How 'Grand Theft Auto' Created the Blueprint for Virtual Fashion
Over the past two decades, Rockstar has refined ‘GTA’ time and time again to create some of the most inimitable games in streetwear. With ‘GTA VI’ in the works, Hypebeast looks back on how the franchise became a cultural touchstone in video games and fashion alike.
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In 1997, Rockstar Games debuted its inaugural Grand Theft Auto title, a top-down 2D game of car chases and illegal gigs where players accumulate points the longer they’re on the run and the more they can pull off. While the game’s initial design was set as a police officer chasing down a criminal, developers shifted to a concept of players controlling the criminal instead in a bid to make the game more exciting, and in doing so, planted the seeds for the notoriously transgressive world of GTA that would unfold in the years to come.
By the third main entry in the series, 2001’s Grand Theft Auto III, gameplay had been elevated with the sprawling, 3D Liberty City, an open world based on New York. In their refreshed approach, developers closely based GTA III’s environment and the cars within it off of real-time New York, but also took note when it came to curating the clothing that appears in the game. GTA III’s protagonist Claude, a scrappy bank robber who nearly loses his life in a heist gone wrong, wears a black bomber jacket, plain black T-shirt, green cargos and blue sneakers throughout the entirety of the storyline – save for when he’s arrested and forced to don prison garb. Although simple, the look differentiated everyman Claude – who becomes immersed in the crime world by a sheer twist of fate – from the clean-cut suits of the seasoned gang leaders he works with.
Rockstar Games
Fashion in video games has long been neglected because it doesn’t impact gameplay outcomes. When Rockstar released GTA III, it set a standard for clothing that amplifies the immersive nature of a video game by accurately reflecting its setting, time period and even the backstory of the character wearing it. In the early 2000s – over a decade before the fashion industry really paid heed to virtual clothing – Rockstar was ahead of the curve, gradually laying the foundation for what’s become GTA’s omnipresent influence on streetwear, virtual clothing and the greater fashion world.
Rockstar developers have frequently spoken about taking inspiration from popular crime dramas, particularly those set in the same city they’re spoofing, and that extends to the clothing. “At one level, the games were, and still are, homages to crime fiction in all its guises,” GTA co-creator Dan Hauser said in a 2013 interview. “But crime fiction is indivisible from consumerism, and images of things, and the way those things are presented, and the way those things are sold as being important.”
And just a year after GTA III, that concept was executed to its fullest extent yet. For 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the developers were inspired by the ‘80s cop drama Miami Vice and wanted to once again satirize a real place, building on an early version of Vice City that appeared in the inaugural GTA game. “New York is busy and bustling, a real merchant city, whereas Miami is a party town, all sun and sea and sex, but with that same dark edge underneath,” Rockstar producer Leslie Benzies told Digital Trends. Coming off of the recent release of GTA III, the game producer described the former title as a “revenge story,” whereas Vice City was about “building an empire.”
Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games
Italian-American mobster Tommy Vercetti bursts onto the screen in Vice City with blue jeans, a teal Hawaiin shirt and Stan Smith-esque sneakers. When heading to a soiree, Tommy changes into a black turtleneck under a blue suit. His outfits frequently tie in bright shades of pink, purple and blue and (somewhat ironically) nod to Italian-American mob stereotypes. After unlocking it on a mission, players can even dress Tommy in an adidas-style tracksuit. Regardless of the occasion, you can spot a thick gold chain hanging around his neck. The population of Vice City echoes the same color palette, although men are often dressed more conservatively in a T-shirt and jeans while women are often seen in dresses, denim shorts and bikinis.
The next iteration, 2004’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, was inspired by gangster rap culture in ‘80s and ‘90s LA with characters from the Grove Street Families gang replicating the members of N.W.A. Ryder boasts the same baseball cap, blocky black sunglasses and mustache as the late Eazy-E, while Big Smoke notably bears the same facial features as Suge Knight and similarly, is always wearing a cap. Ice Cube is said to have inspired the physical appearance of another gang member, Sweet (CJ’s brother) but was even enlisted by developers to voice another character, Madd Dogg.
