In the Tribe, individuals and tribes also shape their own style if it can do something useful for them – they can have a certain style if it has a function or role to play.
Today, our style is affected if it can do something for us. For example, when it is summer our style is for casual and light clothes because it is hot – and when it is winter, we wear warm and heavy clothes because it is cold.
Or we have different styles of clothes for different sports – it is easier to play football wearing shorts instead of trousers, and motorbike riders wear leather clothes as this style of costume protects them from cuts and bruises if they fall off their bikes (and it looks cool!).
In the Tribe, clothes, make-up, hair, gear and accessories and other things that shape style are influenced if they can do something useful.
Jack has his own unique style partly due to the glasses he wears. Jack is a natural inventor – he loves science and creating new gadgets and gimmicks (some of which work!).
To assist Jack’s special skills and talents, Jack has modified some toughened glasses to protect his eyes and face from sparks or nuts and bolts that may fly off any objects he is pulling apart or putting together.
Jack also has modified the toughened glasses so there is a magnifying lense, which Jack can look through to help him focus on any smaller gadgets or machines he is checking out. He has also put a torch on his glasses so it can shed light on his inventions.
Jack’s unique style is affected by his glasses when he is inventing- because this style does something useful for him.
Bray has a certain style of clothing. Bray is often in different sectors of the city looking for important items ranging from food to medicine – as well as gossip and information he gets by talking to other tribes. This can be hazardous work because Bray often ends up in difficult encounters with dangerous Demon Dogs or Locos.
To help his adventures and visits around the city, Bray wears loose fitting clothing with many pockets and hidden layers. Here, Bray can hide important things he needs to carry and keep hidden – like food or medicine.
Bray also carries a skateboard whenever he leaves the mall and ventures into the city – Bray’s trusty skateboard and the turn of speed it gives him have saved him many times from dangerous situations and pursuing Demon Dogs.
In the past, people’s style has also been affected due to functions it could do. Queen Elizabeth I of England was famous for wearing white make-up on her face in the 16th Century – this was not simply because she liked white make-up, but it was to cover up scars and blemishes on her face.
In the middle ages throughout Europe the style of eating (for those who could afford it) was banquets. People at banquets would sit round a huge table and eat as much as they could and held the food in their hands – because there weren’t proper plates or knives and forks. Food was roasted on a spit above a fire – because there weren’t microwaves or ovens! Today, we have frozen food and “TV dinners” because we enjoy modern conveniences like microwaves and ovens – and the fact they do something useful makes us have a different style of eating from that of our ancestors. Style in the Tribe is therefore shaped in every way if it can do something useful.