagers. This will curry favour with the regime elites (easily identified by their tweed or striped blazers). The matches will be of use at the end of each month when transgressors who haven’t been hung already will be thrown inside a huge straw effigy and merrily sacrificed to whatever mythological deity the regime has happened to invent.
If you are female, keep to simple flowery dresses with uncomplicated dainty shoes. The straw hat is replaced by a straw bag that will be useful for transporting homemade cakes around to unwitting villagers. This will provide ample time for gossip and furious note-taking
Dystopia Two: The Modern
Everything is modern. Clean straight lines are to be admired. Any suggestion of anything other worldly is laughed at in public; conspired against in private. Everything in the past is simple, dimwitted, bad. Technology and the future are fetishized. Human interaction is cold. People secretly aspire to be emotionless and aloof, but are prone to hysterical outbursts. These hysterical outbursts, however, are swiftly explained away with data and research.
Laboratorys are the new temples. Science is the new Deity. Data the new doctrine. Doubters are mocked at best, actively hunted and publicly murdered at worst. Scientific blasphemy is the ultimate sin. Society is basically without fun. Any sense of humour is based around mocking those deemed un-intelligent. Critical thinkers are disappeared and never spoken about.
Styles for men? Keep it pretentious. Bowlcuts and un-fussy eye-wear are the order of the day. Orange roll-neck sweaters and white chinos will let everyone know that your IQ level is between the recommended margins to be considered a regime approved mid-wit. Anything less than this and you risk working out what's going on; anything more and you risk working out what's going on! We wouldn’t want that, as it may result in public shaming by smug-faced newsreaders wearing ‘crocs’ to make an ironic statement, or maybe because they just like them.
If at all possible, try not to wear socks; black shoes, or plimsoles should be your staple footwear. Make sure you have the latest communication device so everyone knows how well you’re doing. Also, make sure your wrist watch is entirely digital. Analogue technology is for farmers only, and you wouldn’t want to be one of those under this regime.
If you can drive an electric vehicle... drive an electric vehicle. If you can’t... then lycra and the latest in bicycle technology are readily available. If you are one of the elites, however, feel free to use as much jet fuel as possible. In Fact, if you can join the elite, then join the elite - it’s the only way you’ll avoid the mandatory diet of chemically reclaimed milk and cockroach soup.
For females? See above.
Dystopia Three: The Purity
Outward shows of innocence are praised. Piety and simple living is all. Plainness and dourness are prevalent. Public sacrifice is usual. Science is frowned upon. The mysterious powers are worshipped and feared. In private, degeneracy appears frequently, making pious citizens fervent with guilt and a violent desire to be even more pious in public. Punishments are public, dour, angry, but never joyous. Joy is against the law, against the Deity itself.
How to dazzle! I’m afraid there will be no dazzling. Clothing must be poor quality and make you itch at all times to prove your loyalty to the Deity. Socks? Shoes? Underwear? No, you don’t deserve these things. Not unless you’re a member of the ruling elite.
Go for mid-browns and dull greys; if you can fashion a hood, then keep yourself hooded so other sinners are not tempted by the sight of the sin festering in your wicked eyes. Beards are encouraged for both males and females. If you are female and cannot grow a beard, then beard-pieces may be fashioned from underarm hair and affixed to the face with state sanctioned miracles.
Dystopia Four: The Middle-Management
Everything is designed to demoralise, manufactured music bereft of meaning is everywhere. Tv shows cannot go for more than thirty seconds without a random sob-story cultivated to manipulate the ‘free citizens’ into calling expensive phone numbers. Aggressive narrative control is the order of the day. Anyone who attempts a debate is regarded by state controlled arse kissers as far-out extremists and peddlers of dis-mis-information.
International ‘leaders’ are designed to be annoying cretins. Corporations hypnotize people with non-existent good-deeds. Celebrities are always people you’ve never fu#king heard of. People take delight in the erosion of their freedoms because freedom is bad because some ‘expert’ on the TV told them it was.
There are no actual leaders in this regime, only area managers who have been promoted higher than they should have been. Low-quality theatre productions are forced on the populace; and at any given time, corporate morality enforcement operatives will attempt to guilt-trip citizen-consumers in to watching badly produced historical dramas based on twisted perceptions of history.
Strangely, you are allowed to vote. However, everyone you’re allowed to vote for is a part of the regime, so is essentially a pointless endeavour.
How to dress? You can dress pretty much how you like as long as you wear chinos and the brand logo is easily identifiable to social media brand-recognition software. Un-branded individuals are un-liked in digital space and laughed at in physical reality; the lack of affiliation being an indicator of low moral status. The ruling elites mostly wear standard suits in public and leather ‘gimp’ outfits in private. Stockings and suspenders are also worn, but this usually only applies to those identifying as male, and only in the uppermost top echelons of the regime.
Final Thoughts
This is but a mere taste of the potential bullshizery coming our way. So, it’s highly likely I’ll write a ‘part two’ for this article. After all, I haven’t covered some other major totalitarian regimes such as ‘The Nature’, ‘The Brutal’, and ‘The Dwindling Career TV actresses’s Heart-felt Dream’.
For now, though, I think I’ve given you enough fashion tips to keep you alive and un-tortured for at least a few extra weeks under a potential throat-squeezing totalitarian dystopian regime.
Good luck my fellow consumer-citizens!
Cheers, Hal
Worst Thing About Totalitarian Regimes?
Poor range of hair-care products.
Snitches rarely get stitches.
State approved cartoon charachters.
Snooty cretinous overlords, snooty cretinous neighbours.
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