To anyone out there designing a female character’s clothes, think of this as you do: Would this outfit be functional/practical/acceptable for a guy, too?
It doesn’t matter what kind of armor you intend to wear – the better fitted it is to you the better it will protect you and the more efficient you will be in it.
The only way it won’t apply is if you happen to have the exact same measurements at the mannequin used in production (which doesn’t apply in the cases of things like field plate – which are always custom made). As with so many things in life, being rich is a definite advantage when it comes to armor of any sort or time period.
Guidelines for police and other parties that regularly use bullet vests recommend that the wearer not change their body mass by more than ten percent after being fitted for their vest. That means bulking up, no slimming down or putting on fat.
Many women are quite comfortable wearing even covert Kevlar armor intended for men because it just happens to fit comfortably. Many men cannot fit comfortably into a standard vest because they are not “standard” shape and size (I’m one of them).
The only difference with “female” vests is allowing space for breasts, primarily for covert body armor (that is either concealed under clothes, make to look street clothes or easily concealed with a jacket). While there is less variety in stores entry level concealed vests for women cost the same as entry level concealed vests for men.
And again, the actual reason for different shaped armor here is not about effectiveness of stopping bullets but rather about comfort while maintaining a silhouette in order to conceal the presence of the armor -by making the wearer meet society’s expectations and fit into their regular clothes.
Actual military grade armor is not just Kevlar, but also additional features such as ceramic plates. That’s why you won’t see any boob bulges on the anti-ballistic armor worn by real female soldiers (who wear the same tactical vests as the male soldiers).
Needless to say that the people who train for very specific tasks and tend to have low amounts of body fat (and so are unlikely to be busty).
There is really no reason to think of Kevlar as an inherently problematic armor for women. There’s nothing special about the way if functions, it’s simply an awesome material for making fabric for armor out of and has been the core of modern anti-ballistic armor for decades.
Like every armor of every era, modern armor is designed around the expectations of the market – as women are becoming a larger part of that market, it is adjusting accordingly.
There’s another MMO by the guys that did League of Angels — Knight’s Fable: http://knight.gtarcade.com/ I have not seen a single reasonably-armored female character on their websites. Behold!
Look at all those pointy bits. Most of their advertizing involves the female characters, though there are guys. Strangely, their armor and clothing offers full coverage.
Lastly, here is one of their actual advertizements on Facebook, un-cropped and unaltered.
Yep. Makes me want to cheer. How about you?
O_o I… have nothing to add. You probably said everything that needs to be said about this game already, lysander-gustav.
~Ozzie
Protip: If your default marketing idea is “A sexy woman in an improbable costume, but leave most of her fact out…”
Of course. A lot of the armor that is on display in museums and owned by private collectors (and hence shown in books) was purely ornate and never intended to be worn into battle. After all, not setting foot on a battlefield does help improve the chances of your armor not being destroyed.
Prior to firearms, crossbows and other innovations making heavy armor redundant, it was commonplace for rich leaders who didn’t actually set foot on the battlefield to decorate their armor. Roman Emperors in particular seemed fond of looking absolutely fabulous in armor.
Ancestral armor was not really a thing in most places because generally a memorable suit of armor was part of an individual’s identity. A noble’s armor were also unlikely to fit their heirs – outside of Disney movies few families have identical measurements from generation to generation. Finally there was the issue that armor adapted as weapons did – wearing the previous generation’s armor exposed you to the current generation’s weapons.
The armor above was made for Sigismund II Augustus, the then King of Poland (who it seems probably never set foot on a battlefield) – and was one of twenty private armors owned by him at the time of his death. It would not have been unusual for a noble wearing such as suit in a parade to accessorize with a sash and/or long cape.
The important part about purely ornate armor is that it looks like armor – just with decorations that go beyond being practical. They still reflect the core armor values of the era but they’re just over decorated*, questionable accessorized and may have reductions made to facilitate their non-combat use (such as no gauntlets or arm protection if it’s for wearing to dinners and parties).
Okay, see now what I don’t get is people who say they love Babs’ redesign because “finally a practical female costume in comics!!”
Because it’s absolutely true that impractical costumes are a problem that plague superheroines, but this is what Babs’ New 52 costume looked like before they redesigned it:
I’m purposefully using a picture that has her next to Batman – her costume was just as “practical” as his. Full body suit, sturdy-looking flat-heeled boots, no unnecessary details beyond the Bat symbol and cape (both of which Batman has too) – what exactly was so “impractical” about this?
For that matter, this is what Babs’ original Batgirl costume looked like:
That’s from the 1970’s, and her costume looks as practical as can be. Actually, I’d argue that Dick’s the one with the impractical costume, here.
So why are we acting like this is such a big deal that Babs “finally” has a practical costume?! She’s had one since practically the very beginning (once they stopped drawing her original costume with high heels, anyway).
Superheroine costumes are certainly lacking practicality on the whole, but Babs was never really an issue there. So giving her a practical redesign doesn’t really do anything to change the status quo – it just “fixes” what wasn’t broken to start with. Why not give Starfire a redesign where I don’t have to wonder how her top stays on, instead?
Also they made a huge deal about her new costume not being spandex, but I thought the whole batfam wore kevlar.
It’s not, it was never identified by name, but it’s apparently some sort of next gen bulletproof material, even BETTER than kevlar.
why they would choose to replace that with a cheap $20 leather jacket is beyond me
I don’t think anyone argued Barbara’s current costume was specifically one in a desperate need of redesign (let’s face it, she’s always been the one DC superheroine with consistently full body-covering suit: no cleavage, no 5-inch heels, not even bared midriff).
Her new costume is a breath of fresh air compared to the DC/Marvel female design STANDARDS, not compared to what she wore before.
But as far as the kevlar (or rather “batkevlar”) argument goes, it doesn’t really hold ground when the artist’s attempts at conveying her suit to be armor are so half-assed and inconsistent that the chest piece looks either painted on or too small to wear, let alone breathe in (see: middle images here).
Also, what Batgirl’s new outfit is praised for is how it’s not sexualized and how it actually resembles the materials it’s supposed to be made of, not how objectively good in combat those customized boutique clothes will be compared to Wayne Industry’s patented armor.
Does it make sense that after losing her old costume she assembles a new, cheap one, instead of asking Bruce to give her another armor? Yeah, probably not. Especially since she’s a regular human, not a superpowered alien or an Amazon or a magic user that can wear even a skimpy costume without caring for consequences. But that’s the issue of pulling it off with writing, no different than pulling of the existence of miraculous better-than-kevlar material.
For what it’s supposed to be, the new costume is designed awesomely.
