In Focus: Allanaki Fashions

[Cayuga]

Today I bring to you, fair players of Armageddon a new GDB post type called, 'In Focus,' that I hope to be posting once monthly. Below, you will find a help file that can be illustrated well via imagery to describe what is contained therein. I hope that this discussion and visual stimuli assists in everyone's play and that maybe newbies and veterans alike can learn something from reading (or rereading!) helpfiles and documentation pertinent to the gameworld at large. So, without further ado, here is our first session:

Allanaki Fashions

Allanak is a rigidly traditional society, and this has affected the city's trends in fashion throughout the years. For example, the modesty of one's attire is considered before comfort, despite the high temperatures citizens must deal with daily. Even among nobility, style is the priority. While the body may be covered almost entirely, Allanaki fashion can nonetheless be provocative. Less bare flesh, yet more of the wearer's figure, is revealed. Hemlines are low and collars are high. Arms are sometimes left bare, though the lower a garment's neckline, the longer the sleeves.
Even among nobility, comfort is sacrificed for frivolity and whimsy. In fact, the more radical and hindering the style, the more successful its reception. For example, shoes that one could not possibly walk in demonstrate that a noble has sufficient resources for a carriage or palanquin. Likewise, sleeves whose cuffs extend past the fingertips do little to inconvenience someone accustomed to having all tasks performed by one's servants.

Despite the strong southern emphasis on modesty amongst commoners and flamboyancy amongst nobility, the intense heat of the desert is omnipresent, and concessions are necessary. Both nobles and commoners are equal in their struggle to stay as cool as possible. To this end, loosely woven and light fabrics worn in layers are utilized as daily wear to ward off the worst of the sun and sands. Many types of overgarments are worn in long layers, protecting the flesh from the harsh rays of sunlight and the pervasive heat.

Commoners often look to nobility for examples in most aspects of life, and fashion is no exception. The styles of commoner clothing available, while simpler and cheaper, often imitate that of nobles. For example, while nobles often wear ornately decorated silks and other lush fabrics, commoners wear cottons, sandcloth or other inexpensive textiles. Another difference in commoner attire is that it tends to be looser, more comfortable, and less hindering, in order to be practical for everyday use.

Some clothes unique to Allanak include wrapped pants, long tunics, kalasiris, long kilts, and many types of over-garbs, often worn in layers, are also commonly seen in the South. Green, particularly pale green, is generally considered an unlucky color, due to its associations with sorcery, and blue is perceived as a particularly somber color, associated with mourning and tears. Leatherwear is thought somewhat lower class, reserved for guards, hunters and other common military types.

While the weather on Zalanthas is consistently hot and sandy all year round, fashion has its seasons. Frequently, the Kadian shops will change their selections in response to an event or whim. One month, purple might be the rage and the next everyone must have blue. However, the one staple of the Allanaki wardrobe is the color white. Trims may change, and colors may go in and out of style, but white is always in fashion.


(A commoner's loose kalasiri.]


(An Allanaki neckline.)


(Kilt, long tunic that we'll pretend isn't actually wool.)


(An example of, "the lower the neckline, the longer the sleeves.)


(Another example of, 'the lower the neckline, the longer the sleeves,' it is as well bordering on scandalous. This also exemplifies the impracticality of a noble's garb.)


(The Oashi lord is looking mighty dapper for the upcoming festival in his layers.)


(A Fale woman's shoes. She lifted her hem, to much controversy, to display the absurd footwear she couldn't possibly tread the path to the Arboretum in.)


(This Borsail woman had to have a modest neckline and hem, but she wanted to replicate her sixteenth nameday's cake in dress form. Kadius provided well!)


(Wrap pants!)


(White layers are always in fashion. And the soles of those shoes are thick enough to add too much of a burden to walk around. Get a palanquin, ya noble.)

What do *you* think of, when you think of Allanaki fashion?

[Barsook]

Thank you for this!

[BadSkeelz]

Thank you for this!

+1

Incidentally could we make sufficiently ornate dresses have a penalty to flee and defense?

[Cayuga]

Thank you for this!

+1

Incidentally could we make sufficiently ornate dresses have a penalty to flee and defense?

"Idea," works better than GDB posts.

[TheWanderer]

To be completely honest, it's always felt like black was more of a staple trim of the Black City. My memories tend to bleed together, but white doesn't seem like it's been out in abundance over the years (I'm sure accounts of this vary).

I do have the sudden urge to dress my characters in white from now on, though. So... kudos.

[Cayuga]

To be completely honest, it's always felt like black was more of a staple trim of the Black City. My memories tend to bleed together, but white doesn't seem like it's been out in abundance over the years (I'm sure accounts of this vary).

