Ah, sex appeal and costume design. It’s a sprawling, multifaceted topic that requires that you be versed in many OTHER sprawling, multifacetedtopics if you want to understand it from every possible angle. Like designing with anything else in mind, you (hopefully, most likely, please) want to do it intelligently and respectfully. I am not a teacher; I am merely a foulmouthed artist on the internet, but maybe putting my rant and inevitable tangents in paragraph form will convey something useful on the subject.
The thing I always keep in mind when designing a titillating character is that no matter what anyone designs, no matter how much or how little the character wears, someone will find it sexually appealing. Look up any [AAA-game] character. There is porn of them. Seriously. For that reason, in my opinion, it’s not even that necessary to TRY and make a costume “sexy.”
First of all, making a costume sexy in the conventional way (less clothing = more sexy) (hereafter shortened to “sexy”) can reach a point of diminishing return. The less coverage there is on a combatant character, the more it stretches the suspension of disbelief for the part of your audience that cares about that sort of thing. Trading believability for “sexiness” is basically guaranteed to alienate some viewers. There will also ALWAYS be a small contingent clamoring for MORE TITTIES but those people really, really don’t need any more pandering to. Ignore them.
(There will also be a group of people clamoring for ALL ARMOR ALL THE TIME, which… well, if the character fights, I won’t say these people don’t have a point. On the other hand, sometimes you want to take the opportunity to show something about a character beyond “they fight.”)
So it comes down to this: “sexy” costumes are more likely to only be subjectively appealing. Flattering (meaning: well designed, fits correctly, highlights attractive parts of the character) costumes that make contextual sense are more likely to be universally appealing, or at the very least, not be offensive or confusing.
Never forget: People will or will not find characters sexually appealing regardless of your intention.
So back to the clothed=neutral/nude=sexy fallacy spectrum, here’s something most of tumblr will agree with: skimpiness disparity in the same outfit on different sexes is not cool. The only reason to dress female characters in less clothing than the male equivalent is that somebody on the food chain of game development wants to see sexy ladies in skimpy outfits and hasn’t given any critical thought to the matter. It stems from a big societal clusterfuck with contributing factors from many sources that the rest of tumblr can elaborate on at length if my dear reader is not up to date on their feminism.
The TL;DR version: if your male version is in full plate armor, the female version better be as well. If the female version is wearing a bikini, the male version better be wearing a speedo. Any inconsistency on this front and it’s just perpetuating a disparity that is exhausting, trite, childish, pandering, transparent, shallow, and other synonyms thereof.
From what I have seen, Guild Wars 2 has some interesting wins and fails on this front. This departs from this post’s theme of ‘sexiness’ a bit, but given my perspective that anything can be sexy to anyone, it doesn’t really matter.
I would declare [THIS] a win. I like how the bare areas on both costumes show off areas of physical strength: her well defined abdomen and his muscular chest. She has adequate support up top. Details are appropriately scaled to fit the proportions of each character. Overall Guild Wars likes to make female outfits more feminine and male outfits more masculine, and this is no exception, but mobility and comfort are not really sacrificed for the sake of girl-ifying the outfit. In fact, the only thing that makes me go “huh” are the straps on his chest – are they taped there? I feel like it’s missing an extra strap across the chest. Anyway, I’d say these characters are sexy for the same reasons. They’re both strong and rugged-looking… for fashion models. They look like they wear less because they’re so boss that the cold is no obstacle.
[THIS] bothers me a lot more. The male version is fucking badass. It feels like its from a unique fantasy culture with a rich history, and you can infer a little bit about his job from his accessories. (Colorful bottles imply magic or alchemy, the skull and the claw details on the hood and boots give it a darker vibe. Necromancer, poison expert, something like that. I haven’t played GW2.) The female version is like, they took some aspects of the male design and projected it onto a Lolita outfit. It’s like the Halloween costume version of the male design. There are no teeth/skull details, no feathers, no utility belt, no fur lining, nothing that informs what her job might be. There’s a weirdly inconsistent level of tailoring and structure between the versions. She has a rigid corset, he has a soft fur-lined jacket. I wouldn’t think a society with the level of technology to make the costume on the right would have the means to make sheer stockings and elastic. I would argue that based on the male version, the appeal of this costume might come from the aspect of mystery and danger. The mystery and danger of the female version is somewhat hampered by the pom-pom boots and frilly skirt and it just becomes something we’re supposed to find attractive because stockings and corsets are visual shorthand for “sexy.”
