Growing up, I played a lot of Mario Kart, Donkey Kong, and whatever other games we had on the family Wii. But the first game I remember truly playing and falling in love with was Fallout 4 when I was a pre-teen. I had done all this work to be able to play it on the family Mac, and the pay-off was well worth it.
I put hundreds of hours into the game, and after my first run-through I got Fallout: New Vegas, which is still my favorite of the games. However, 4 still holds a special place in my heart -- and not just because I spent so many hours trying to figure out mods -- but because that's what started my love for this era of fashion.
Fallout's aesthetics -- both pre-War and post -- are heavily mid-century inspired, drawing from retro-futurism and atom punk. The fashion itself, at least before the Great War, is consistent with popular 1950s fashion.
Photos from Reddit, originally from 'The Art of Fallout 4' by Bethesda Softworks
While seeing these fashions, and later the remnants of them, in the games sparked my interest; years later getting to see the world brought to life in Prime Video's Fallout (2024-) brought me right back into my middle-school obsession.
I don't think I can think of any complaints for the costuming of the show off the top of my head, (though I may be biased) my favorite to see on screen every time was Frances Turner as Barb Howard. Turner shared some details about her character's wardrobe, and the work that Head of Costumes Dayna Pink put into the looks in an Instagram Post.
"With one exception, every look from episodes 5-8 was conceived of, designed, and handcrafted by our costume department under Dayna’s direction, with vintage fabrics used whenever possible. The beige suit Barb wears in New Vegas? That’s a sourced original vintage Lilli Ann" Turner wrote. "Lilli Ann, the iconic mid-century label known for beautifully tailored and polished silhouettes, feminine structure, and that elevated “put together” glamour is a major inspiration for Barb’s wardrobe in S2."
Photos from @francesturner on Instagram. Concept art by Imogene Chayes
Photo from @francesturner on Instagram.
The costumes of the post-War world of Fallout are a whole other cause for appreciation. After nuclear annihilation, fashion is hardly a priority. There has been some debate on the logistics of clothing production in post-War America, but the clothing that we do see -- in game and on screen -- is clearly far from new.
Outfits are scrapped together from the remains of a world that's no longer there. Wastelanders foregoing any notion of fashion for survival (and in a nuclear fallout, who's to blame them). Both in obtainable clothing in-game and on NPCs, we see outfits that are the tattered relics of the mid-century fashion that defined the pre-war era, often fitted to be more tactical for survival.
Left to right: Photos from Fallout Wiki, The Art of Fallout 3 courtesy of Reddit
The Art of Fallout 4 by Bethesda Softworks
However, one of my favorite examples of this "scrapbooking" comes from what we see of New Vegas in season two of Fallout. While stepping away from the traditional, 1950s inspired outfits we see throughout the rest of the world, we see the glittery remains of Las Vegas (which is doing considerably okay compared to the rest of the world).
Top photos and bottom left from Reddit, bottom right from Mari Mayol-Worden on Instagram
Here, we can see a hodgepodge of bellhop uniforms, showgirl bodysuits, and various costumes from what one can imagine were once worn before the bombs dropped. I'm a sucker for little details like this. (Both good and bad. Looking at you, Dinky)
Another example featured in both the show as well as Fallout: New Vegas, is that of Caesar's Legion. Now, I never gave them too much credit, in all of my hours logged in the game, I never spared them more than I had to. A detail I again want to appreciate is the various "armor" of the legion. While the group as a whole is going "more of a Roman theme" as Ella Purnell's character says in 'The Profiligate', their armor consists of a lot of sports equipment. While they are still adorned with pteruges and even furs and wolf heads to hone their aesthetic, ultimately it is a similar case to the citizens of New Vegas; people making do with what they have.
It's the small details like these that help with world building. They aren't written in, nor are they often granted their own screen time aside from being seen in the background. But without them, you would have an empty world.
This is why good, well-though costume design is so important, whether it's a game, series or movie. Among many, many other things, one of my issues with Emerald Fennel's Wuthering Heights adaptation was the costumes. Now, period-media with costume historical inaccuracies is far from rare, and is oftentimes celebrated, such as Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006), but Wuthering Heights has sparked recent conversation about when it goes too far.
Of course in writing this, I'm speaking from a love of the Fallout universe. This post is almost full circle in a way; I had discovered the game when I saw people post about it on Tumblr more than ten years ago. My spring/summer wardrobe is inspired a lot by retro silhouettes and patterns, and I think that if you took Amy Winehouse and Fallout out of my head, that wardrobe would look a lot different.
If you've read this far as someone who has no knowledge or experience of the world of Fallout, let me take a second to encourage you to do so. You don't have to start by playing a nearly 30-year-old game, nor are you expected to have even a fraction of an idea of all the lore surrounding the universe. But, maybe you can sit down and watch some of the show. If you have more time, you can play one of the newer games. They even have a mobile game where you can run your own Vault if that's your vibe.
However you dip your toe into it, Fallout has so much to offer. If my post about the costumes of it can get you interested, imagine what else is in there for you.