Rockstar Games
Based on California as a whole, San Andreas comprises Los Santos (Los Angeles) and San Fierro (San Francisco), as well as Las Venturas (Las Vegas). Returning to his home state after five years of living in Liberty City, protagonist CJ adapts to a simplified version of a look typical to LA’s hip-hop scene: blue jeans and a white undershirt. On other occasions, he wore a simple T-shirt and bomber jacket or hoodie. While players were able to change the clothing of Tommy in Vice City, what he was wearing didn’t impact gameplay. GTA: San Andreas was the first installment where players could customize the protagonist by switching up his hairstyle, getting tattoos and buying clothing items ranging from streetwear to suits. Developers also integrated CJ’s personal style choices into his interactions with NPCs, where a good outfit would help him gain the respect of his fellow gang members and improve his relationship with his girlfriend.
Rockstar Games
Rockstar returned to Liberty City in 2008 with Grand Theft Auto IV — this time, with Eastern European war veteran Niko Bellic. Arriving four years after its predecessor, the level of detail in the clothing game-to-game was noticeably refined. Similar to Claude, Niko’s default look was a working-class getup consisting of simple layers. Next-generation systems such as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 also allowed for a higher level of graphical detail, a feature that extended to in-game clothing. Character customization was similar to San Andreas but sought to more accurately depict the shopping experience. Instead of entering the changing room and swiping through outfits, Bellic would have to approach a specific item of clothing on a rack and then be allowed to try it on.
Rockstar Games
With each new game, Rockstar continuously built on the realism of clothing and on the capabilities to personalize characters, all while reimaging the style influences of the city in which a given game took place. Grand Theft Auto V, however, marked a major breakthrough, seeing the studio push the bounds of virtual fashion further than any game ever had. Los Santos, a version of Los Angeles that was one of three cities in GTA III, now served as the primary setting. And for fashion, developers amped up the satirical element that’s been threaded throughout the franchise to poke fun at the dominant trends of early 2010s SoCal, ranging from bomber jackets paired with denim shorts to baseball jerseys repping fictional teams.
The game had a trio of protagonists that the player controlled. Budding gangster Franklin wore green to rep the Grove Street Families, a tie-in from GTA: San Andreas. Shady “businessman” Michael dressed entirely in collared shirts and suits in an attempt to distance himself from his past as a bank robber. Psychotic career grifter and ex-military man Trevor, meanwhile, wore a dirty shirt and jeans and lived in a rundown trailer park on the outskirts of the city.
Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games
Beyond the main trio, Rockstar sought to match the realism and true-to-the-times style within the passersby that populate the city. GTA V marked the first time the franchise enlisted a costume designer. Lyn Paolo, who has worked on shows such as Scandal and Shameless, was a groundbreaking addition to the team. Paolo tells Hypebeast that Rockstar would give her prompts for a given look, such as “drug dealer” or “store salesperson,” and Paolo would source the garments for the look in tune with early 2010s trends. She was driven by the idea that the clothes “should all be very California brands” and recalls heading to Val Surf, an iconic skate and surf shop in the Valley, to specifically buy Roxy bikinis for women.
Rockstar Games
To render the outfits on screen, human actors portraying the main characters and the extras were dressed in a getup and then scanned using an AI-enabled 360-degree camera. A single person could model about 15 different outfits over the course of an hour. Once scanned into the computer system, developers could change certain details such as the color of their clothing or hair. “It was like doing costuming for a show 10 times because each individual character in the game – like the girl in the bikini or the guy selling drugs or the lady getting her groceries – had to have 10 to 15 costumes for each of those looks,” Paolo explained. With about 300 human models, Rockstar could configure different people-clothing combinations to make it look like there are 10,000 individuals in any given part of San Andreas. Paolo estimates that they’ve been able to form “hundreds of thousands” of different outfits with the scanned garments.
In certain looks, the team spoofed popular brands at the time to create luxury streetwear knock-offs. “BIGNESS,” for example, pays homage to Supreme à la a camouflage hoodie with a red box logo. T-shirts printed with a geometric diamond reading “MANOR” nodded to Palace, while a brand called SESSANTA NOVE imitated the monogrammatic pattern of Louis Vuitton on tops and bags. Le Chien, a makeup brand that first appeared in the previous game returns in GTA V, now offering fragrances à la the same branding as Chanel.