Anyway, none of this is taking into account the specific character you are designing for. So far I have looked at this question from the angle of, say, designing for an MMO, where the only objective (apart from fitting in the art direction) is to show what class the character is.
In the case of story-driven games, there are always exceptions to this idea of sexy vs. logical & flattering. In an existing IP, for example a direct sequel, if your art direction has established it and your audience is accustomed to and expects a certain level of costume-logic-bending, then it’s generally acceptable… until it reaches the point of Unwearable By Humans. It’s also fine to tell practicality to fuck off when the entire IP is consistently over-the-top deliberately tacky oversexed insanity, as in the case of Bayonetta.
Sexiness, when it comes to characters defined by narrative designers/a plot, is pretty simple.
1)Considering all factors (role in the story, personal priorities, cultural background, values, etc), would the character wear this?
2)If not, it’s probably pandering.
In characters with personalities, you have many ways to reinforce the idea of sexiness, namely animation and dialogue. If a character wants to have lots of sex, says s/he wants to have lots of sex, and actually does have lots of sex, it’s probably appropriate for him/her look like she is DTF. The quintessential example:
You see cleavage because SHE wants you to see cleavage. She wears no pants because ISABELA NEEDS NO PANTS, and also because “how quickly can I take these clothes off again” is something I guarantee she thinks about when getting dressed in the morning (verified by Sheryl Chee, sort of, I quote: “if she has a problem she will probably just knife the clothes off”). She’s also a pretty damn good duelist, and awfully confident, and maybe for that reason she thinks avoiding damage is a non-issue. If you consider the entire spectrum of video game ladies, though, she’s fairly modestly dressed.
If a character’s sexuality isn’t even brought to the table, or the character has a million things above “sex” on his/her to-do list, or sex is a private matter for them, then appearing Sexy In The Less Clothing Kind Of Way is not appropriate. Someone out there will want to rub one out to that character regardless of what the costume is, and that person doesn’t need the help of cleavage-window armor. You need to design for the character, not necessarily for the audience; otherwise it’s basically just porn.
There’s nothing wrong with porn, of course, but I do have a problem with trading an opportunity to show something about a character for something that is purely for the shallow gratification of some of the audience.
We can’t, however, forget that it’s possible for a character to be from a culture where wearing less clothes is not synonymous with sex appeal, body shyness might be an alien concept, modesty might not have anything to do with being covered up, and so on. So go ahead, design that topless lady character. HOWEVER:
If the only women in that culture with bare breasts are young and conventionally attractive, you are being dishonest.If you are an animator and use posing to emphasize those bare breasts, you are being dishonest. If you are a cinematographer and use camera angles and lingering shots to showcase those bare breasts, you are being dishonest. When it stops being about the character and starts being about you, there is a problem.
This kind of grossness only ever happens with female characters, for more reasons that tumblr can explain if you’re not caught up on your feminism. For the record, it also applies to characters with COVERED breasts. Anyway, I doubt we’ll see a bare-chested non-prop female character anytime soon for ratings and general immaturity reasons, but, y’know. I’m ranting. I DO WHAT I WANT.
Soapbox time: I think sex appeal in characters is mostly about respecting your audience. This is especially true in the case of story driven game where you’re trying to develop a fictional person for whom fans will hopefully have feelings about and become invested in. If you want your audience to love a character like a person, treat the character like it IS person. Hopefully that’s easy to get, because it’s hard to explain. This is a burden shared with narrative design, but, yeah.
Are there really people not capable of liking a character unless there is a cleavage and thigh accompaniment? If there are, don’t do anything for them. Ever.
I’m running out of steam on this topic and I’m on page 3 of a Word document. I will post a TL;DR version eventually, and then get back to the original question of sexiness in relation to armor.
