I'm thinking more about an Asylum City wherein the refugees, fleeing more negative circumstances, mingle with adventurers, professionals, students and journalists, without needing to switch into uniforms.
Asylum City derives from associations with "mental hospital" and both patients and faculty "dress up" in the context of a medical care facility of almost any kind (exempting clinics and some outpatient diagnostic facilities).
In a hospital, patients don't stay in their street clothes, just as faculty tend to go for various costumes I won't go into, but which have a lot to do with sanitation (i.e. hygiene). But that's not what I'm going for, even though hygiene remains a core workflow.
Does your site provide clothes cleaning? A resort hotel might well, whereas a campsite might not, or have a laundromat option (a popular mobile home park template). You have to design around plumbing (the use of water) and sanitation, with any engineering project, adding networking, air ducts and piping, whatever else is offered as a hookup service.
"Derives from" in the sense my neighborhood, anchored by Hawthorne Boulevard, is informally named the Asylum District, for the 1800s mental hospital located somewhere between SE 12th and the river, a large estate in a largely rural setting back in those days.
To some extent, I transplant "the vibe" in this area to my target model campus (campus model). Also, in place of "Spaceship Earth" I hot-swap in my "Global U", U for University, an institution revolving around teaching care for humans, other animals, as a primary subject of research and evolving practice. I'm one of my own city-as-campus role modelers. And no, I've never been to Burning Man. I come from an urban planning family.
So the target lifestyle need not involve uniforms, but might in some instances i.e. when you're dressed for some martial art or construction trade. Just like in the Asylum District in that sense. Plus we have lots of used clothing stores, and Good Wills. Buffalo Exchange. Red Light. Gold Door (not used clothing, but adds to the atmosphere). Come check us out.
So just as we mingle containers of used home stuff (furniture and so on), so do we have an Exchange going for clothing.
For some, it's a matter of casting, having lots of role play costumes on hand in different sizes, and not shopping to buy on the spot. The screenwriters take on questions of wardrobe ahead of time, ala The Incredibles. Indeed, some camps are very much about product placement in the fashion sense. Just check TikTok for a sense of the product placement ads.
Speaking of fashion, I got to mingle with some interesting folks at an annual shindig last night, in a part of town, high up and looking west, that specializes in a kind of west coast lifestyle, one might call it "high ranking" in a Silicon Forest context. Whereas the term "Silicon Forest" draws attention to chip fab and software development, telecomms, movie making, that doesn't mean all fortunes get made in these endeavors.
You still need surgeons and cemeteries, wherever you go. I wore my suspenders but under a Python (computer language) branded sweater. This logo proved a useful conversation starter.
The military does have uniforms, but doesn't discourage "competitive dressing" in the sense of how one is encouraged to display rank as a part of the dress code (it's literally a code).
Males and females are both highly fashion conscious, but society nudges them with different cues in different ways. I suppose I'm stating the obvious, and skating above much actual ethnography.
What type of city are we talking about?
I always look back on Old Man River (OMR) for inspiration. That was stadium-shaped, with a terraced interior, of mega-project size. Bucky Fuller did some plans. Don't confuse him with Small is Beautiful E.F. Schumacher. Bucky was more of a "broad band" conceptualizer. Pattern languages occur at all frequencies.