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Nearly a decade after its release, GTA V’s aesthetic was so impactful that it translated into tangible products. In 2021, Rockstar teamed up with the Polish rave label Misbhv and the Berlin skate brand Civilist to contribute virtual capsule collections of hoodies and T-shirts. The collaborations were timely amid a spike in interest in AI and virtual fashion brought on during the pandemic. Balenciaga had debuted its own collection in Animal Crossing just months prior. “Fashion means anything as long as it creates a feedback loop with reality,” Misbhv wrote on Instagram. “Virtual reality is a new and exciting form of this dialogue.”
Rockstar Games
Rockstar Games
GTA V had posited itself as the perfect platform to explore that dialogue, given it laid the groundwork for adapting real-life clothing and trends into the video game years beforehand. Through its playful spoofing, brands could recognize the merit of seeing their logos in the game, albeit, before inking legitimate partnerships. Streetwear brands in particular touch many of the same spaces as GTA, such as rap music and car culture. Collaborating with the edgy franchise represented a cultural touchstone of sorts, one that legitimizes a brand’s cultural bona fides.
The backstory of its third collaboration with a fashion label is confirmation enough. Rockstar tapped Born X Raised, a brand based in the same sector of Southern Los Angeles as GTA. Real-life Detroit DJ Kenny Dixon Jr., who performs as Moodymann, appeared as a character in GTA Online. As a fan of the brand, he specifically requested to developers that his character wear his customized Born X Raised jacket. Rockstar reached out to Born X Raised to explore taking things a step further, and the capsule was a no-brainer for the late brand founder Chris “Spanto” Printup, who told Hypebeast the Born X Raised lookbooks were always compared to the GTA loading screen art. “The original connection point was completely organic,” Spanto said. “People would always comment on my lookbook photos, ‘GTA loading screen,’ ‘GTA loading screen.’”
Rockstar Games
GTA V’s fashion has even spawned its own online communities of those who, beyond stealing cars and robbing banks, simply enjoy styling outfits. Videos showcasing outfit combinations are a popular topic on YouTube, not dissimilar to the styling content of real-life streetwear influencers. On Reddit, meanwhile, 24,000 Redditors convene on r/GTAoutfits to post photos and receive feedback on their in-game fits in GTA V and GTA Online. “Those looks help the gamer to feel like they’re really in the world of Los Santos,” Paolo said.
With the news of GTA VI slated to roll out in 2025, once again set in Vice City, fans are already anticipating how Rockstar will approach fashion this time around. The first trailer for the game previews an insane level of detail, even compared to what it achieved with GTA V. Set in the present day, the population’s fashion appears more individualized and expressive of different subcultures compared to the Miami Vice-inspired iteration of the city shown in GTA: Vice City. Women wear crop tops, tanks, bikinis, fishnets and hoop earrings, while men sport streetwear-inspired graphic tees and tanktops with the sleeves cut off. There’s a lot of tattoos on men and women alike.
Rockstar also pays homage to a few popular Florida memes, including an appearance from the Sunshine State’s “real-life Joker.” While translating the contemporary and nuanced trends of the city today is a tall order, Rockstar appears to have an arsenal of advanced technology on its side to the extent that, as one woman turns her head, viewers can see the movement of individual strands of hair.
Naturally, fans have some predictions about how fashion will manifest in the new title. One Reddit user observed that Rockstar’s job listings for designers and artists required knowledge of the digital sculpting tool ZBrush, implying that the clothing in the game will have improved details and textures and heavily rely on physics for realistic movement. Others expressed their hope that GTA VI will offer more options for layering garments. Some said that given the game features the franchise’s first-ever female protagonist, Rockstar will likely expand its focus on women’s fashion in addition to men’s.
Fans still have another year-plus to speculate on what fashion will look like in GTA VI, including some of the brands they want to see translate their designs into the game. Considering its track record, Rockstar has always been ahead of the curve in the realm of virtual fashion, in terms of rendering virtual clothing and its representation of personal style and timely, regional trends in each game. A decade on from GTA V, the capabilities of AI, and technology in general, is light years ahead. The bar for Rockstar to deliver has never been higher, and the possibilities for fashion in GTA VI are seemingly endless.