Time for a throwback of this old post from @costumecommunityservice. It explains in depth why taking “sexy” shortcuts and having a double standard when designing a character/costume works against the audience’s immersion and why the broader context of the world, tone, story and the motivation should be taken into account when designing a character
Ah, sex appeal and costume design. It’s a sprawling, multifaceted topic that requires that you be versed in many OTHER sprawling, multifacetedtopics if you want to understand it from every possible angle. Like designing with anything else in mind, you (hopefully, most likely, please) want to do it intelligently and respectfully. I am not a teacher; I am merely a foulmouthed artist on the internet, but maybe putting my rant and inevitable tangents in paragraph form will convey something useful on the subject.
The thing I always keep in mind when designing a titillating character is that no matter what anyone designs, no matter how much or how little the character wears, someone will find it sexually appealing. Look up any [AAA-game] character. There is porn of them. Seriously. For that reason, in my opinion, it’s not even that necessary to TRY and make a costume “sexy.”
First of all, making a costume sexy in the conventional way (less clothing = more sexy) (hereafter shortened to “sexy”) can reach a point of diminishing return. The less coverage there is on a combatant character, the more it stretches the suspension of disbelief for the part of your audience that cares about that sort of thing. Trading believability for “sexiness” is basically guaranteed to alienate some viewers. There will also ALWAYS be a small contingent clamoring for MORE TITTIES but those people really, really don’t need any more pandering to. Ignore them.
(There will also be a group of people clamoring for ALL ARMOR ALL THE TIME, which… well, if the character fights, I won’t say these people don’t have a point. On the other hand, sometimes you want to take the opportunity to show something about a character beyond “they fight.”)
So it comes down to this: “sexy” costumes are more likely to only be subjectively appealing. Flattering (meaning: well designed, fits correctly, highlights attractive parts of the character) costumes that make contextual sense are more likely to be universally appealing, or at the very least, not be offensive or confusing.
Never forget: People will or will not find characters sexually appealing regardless of your intention.
So back to the clothed=neutral/nude=sexy fallacy spectrum, here’s something most of tumblr will agree with: skimpiness disparity in the same outfit on different sexes is not cool. The only reason to dress female characters in less clothing than the male equivalent is that somebody on the food chain of game development wants to see sexy ladies in skimpy outfits and hasn’t given any critical thought to the matter. It stems from a big societal clusterfuck with contributing factors from many sources that the rest of tumblr can elaborate on at length if my dear reader is not up to date on their feminism.
The TL;DR version: if your male version is in full plate armor, the female version better be as well. If the female version is wearing a bikini, the male version better be wearing a speedo. Any inconsistency on this front and it’s just perpetuating a disparity that is exhausting, trite, childish, pandering, transparent, shallow, and other synonyms thereof.
From what I have seen, Guild Wars 2 has some interesting wins and fails on this front. This departs from this post’s theme of ‘sexiness’ a bit, but given my perspective that anything can be sexy to anyone, it doesn’t really matter.
I would declare [THIS] a win. I like how the bare areas on both costumes show off areas of physical strength: her well defined abdomen and his muscular chest. She has adequate support up top. Details are appropriately scaled to fit the proportions of each character. Overall Guild Wars likes to make female outfits more feminine and male outfits more masculine, and this is no exception, but mobility and comfort are not really sacrificed for the sake of girl-ifying the outfit. In fact, the only thing that makes me go “huh” are the straps on his chest – are they taped there? I feel like it’s missing an extra strap across the chest. Anyway, I’d say these characters are sexy for the same reasons. They’re both strong and rugged-looking… for fashion models. They look like they wear less because they’re so boss that the cold is no obstacle.
