Bonus: How to Dress Like You're In Baldur's Gate 3 - Part 2
A hidden room to loot to your heart's content.
Hello hello hello. Here is part deux of the deux-part series on how to dress like you’re in the video game Baldur’s Gate 3—more info on all that entails in the free-to-all part un (sorry, I’ve lost all my French since moving to Buenos Aires and filling my Mind Palace with castellano, and the dying embers of that language chose to express themselves here and now, for some inscrutable reason).
A reminder that the fifty-plus shoppable items below—with the most affordable, down to 24 bucks for a vintage top, nestled under the paywall—are not intended as “cosplay,” but as “dressing in character.” Essentially, think of these posts (if you don’t know anything video game-wise, tune this out) as a wardrobe extension mod for your Tav (if you know a lot video game-wise and I sounded like a fool just now, please just forget I said anything and scroll down for nice clothes).
One final reminder, if you are loathe to pay the $2 per month for HR bonus post access, there are various ways to get around it—sharing the post with a friend who then signs up for a free subscription will earn you a month of access to the entire labyrinth of esoteric knowledge that resides in these pixelated halls, and I am still looking for a job, urgently, and if you help me find one (or connect me to someone taking pitches that seem up my alley), I will give you free HR for life! Details here, and my portfolio is here.
Enjoy, and if you’re interested in receiving a minimum of two bonus posts per month, sign up below or HERE is a link to subsidized subs for two or less bucks a month!
THANK YOU for being here, and I am always available @humanrepeller on Instagram for sartorial scandals/situations/summons. Here is a little preview of what’s below the paywall:
Note: All character images are screenshots from videos by Lootward!
Earnest question, especially for any Chinese readers: How do you feel about non-Chinese people wearing chinoiserie? Specifically, cheongsam-inspired “Mandarin collar” tops like these two. My first instinct, as a white person, has always been that if there’s a question as to the propriety of a garment, might as well just not wear it, compounded by the fact that the only people I’ve ever seen earnestly defend fashionable use of the silhouette are notably hwite [sic] as well. I know the cheongsam/qipao aren’t necessarily sacred garments, and that they were largely popularized in a Western context in the 60s, but the way they have been costumified (if I ever get canceled, it will be for the time I dressed up as Mulan for Halloween in kindergarten, but I’m sharing the blame with my parents for that one) and turned into shorthand visual symbols for exoticism rubs me the wrong way, even in contexts where it’s widely (and weirdly, I thought?) accepted, like in Alessandro Michele’s Gucci.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments or on IG, I think personally I will continue to abstain (someone who feels comfortable should buy the above shirts because they’re SO good), but shirts that adapt the stand collar silhouette without the heavy-handed orientalism are very sharp and Baldur’s Gate-appropriate. I love the above look’s creamy, tan color palette with its delicate embroidery, winter-friendly layering, and silver, coin-adorned accessories. For some reason, this look made me gravitate towards interesting woven constructions in my research, all in the same tawny color palette.
Yoshiki Hishinuma does it again. This shirt is for an adventurer. It’s nautical, literary, romantic, delicate, hardy, sensual, no-nonsense, all at once and all with an ineffable cool factor. This is on my dream shopping list (for when I go shopping in my dreams, which happens more often than you’d think, sandwiched between heart-shattering recollections of past loves and insanely high-stakes combat sequences).
This top (above) is unlike anything I’ve seen as of yet. Much potential in this cut-paper-style technique.
The boxy structure of this sweater evokes, for me, the same regality and solemnity as a Mandarin collar shirt. Almost armor-like.
These knit pieces take the gorgeous closures often found on cheongsams and recontextualize them in their Eastern European iteration, which I feel quite comfortable Ashkenazi-ing about in.
Belly dancer belts are also probably up for the appropriation question, but if you feel comfortable wearing them, they are extremely affordable and would look SO cool slung over an all-cream ensemble.
