The Secret World is, overall, doing a splendid job with clothing so far. All of the stat-bearing items you can equip are invisible trinkets, except for your weapons. Your appearance is solely decided by what you pick out of your character’s wardrobe. Of course, that freedom does lead to the occasional… ahem… fashion accident:

Despite appearance to the contrary, “XxXLegolarthasXxX” is not a hooker.

Note the juxtaposition: at the very moment I saw this individual with, let’s say, questionable choice of what to wear (or rather, what not to wear), another player in the chat box quotes Eddie Izzard. It’s not all doom and gloom!

This freedom has led to a lot of experimentation on my behalf.

For your run-of-the-mill zombie killing, I prefer a casual approach that emphasizes comfort and ease of movement over etiquette.

For some London strolling or to enter the exclusive Temple’s Club, something a bit sophisticated is in order. But not too dull, either.

If in doubt, I can always go with the dress uniform.

And finally, if I feel like it, there’s of course always plain silliness.

However, I notice that some options are woefully underrepresented. I’m at last done with Solomon Island, and my next area of operations will be Egypt. Naturally, I want some apparel that will fit the area’s climate. My first idea was to dress light. Above the waist, this is not a problem: there are enough options of T-shirts and tank tops available for both genders to equip all cast AND extras of Gone With The Wind with them. Not that you would want to do that. That would be silly. Though the mental image is amusing. There are also enough choices of jeans and cargo pants to go with the tops.

I will NOT wear these.

But when it comes to shorter types of trousers? You’re out of luck. There are exactly two choices for male characters at the moment, and one of them looks like it was conserved in time and last worn at a punk concert in the 80ies. And no pants is no option (literally, there is no in-game option to not wear any). So maybe I should go the other direction and shield myself from the sun. After all, full-length pants are in ample supply.

However, I run into another problem then. There are no brimmed hats in the game at the moment! I can get baseball caps, military caps, even something that remotely looks like a bandana… but no Stetsons, no Bowlers, no Panamas, no Homburgers. Shouldn’t London have its fair share of hatters? Worst of all, though, not even pith helmets! How can a proper, self-respecting gentleman go to Africa without a pith helmet? Funcom, this is something you clearly need to work on.