[THIS] bothers me a lot more. The male version is fucking badass. It feels like its from a unique fantasy culture with a rich history, and you can infer a little bit about his job from his accessories. (Colorful bottles imply magic or alchemy, the skull and the claw details on the hood and boots give it a darker vibe. Necromancer, poison expert, something like that. I haven’t played GW2.) The female version is like, they took some aspects of the male design and projected it onto a Lolita outfit. It’s like the Halloween costume version of the male design. There are no teeth/skull details, no feathers, no utility belt, no fur lining, nothing that informs what her job might be. There’s a weirdly inconsistent level of tailoring and structure between the versions. She has a rigid corset, he has a soft fur-lined jacket. I wouldn’t think a society with the level of technology to make the costume on the right would have the means to make sheer stockings and elastic. I would argue that based on the male version, the appeal of this costume might come from the aspect of mystery and danger. The mystery and danger of the female version is somewhat hampered by the pom-pom boots and frilly skirt and it just becomes something we’re supposed to find attractive because stockings and corsets are visual shorthand for “sexy.”
Anyway, none of this is taking into account the specific character you are designing for. So far I have looked at this question from the angle of, say, designing for an MMO, where the only objective (apart from fitting in the art direction) is to show what class the character is.
In the case of story-driven games, there are always exceptions to this idea of sexy vs. logical & flattering. In an existing IP, for example a direct sequel, if your art direction has established it and your audience is accustomed to and expects a certain level of costume-logic-bending, then it’s generally acceptable… until it reaches the point of Unwearable By Humans. It’s also fine to tell practicality to fuck off when the entire IP is consistently over-the-top deliberately tacky oversexed insanity, as in the case of Bayonetta.
Sexiness, when it comes to characters defined by narrative designers/a plot, is pretty simple.
1) Considering all factors (role in the story, personal priorities, cultural background, values, etc), would the character wear this?
2) If not, it’s probably pandering.
In characters with personalities, you have many ways to reinforce the idea of sexiness, namely animation and dialogue. If a character wants to have lots of sex, says s/he wants to have lots of sex, and actually does have lots of sex, it’s probably appropriate for him/her look like she is DTF. The quintessential example:
You see cleavage because SHE wants you to see cleavage. She wears no pants because ISABELA NEEDS NO PANTS, and also because “how quickly can I take these clothes off again” is something I guarantee she thinks about when getting dressed in the morning (verified by Sheryl Chee, sort of, I quote: “if she has a problem she will probably just knife the clothes off”). She’s also a pretty damn good duelist, and awfully confident, and maybe for that reason she thinks avoiding damage is a non-issue. If you consider the entire spectrum of video game ladies, though, she’s fairly modestly dressed.
If a character’s sexuality isn’t even brought to the table, or the character has a million things above “sex” on his/her to-do list, or sex is a private matter for them, then appearing Sexy In The Less Clothing Kind Of Way is not appropriate. Someone out there will want to rub one out to that character regardless of what the costume is, and that person doesn’t need the help of cleavage-window armor. You need to design for the character, not necessarily for the audience; otherwise it’s basically just porn.
There’s nothing wrong with porn, of course, but I do have a problem with trading an opportunity to show something about a character for something that is purely for the shallow gratification of some of the audience.
We can’t, however, forget that it’s possible for a character to be from a culture where wearing less clothes is not synonymous with sex appeal, body shyness might be an alien concept, modesty might not have anything to do with being covered up, and so on. So go ahead, design that topless lady character. HOWEVER:
If the only women in that culture with bare breasts are young and conventionally attractive, you are being dishonest.If you are an animator and use posing to emphasize those bare breasts, you are being dishonest. If you are a cinematographer and use camera angles and lingering shots to showcase those bare breasts, you are being dishonest. When it stops being about the character and starts being about you, there is a problem.
This kind of grossness only ever happens with female characters, for more reasons that tumblr can explain if you’re not caught up on your feminism. For the record, it also applies to characters with COVERED breasts. Anyway, I doubt we’ll see a bare-chested non-prop female character anytime soon for ratings and general immaturity reasons, but, y’know. I’m ranting. I DO WHAT I WANT.
Soapbox time: I think sex appeal in characters is mostly about respecting your audience. This is especially true in the case of story driven game where you’re trying to develop a fictional person for whom fans will hopefully have feelings about and become invested in. If you want your audience to love a character like a person, treat the character like it IS person. Hopefully that’s easy to get, because it’s hard to explain. This is a burden shared with narrative design, but, yeah.
