“Send all this in these sizes to an undisclosed location via Amazon Drone.”

---

• Two pairs of black shirts.
• Two pairs of black pants.
• One pair of combat boots.
• Two pairs of black socks.
• One black jacket.
• $300 personal burial money.

Let’s get one thing clear. This is not a post about the Uniform for an Asteroid Death Cult. And this Asteroid Death Cult totally isn’t intent on being the spiritual successor to Project Mayhem. Fight Club is not a key influence on our visions of the future.

Okay? Good. Now… it’s time to update The Uniform again. This is where we landed last time:

as an out’n’proud gear queer wannabe space marine my wardrobe has slowly drifted from all-black to variations on military green.  I now have a trench coat, light jacket and quilted jacket to match against.  With Bonner’s ideas in my head, I’ve started buying basic tshirts in multiples too.

It’s been totally fine dressing like a crypto dark extropian wizard the past few years…

But the times call for ghosting through cities now. (Especially if you’re trying to infiltrate the Secret Space Program.)

This guy, looking hella tactical fashion… you’re gonna notice tailing you. (Great jacket tho!)

MIBs are a core part of ufology lore (as well as being the name of a pretty good movie about the journey to enlightenment, featuring some sweet competence porn):

In popular culture and UFO conspiracy theories, men in black (MIB) are men dressed in black suits who claim to be government agents and who harass or threaten UFOwitnesses to keep them quiet about what they have seen. It is sometimes implied that they may be aliens themselves. The term is also frequently used to describe mysterious men working for unknown organizations, as well as various branches of government allegedly designed to protect secrets or perform other strange activities

The dressed down version of the black suit & mirror shades is a look designed to be comfortable and make one even more invisible. An outfit assembled for clothing items so iconic they’re practically Platonic forms. The MA1 – as Emily Segal from K Hole pointed out in her TEDx Talk – can be anything to anyone. The same is true of Doc Marten boots. These are beyond normcore to be UR Cayce Pollard Units. Same goes for the Wayfarer sunglasses.

Plus, I like the idea that I can seriously just walk onto a plane (or cargo ship) and have a new outfit waiting for me wherever I land, just by pointing a friend at the other end to this Polyvore set.

The Men-In-Black look made casual is a manifestation of “the gray man”, which as Gibson defines it:

There’s an idea called “gray man”, in the security business, that I find interesting. They teach people to dress unobtrusively. Chinos instead of combat pants, and if you really need the extra pockets, a better design conceals them. They assume, actually, that the bad guys will shoot all the guys wearing combat pants first, just to be sure. I don’t have that as a concern, but there’s something appealingly “low-drag” about gray man theory: reduced friction with one’s environment.

Ghost chic. Fadin’ through metropolises as they collapse behind you. The Viperblack variant would be nice of course, if it actually turns out to be a thing which is real that does what it purports to.

Because whatever else it is, it’s technomad time. Dress for the Collapse you plan to survive, and you won’t have to run around wondering what to pack when the ever more destructive wave of change hits your home town.

Peter Quinn was always ready – at least, he was when I still actually watching Homeland. His only luggage was his go bag.

This is the Space Age. And we are here to go.

So dress like you’ve already infiltrated the Breakaway Civilisation, and see what happens next, I figure.

---

Polyvore – letting you share your latest fiction suits with your friends since 2007.