Blood Red Bonnets, Heavy Metal, and More Proof That Dystopian Fashion Does Not Mean Drab

With the premiere of the second season of The Handmaid’s Tale on Wednesday and the return of Westworld over the weekend, the cultural landscape is looking a little bit dystopian at the moment (even the imminent universe-crushing installment of Avengers: Infinity War, set to open this week, seems pretty bleak). Totalitarian theocracies, technophobia, shamelessly corrupt leaders, and surveillance states are all burdens of life in the fictional dystopian societies on those shows, but when a TV series can tell a story that seems ripped straight from the headlines (like the Prime Minister character in season one of Black Mirror), or is a veracious adaptation of a classic novel like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, things begin to seem a little too real. From blood red robes draping the bodies and puritanical bonnets atop the heads of the women of Gilead to the icy business attire of corporate drones in the near post-apocalyptic New York City of Mr. Robot, fashion has proven to be integral to onscreen dystopia—and it doesn’t have to be drab either. Here, we take a look at some dystopian style inspiration, taken by W photographers.