I do have the sudden urge to dress my characters in white from now on, though. So... kudos.

Thus, the refresher.

[Jihelu]

Tbh from what I read and go with is white is always in session, as well as black.
Other than house colors, it depends on the 'flavor of whoever in charge says' I think.

[Cayuga]

Tbh from what I read and go with is white is always in session, as well as black.
Other than house colors, it depends on the 'flavor of whoever in charge says' I think.

Yup! That's what the last part of the help file suggests, too.

[Jihelu]

Any idea on what a 'fashonable' hunter/grebber type would look?

[boog]

Ooh, pick me, pick me:

Leatherwear is thought somewhat lower class, reserved for guards, hunters and other common military types.



I think, minus the studs, that's "primitive" enough. I think, offduty, they'd wear what everyone else wears, though. Hard clothes for the desert, soft clothes for city time.

(Sorry, noble guards.)

[TheWanderer]

Thus, the refresher.

[ChibiTama]

Don't forget the sari.

[Norcal]

Handbags will defiantly be making a showing this year. And -no- it is not a zipper..it is a blackened bone cuff ornament.




Notice the bandolier...perfect for those many knives.



Silky chic with a sexy hijab to keep that nasty Suk Krath at bay.

A few higher class folks and then of course:



The unwashed masses

[Desertman]

Scrab chitin armor or gtfo.

[manipura]

I always find it jarring to see things (fashions) in the south that are revealing, in terns of the cut/design of the garment.

Sometimes I feel like while they are much more suited to northern culture, because the north is closed they get made in the south anyway.

[path]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z5jU5nrlAo

[path]

Let's talk about when or if it's alright for nobility and their servants to trend away from wearing house colors. Or, when they'd particularly be concerned with wearing them. Like at a party. Or maybe the arena. Or if they had to sign important contracts. Or there were some historic execution to be witnessed.

[manipura]

I think the nobility wearing white or black is always acceptable, but I think more often than not, players like dressing their nobles in House colours, no matter the occasion.

[path]

Do you think that somewhat invalidates the Kadian color changes?

This one goes out to the gentlemen.

[manipura]

To be honest I've never liked the colour-trends from an IC perspective. 
From an OOC perspective, sure... "Oh, blue is trendy this month?  Neat-o."  But do I think Fale would  be wearing it?  Or Borsail?  No, not really.

Even in rumor board posts people say things like "criers wearing Fale colours said this and that"...no one is saying "Fale criers wearing blue, because it's trendy, came to the bar shouting about...this and that."

So do I think House colours, and nobles tending to wear them, invalidate the Kadian colour trends?  Yeah, I guess I do.

[TheWanderer]

So do I think House colours, and nobles tending to wear them, invalidate the Kadian colour trends?  Yeah, I guess I do.

^
The Borsail lord says, in posh-accented Sirihish: "Blue? Heh. Crimson and black are -always- in season."

[bardlyone]

I'm sort of on team 'wear house colors' myself, when it's a noble house you work for, but feel like it's much more understandable and something to be encouraged, when merchant house employees switch up colors with the trending colors. They're much less likely to have extremely non-neutral colors from ankle to throat all down their back in the form of house colored cloaks and the like (dun/black/black/grey/and white are really a lot more neutral than purple and green or blue and black or red and black), to clash with these rotating colors.

I would like to see more saris in game, and in linen or cotton, rather than the 1 design and only in sandcloth, that has been accessible without knowing who to take orders and wait on.

[Jihelu]

I know I've said those in power decide what color is 'in'.
But other than like, I think I saw someone who said something like that wear different color ear rings that month or so, I've never seen someone actually do it!
It's like the thing.
"Oh blue is in Lord Whtever Borsail what ever shall we do?"

"Not wear blue?"

"Right M'lord, fantastic idea! I'll alert the masses that red is in season!"

[Norcal]

I always find it jarring to see things (fashions) in the south that are revealing, in terns of the cut/design of the garment.

Sometimes I feel like while they are much more suited to northern culture, because the north is closed they get made in the south anyway.

To be expected.

[BadSkeelz]

I know I've said those in power decide what color is 'in'.
But other than like, I think I saw someone who said something like that wear different color ear rings that month or so, I've never seen someone actually do it!
It's like the thing.
"Oh blue is in Lord Whtever Borsail what ever shall we do?"

"Not wear blue?"

"Right M'lord, fantastic idea! I'll alert the masses that red is in season!"

New Templar Role: Fashion Police


Re: noble colors, I'd like it if they kept at least one item with their house colors and something like a brooch or necklace with the house emblem. You don't always have to be wearing the team uniform, but keep the logo visible.