World 97, Exploration D

Snippet from a film poster featuring figures dressed in white wearing various head coverings.

Movie poster for ‘Clinically Unstained’ (2023)

Paper

The film this poster promotes imagines a dystopian future in World 97 with a narrative that goes against their society’s morals.

Rather than rejecting laundry to save the environment and embracing stains, corporations force the movie characters to keep clothes bleach-white. The constant cleaning causes chemical burns and wears down clothes quickly, leading to mass production using cheap materials like polyester and cotton, adding to water scarcity and pollution. This harsh environment demands protection.

The film is based in a dystopian future of World 97 and therefore some trends of the present World 97 are in the movie’s costume, like the plague doctor-inspired mask people fill with herbs to combat the stain odours. However, in the world of the film no herbs grow, and artificial fresheners are used. Reviews of the film showed people terrified by this vision of the future, especially as, due to the practice of building up stains in this world, fast fashion has become redundant.

This Exploration was contributed by Tabby Winchester (located in Falmouth, UK), developed from a World written by a Fashion Fictions contributor, using a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence which allows others to share and adapt the work in any medium and for any purpose, providing that they credit the authors and share their material using the same Creative Commons licence.

Does this World remind you of something?

I am keen to hear about any historical or contemporary real-world examples – whether individual practices, subcultures or mainstream activities – that this fiction brings to mind.

Please share any such examples using this form. Thank you!

Published by Amy Twigger Holroyd

explorer of Fashion Fictions

Discover more from

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading