Cordyceps Couture: How ‘The Last of Us’ is Infecting Luxury Fashion
In an unprecedented fusion of dystopian storytelling and avant-garde fashion sensibility, HBO’s sophomore season of “The Last of Us” has emerged as the unlikely muse for Spring/Summer’s most provocative collections. The series’ fifth episode, “Feel Her Love,” directed by visionary Stephen Williams, presents not merely a continuation of a revenge saga but a masterclass in post-apocalyptic aesthetics that has fashion houses scrambling to reimagine utilitarian wear.
The episode’s hauntingly atmospheric introduction of airborne Cordyceps spores—a dramatic departure from the first season’s infection mechanics—serves as a perfect metaphor for this season’s pervasive influence on runway silhouettes. Just as the fungal particles infiltrate unseen spaces, the show’s aesthetic has quietly penetrated the consciousness of designers from Paris to Milan.
“What we’re witnessing is a profound recontextualization of survival wear,” notes celebrated designer Miuccia Prada, whose recent collection featured distressed denim with fungal-inspired embroidery. “The juxtaposition of beauty and decay, of strength and vulnerability—it’s precisely what makes the visual language of ‘The Last of Us’ so compelling to translate into wearable art.”
The episode’s hospital basement sequence—where officer Elise Park confronts the horrifying evolution of the infection that claimed her son Leon—offers a color palette that has already manifested in Balenciaga’s Fall preview: clinical whites contrasted against organic, spreading darkness. Creative Director Demna Gvasalia cited the “magnificent tension between institutional sterility and natural corruption” as his starting point.
Perhaps most striking is how the characters’ emotional arcs translate to textile choices. Ellie’s revenge mission against Nora embodies resilience through textural contradictions—something Alexander McQueen’s Sarah Burton captured brilliantly in her final collection with armored leather pieces featuring unexpectedly delicate perforations representing vulnerability beneath strength.
The surprise arrival of Jesse as reinforcement in Ellie and Dina’s Seattle odyssey represents what Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour described as “the necessary disruption of established patterns”—a phenomenon reflected in Louis Vuitton’s unexpected incorporation of tactical elements into evening wear this season.
“The fashion industry has always found inspiration in narrative tension,” explains Harper’s Bazaar creative director, “but what ‘The Last of Us’ offers is something far more sophisticated than mere apocalyptic chic. It’s about human connection persisting through impossible circumstances—the ultimate luxury in any era.”
Even established houses like Chanel have embraced the influence, with their latest accessories featuring fungi-inspired textural elements and gas mask-reminiscent details that transform potential horror into high concept beauty—much as the show transforms the grotesque into compelling visual storytelling.
As Williams’ episode demonstrates the creative reversal regarding spores—a storytelling element present in the original game but initially rejected for television—fashion has similarly embraced the art of reconsidering established boundaries. Rei Kawakubo’s recent Comme des Garçons collection featured previously abandoned concepts reimagined through a lens of deliberate contamination, with fabrics that appear to “bloom” with fungal patterns when exposed to body heat.
The commitment to environmental storytelling—where Cordyceps lines hospital walls and floors before becoming airborne—finds parallel in sustainable fashion’s growing emphasis on materials that visibly respond to their surroundings, creating garments that, like the world of “The Last of Us,” reveal unseen connections between humanity and our environment.
In an industry perpetually seeking authentic narrative, “The Last of Us” provides something precious: fashion inspiration that emerges not from artifice but from emotional truth—even when that truth emerges from fiction’s darkest imaginings.
