Cyberpunk fashion has been trending since the ’90s, when it first made a splash. But even all these years later, it’s somehow still relevant. Take, for example, the baggy cargos and tight mesh tops seen all over Depop. Or any of the vintage mesh pieces from Jean Paul Gaultier, really. The fashion from Hackers (1995), the movie, is probably the most inspiring cyberpunk style example that you totally wouldn’t expect.
Hackers stars a bunch of high school hackers going to High School in New York City as they fight with an evil corporation who tries to frame them with fraud. Of course, it stars Angelina Jolie as the punky hacker girl who hangs out with all the boys. Roger K Burton designed the costumes for the film and reportedly took major inspiration from high fashion and the streets, youth culture and communities in New York City at the time. Think: Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano specifically, mixed up and mashed together with the subcultures of ’90s grunge, punk looks seen everyday on St. Mark’s Place. “I spent a lot of time hanging around Patricia Field’s shop and buying things and mixing them up with stuff I was having made or that I got from Canal Street Market,” Burton told Dazed. “Just getting into that whole New York club scene, which was great, and then mixing it up with classic English, punk, new romantic stuff.”
Angelina Jolie (her name is Acid Burn in the film) has, by far, the best fashion sense in Hackers. She is seen wearing vintage motorcycle jackets, white pants, sporty turtlenecks and sports jerseys, and at the very end of Hackers, a kimono-inspired dress with dark lipstick and her signature pixie cut, also seen in another great unexpected fashion inspiration moodboard film from the 90s, Girl Interrupted.
Now that the fan culture surrounding the flick has grown, it’s become a fascination that rare Vivienne Westwood pieces were worn in Hackers. Acid Burn (Jolie) wears a scarlet Vivienne Westwood Seditionaries parachute shirt, a Too Fast Too Live Too Young To Die shirt and a fall 1993 metallic jacket as well as a red tweed armour jacket from the 1988/89 Time Machine collection.
Despite the fact that rest of the characters in the film are guys, there’s also no lack of fashion inspiration. There’s camo jackets, plaid button-downs, lots of jeans with metal chains, tiny glasses, leather jackets and even t-shirts with kittens on them. Some pairings, like red paints with chains, a red tartan long jacket and yellow leopard print sweaters look like they’re straight off the runway of Comme Des Garçons Homme. It’s all enough to make you think being a hacker is a viable career for someone who loves fashion.
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