Are there really people not capable of liking a character unless there is a cleavage and thigh accompaniment? If there are, don’t do anything for them. Ever.
I’m running out of steam on this topic and I’m on page 3 of a Word document. I will post a TL;DR version eventually, and then get back to the original question of sexiness in relation to armor.
Time for a throwback of this old post from @costumecommunityservice. It explains in depth why taking “sexy” shortcuts and having a double standard when designing a character/costume works against the audience’s immersion and why the broader context of the world, tone, story and the motivation should be taken into account when designing a character
I don’t know if you’d seen these already but my eyes just rolled into the back of my head. Thanks for the crotch shot.
And of course the male equivalent is the opposite of sexualised.
Those posters sum up PERFECTLY the problem with gendered double standard in depicting fictional characters and how it traverses through various media, as an MMO gets adapted into a movie.
Everything about those characters that should be equal, isn’t: makeup, costume, posing.
@nicholaskoletook notice way back of how male orcs are big and unequivocally monstrous, while female ones are just conventionally pretty ladies painted green with small fangs (and that Garona’s mixed ancestry is not given justice either). Basically this:
edit: A number of people have rushed to remind us that in according to the character’s particular lore, she’s a half orc. While correct, this doesn’t address any of the key problems such as her pose and attire, that audiences unfamiliar with the lore won’t know that or that the character is essentially promoted as a sexy orc-like lady in juxtaposition to a powerful, well protected and dangerous orc man.
I don’t know if you’d seen these already but my eyes just rolled into the back of my head. Thanks for the crotch shot.
And of course the male equivalent is the opposite of sexualised.
Those posters sum up PERFECTLY the problem with gendered double standard in depicting fictional characters and how it traverses through various media, as an MMO gets adapted into a movie.
Everything about those characters that should be equal, isn’t: makeup, costume, posing.
@nicholaskoletook notice way back of how male orcs are big and unequivocally monstrous, while female ones are just conventionally pretty ladies painted green with small fangs (and that Garona’s mixed ancestry is not given justice either). Basically this:
edit: A number of people have rushed to remind us that in according to the character’s particular lore, she’s a half orc. While correct, this doesn’t address any of the key problems such as her pose and attire, that audiences unfamiliar with the lore won’t know that or that the character is essentially promoted as a sexy orc-like lady in juxtaposition to a powerful, well protected and dangerous orc man.
First of all, this is not an argument that women’s armor in media should be the same as dudes’ armor. Most main characters are supposed to look attractive most of the time they’re on screen; whether because of social or biological conditioning, the bulk added by armor on dudes’ chests and shoulders hottens them up. Dudes in practical armor still meet the hotness standards they’re held to. Women, however, genuinely are trickier to armor up without losing the hourglass figure or lean lines expected by their hotness standards. That’s a thing. Whatever you may think of it, it’s a thing. And it’s not like anybody ever gets a closed-face helmet.
TRICKIER. Not impossible, and I’m looking at you, director Patty Jenkins and costume designer Lindy Hemmings of Wonder Woman.
Honestly, I would have just let this bullshit armor go as typical Hollywood bullshit armyr, but Jenkins made the mistake of arguing, “To me, they shouldn’t be dressed in armor like men […]It should be different. It should be authentic and real – and appealing to women.”
Authentic and real, my functional-armored ass, and yes, I have armor for swordfighting, and yes, it’s damn well functional because I have a thing about avoiding cracked ribs and collarbones. They hurt.
Jenkins is open about the heels and leg exposure being wish-fulfillment, which is stupid, because you can show off muscle without showing flesh (*cough* Superman *cough* Batman *cough* every Superdude costume ever), but fine, we’ll let it go. What I will NOT let go is the belief that this armor is functional, or that you can’t have sexy AF armor that shows no skin whatsoever, AND is entirely functional.
But, Scarlet Librarian, What Exactly is “Functional?”
Let’s be clear on this before we jump in. There’s a lot of bits armor needs to protect, but for the purposes of this discussion, we’ll mostly be talking about breastplates, the biggest offender of Stupid Armyr Bullshit. The point of a breastplate is to protect the squishy bits like the heart, liver, lungs…do you know how high up in the torso lungs go?
