DS9 Clothes

Just sort of thinking out loud here.

A coworker is loaning me his "Star Trek: Deep Space 9" DVDs. The clothes in Star Trek intrigue me. Nobody wears anything with a corporate logo or cartoon character on the front. Most non-Starfleet characters wear fairly simple clothes, except for the ones who have very elaborate clothes. Lots of solid colors. No stripes or dots or patterns... typically. There's the rare exception, but only among either the very rich characters or the Dabo Girls.

I've got this mental image of how they get their clothes. I imaging the replicators have a small library of simple clothes that you can get for free. Like a lame clip art collection that you get for free because you'd never use anything on the CD. If you want something flashier you can buy a new replicator pattern from the Apple Clothing Store or you can find a tailor.

Similarly, in that universe, they have replicators with a library of food you can have at home, but there also appears to be certain food programs that you either have to buy for yourself or go to some restaurant that has it. But there's also still real restaurants with real food and chefs.

It's the perfect blend of socialism and capitalism. They can fulfill the needs of those with the least, but you can also achieve and gain more if you so desire.

The point that I started to make was that we should have a similar line of clothes. As well as food stamps there'd be garment credits that could be spent on some low cost, no frills clothing. Or would the fact that you're wearing them serve as an announcement that you're poor and encourage mockery and beatings?

Next, the logistics of such a task. My clothes are already pretty much as cheap as they come. Except when I try to buy hemp clothes, that is. Tee shirts and jeans. Cheap shoes. Child labor in south-east Asia somewhere. How the hell am I gonna get cheaper than that?

Simple, dummy. Start your own sweat shop in VietChinSingMalayistan, double the wages over the sweatshop next door, simple designs with no licensing fees or celebrity endorsements ("I'm Michael Jordan and I wear 'Poverty Clothes'!") and even after shipping you should be able to sell your stuff for 1/3 (or less) of what the stuff from the sweatshop next door goes for. This is assuming you're not in this for the money like the neighbor.

Or do I need to wait for the invention of the replicator?