The movie Divergent is the first part of the Divergent Series originally created as novels by Veronica Roth. In this dystopian society, where every citizen should belong to one of five factions according to an aptitude test, the government controls people within each faction and wants to remove ‘divergents’ who cannot be defined as any one faction. The main character, Tris, turned out to be a divergent, but entered into the Dauntless faction which is tasked with the security of the city. Her short leather jacket embodies Dauntless representing the faction’s physical activeness and edgy personality.. Furthermore, a leather jacket is one of the most iconic items in dystopian movies It also corresponds with a cyberpunk style that can be seen in films like Blade Runner.

As a representative from the Capitol, Effie Trinket visited District 12 to elect and to take the participants for ‘the hunger games’. She looks pretty psychopathic, shouting “Happy hunger games!” without recognizing nor sympathizing with the fears of the gathered crowd in front of her. She escorts Katniss and Peeta to the Capatol and guides them throughout the game schedules. Strongly vivid colors from hair and makeup to dress, exaggerated headpiece, and puffy silhouette contrast the living conditions between the Capitol and District 12. Her style turned out to be normal and representative of other women in the Capitol. The overly colorful and exaggerated style called ‘Capitol couture’ mostly appears on female citizen’s costume, while most of the males are wearing black or dark-toned contemporary suits. Color of her puffy hair and makeup keeps changing throughout the movie - yellow, pink, and purple – and there is always a big headpiece and her dress is corresponding to the overall level of exaggeration in the early 20th century styles. All of these female costumes are addressing the characteristic of the highly advanced but dystopian society.

Blade Runner is a movie depicting Los Angeles of 2019 in the view and imagination of 1983. This unrecognizable world has a very advanced level of technology to create humanoids (called replicants). The city is intentionally described as a dystopia, through the acid rains, dark and dreary cityscape, and the accidents by their own most advanced creature, the replicants. As a Blade Runner, Rick Deckard hunts down replicants. Deckard killed many replicants without constraint, but eventually felt humanity and love from a female replicant. Originally developed for soldiers, trench coats have been a typical item of detectives in movies to exaggerate their actions. Deckard wears a brown trench coat throughout the movie for a similar reason, but it also enhances the movie’s dystopian atmosphere with the acid rain of the city, umbrellas, raincoat, and gas masks. As shown by the comic book cover on the right, this brown trench coat is attached to Deckard. The trench coat represents Deckard as a character making it a focal part of his identity.

Since the movie Blade Runner is critically showing the dystopian future caused by human’s uncontrolled technological advancement, the replicants are described as aggressive victims existing only for the needs of the humans. They are rebelling against the system that created and now tries to kill them again, and it is corresponding to the cyberpunk of 1960-80s. Cyberpunk insisted that the big brother society with high-tech based controls over its citizens is dangerous and emphasized a subversive movement against the system and giant tech companies. Modern Japan or Hong Kong were regarded as the hyper-urbanized society, which looks similar to the background of the Blade Runner. The replicants’ punky styles represent the cyberpunk philosophy. White spiked hairstyles reminding of British band Sex Pistols, leather jackets, PVC-transparent coat, spike boots and accessories with studs are indicating that they are criticizing and rebelling against the system and order created by the government and the giant tech company.

Pris is one of the female replicants in Blade Runner who was chased by, fought against, and killed by Deckard. Along with her punky hairstyle and makeup, she is featured with animalistic gestures, aggressive actions and a body-exposing tight costume. Her makeup and costume sometimes make her look like a puppet, which is actually why she was created. A tight and body-exposing costume is emblematic of female characters throughout sci-fi movies. The female characters wearing these costumes are almost exclusively slim with an hourglass shape. It is rare to see a main character deviate from Pris' body size and shape. Pris even covers herself with a sheer fabric like a bridal veil when she is wearing a leotard right before fighting.

Rachel is the latest and most advanced version of a female replicant, who believes she is a human before meeting Deckard. Even though she is not a human, she saved Deckard from another replicant and stayed in his house. Deckard shared an emotional connection with Rachel and decided to leave the dystopian city with her. Along with the 1950s bumper bang and victory roll hairstyle, she is often featured in sharp-angled power suits resonating 1940s’ padded and wide shoulders. One of the most impressive looks of Rachel is her long fur coat. She wore it in the rainy streets of 2019 Los Angeles. These fur slippers would be compliment her iconic look and define her personality more than it should. Even though her hairstyle was known as the bumper band and victory roll, it is not hard to find a visual similarity between her hairstyle (with her pale-white skin and bright red lips) and the one of a Japanese geisha continuously shown on a big electric display of the city. Rachel’s long fur coat also reminds of the garments of Inuit, while the costume of male replicants are just modern style and not specifically different from male humans.