THAT HIGH. The lungs are higher up than the bust stops, which is why a functional breastplate does not STOP at the breasts, it needs to cover the full torso in order to prevent getting stabbed or shot in the lung, which is frequently lethal, by the way, almost certainly in a premodern context. Mail usually doesn’t stop an arrow, although it can reduce the damage done. That’s what plate is for.
Any breastplate that does not protect the lungs is completely non-functional, and will not be discussed here. We shall pretend these abominations simply do not exist.
Also important, although less vital, are the collarbones, which I trust you can find yourself. They’re right where many a sword swing tends to go, and yes, a piece of rebar swung at full-strength into your collarbone is going to crack if not snap it, and even mail is only going to help so much. If you are very, very lucky, you will be so hopped up on adrenaline you won’t register the pain until after it’s no longer necessary to use both your arms to protect yourself. You’ll still lose strength and mobility in that arm, and if you’re very, very unlucky, there will be nerve damage rendering it useless.
Stupid Hollywood Bullshit, But Demonstrates That a Completely Armored Woman Can Still Be Sexy AF
As many people have pointed out already, cleavaged breastplates (as seen on Gal Gadot and co. as Wondwoman), which make a dip or crease in between the boobs, are not actually functional. They’ll direct a strike, and all the force behind it, directly into the sternum, rather than deflecting it like an outwardly curved shape. As such, the following are not entirely functional, but still cover everything without rendering the wearer a shapeless hag.
Sonja (Rhona Mitra), Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. She is awarded compensation points for her excellent gauntlets, and especially for the heavy gorget protecting her neck.
Lady Sif (Jaime Alexander) from Thor. I don’t like this aesthetically, personally, and the whole “oh, we’ll just put some stupidly-light mail over her upper chest and that will take care of the GAPING OPENING at her upper chest” is bullshit, as is having mail directly over skin with no fabric or leather beneath (you’ll have mail shaped bruises and abrasions if you take a hit there, and it’s just uncomfortable even if you don’t). However, once more, completely covered (the mail at least covers the skin), still shapely.
Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson) in Jack and the Giant Slayer. The cleavage here isn’t excessive (especially in comparison to Gadot and co., whose boobs are damn near mummified), but it’s enough I can’t put it in the other categories. I also have maneuverability concerns–the pauldrons are attached at the shoulder weirdly, and the integrated turtleneck, as opposed to a separate gorget, could be problems. How the hell do you get into this thing, anyway? Body armor is typically a breastplate, which is attached to a matching backplate if you can afford it, not a bronze tunic thing. Seriously, where are the openings?
Fantasy, But Included For the Sake of Argument
Stuff that, while not entirely functional, covers everything without making the wearer look a shapeless hag, or whatever these costumers are so afraid of.
Emily Blunt as Freya in The Huntsman: WInter’s War. Again, no neck armor, and the neckline itself is a little low for my liking, but most of her torso is covered, along with her arms, which have both pauldrons on the shoulders and bazuband-style vambraces protecting her forearms and elbows. The scales are really small, which won’t protect her as well as more historically-based lamellar (see below) would, but this is is probably as good as mail, and the point remains that she’s completely covered in metal and still looks damn good. It’s also worth mentioning Freya is a scary-ass winter witch with guards around her RIDING A GODDAMN POLAR BEAR, so while this is fantasy armyr, it doesn’t have to be functional so much as look badass and sexy, and it’s doing just fine with that. While still being more functional than a lot of hands-on-Warrior-Chick armor is.
For sale by Armstreet, this is…okay, this is a really weird bastard child of late 16th-17th century stays and someone’s perception of Greek armor. I wouldn’t want to wear this in any actual combat situation, since mobility is pretty restricted, and my god, please wear some pants and something with sleeves or that shit is going to chafe, but again–Female torso, fully covered, even her neck, still a very feminine look. (And it comes with a helmet!)
Also from Armstreet. She has been granted, of all shocking things, clothing under her armor! Heavens to betsy. I’m not a huge fan of those pauldrons and the way they fit, and for this to be a wholly protective kit she’d need a chainmail coif (like a hood that also pools around the neck and upper shoulders), but we’ll roll with it, especially as the coif would cover the armor that it’s advertising here.
Really, Not Bad
Virginia Hankins, stuntie and performer at the Southern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire (and who thought that was a good name for it?). This is clearly costume armor that’s never been hit in its life (she doesn’t joust, as we’ll get to later, but rides around hitting targets, which, yes, is very difficult, and how the hell she does it with that hair I’ll never know, because mine would be trying to strangle the horse, but doesn’t require impact-resistant armor). It’s too tight-fitting to be entirely functional, because the idea here is to look badass and feminine on horseback from a distance. Fully covered. Still clearly woman-shaped.
Mia Wasikowska as Alice in Alice in Wonderland, really weird pseudo-mail sleeves that the vambrace bits are just sort of riveted to, but whatever, quite reasonable pauldrons, and even gauntlets!
Sans bunny.
Kristen Stewart as Snow White in Snow White and the Huntsman, with surprisingly better-looking mail. It’s less girly, both in the shorter and less fluffalous skirts over the hips and thighs, the embellishments, and the overall design, but SW and the H has a weird attempt to be gritty and realistically semi-medieval thing going on (which is hilarious on multiple levels). Honestly, they may have been going for borrowed dude armor here, but, again, completely covered, still looks fine. (Okay, except for that hair, nobody ever looks good with their hair scraped back directly from their forehead. That has nothing to do with the armor, the armor is fine.)
Gwendoline Christie as Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones, in a padded gambeson, mail (still stupidly light, but mail), and even a helmet! The lobstered plates coming down over her hips are too short and too narrow, but she does have something. She can’t really be described as “shapely,” but she’s not supposed to, the point is she’s mistaken for a guy with her face hidden in the helmet anyway (nor is Gwendoline Christie the most hourglassy lady to begin with). The design of the breastplate could very easily be altered to taper in more at the waist as well if you really wanted to girl up the look. (Also included because a number of fighting female friends would beat the crap out of me if I didn’t, this armor is BELOVED among them. And it really is quite schnazzy.)
Miranda Otto as Éowyn in The Lord of the Rings, also disguised as a dude, and it’s hard to get a cuirass like this to fit really snugly when it’s over accurately-sized mail. So while she doesn’t look all that girly here, she’s not supposed to, and again, like Brienne’s, this armor could be feminized without losing functionality. (There is, however, NO excuse for this hair being all over the place, NO excuse whatsoever. Tolkien SPECIFICALLY refers to her hair being braided, besides the fact that you do not, ever, want long hair around mail, because it WILL get caught and it WILL hurt; long hair worn down on your neck is really hot and sweaty and gross if you stick a metal pot on it and then run about in a very active manner; and two words, ladies and gentleman: HELMET HAIR. It’s real. It’s sweaty. It’s gross. It’s at least a little tangly even if you braid your hair, which is what very nearly every long-haired (and by that I mean even to the shoulders) woman I know who sticks her head in a metal pot and then bounces around excitedly while wearing heavy, warm protective clothing does, because HELMET HAIR. Would you play hockey, or roller-derby, or any other active sport that requires a helmet, with waist-length hair left to its own devices? I’m not even talking about how it looks when you don’t have a professional team making sure you look rugged and a bit tousled but, not, you know, sweaty and gross and afflicted by HELMET HAIR. This is just about how nasty it feels.)
Historically-Based
Nicole Leigh Verdin in Shroud. While cinched in at the waist to an impractical degree, it still follows the lines of the late-fifteenth-century Gothic armor I promise I’m getting to, so it still keeps EVERYTHING COVERED.
Valentina Cervi as Caterina Sforza Riario in Borgia, set in the 1490s. See what I mean about Brienne’s thigh protection?
Gina McKee as Caterina Sforza Riario in The Borgias, yup, still 1490s. Both the pauldrons and helmet are weird, but the breastplate is decent, and that’s the main culprit in bullshit female armor.
Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I in Elizabeth: The Golden Age. This armor is more than a century too early, but put her in period-accurate armor and you get…
Helen Mirren in Elizabeth I, an HBO minseries. The costuming in this miniseries is damn near reproduction quality, and I’m happy they went with an accurate peascod shaped breastplate because I’m an accuracy geek, but nobody has ever looked good in either a peascod doublet or a breastplate shaped like one, which is why the costume team on the appealing-to-a-broad-audience-that-just-wants-to-see-Cate-Blanchett-Look-Hot-In-Armor Golden Age went all Gothic instead.
So this is actually a gaming mini made by Thunderbolt Mountain, designed to be 12th century Rus, including lamellar (interlocking plates) armor over mail. This is actually pretty accurate except for some weird draping in the mail coif over her neck and head (and the fact that there’s nothing between the mail and her hair–DO NOT LET MAIL TOUCH YOUR HAIR, you will be very, very sad and possibly bald). Lamellar, which is I what I wear for several practical reasons not all to do with the Girl Body Thing, is awesome for female armor because of how easy it is to adjust the fit as you make it, and because of its flexibility once it’s made. My quibble here is actually that she only has a sword belt, not another belt cinched in snug around the natural waist, because that makes a HUGE difference for both men and women by getting some of the weight to settle on the hips rather than hanging off the shoulders and back.
Actual Damn Armor
Armorer Jeff Wasson’s wife Stacey, wearing early- to mid-15th century armor. As armor. Because she’s not an actress or performer, she’s a legit jouster (this is why she has the larger pauldron on the left shoulder, where she’s most likely to get hit).
Here she lands a hit on her opponent. This group used balsa-wood inserts in the lances that are designed to break on impact, the idea being that you get hit but don’t, you know, die (this is historically accurate; tournament lances were designed to break themselves, not break people). That being said, you’re still being hit with a bigass stick by someone on a galloping horse; I would bet money she’s not only taken hits in that armor but also fallen off the horse in it.
(Thomas Swynborn Dating 1412 Church of St Peter and St Paul, Little Horkesley, Essex, England.) What dude armor from the same period as Wasson’s is based on. The hourglass was in for guys as well as women, to the point that men’s clothing heavily padded the shoulders and chest to exaggerate it, which is what makes the 15th century a great period to base feminine-looking female armor on.
Other examples of extant (and thus made for dudes) armor that would make excellent inspiration for functional and feminine armor, JUST SAYING, PROFESSIONAL COSTUMERS, is from the late 15th century, google “gothic armor” for more:
15th c. German,courtesy of Dr. Andrea Carloni (Rimini, Italy), AAF ID.
1470 Leeds, UK, Royal Armouries, II.168, composite armour “alla tedesca”, breastplate formerly in Churburg, Milano and Brescia Images courtesy of Igor Zeler*, AAF ID.
1484 – Vienna, Austria, Kunsthistorisches Museum, A 62, armour for Archduke Sigismund von Tirol, by Lorenz Helmschmid, Augsburg Front image courtesy of Blaz Berlec, AAF ID.
No attribution, but typical of late 15th c. and holy shit, gorgeous. Look at me, I’m a pretty, pretty badass!
In Conclusion
Armor: Can be feminine, functional, and hot at the same damn time, without showing any skin. And while I’m of the opinion that armor needs to look functional for the wearer to be badass, and that wearing a metal swimsuit makes the wearer look ridiculous and neither badass nor sexy, I recognize that when catering to mainstream audience, female characters frequently need to look sexy as well as functionally badass. That’s the reality in Hollywood right now, like it or not. I do NOT recognize that skin is necessary for this, or that bullshit fantasy armyr is, because holy shit, how hot would Lady Badass look in some of that Gothic stuff? SMOKING hot. All the more so because it would be completely functional.
Just saying, costume designers and denizens of the internet. Just saying.
When creating fictional female armor, the designers can go literally anywhere on the scale between “Stupid Hollywood Bullshit” and “Actual Damn Armor” and not worry about the character losing her femininity or sex appeal, if they do their job right. All without showing an inch of randomly exposed skin.
Things like flaunted cleavage or suspiciously uncovered thighs are a dead giveaway that whoever approved the costume just opted for “sexy” shortcuts. They really highlight that the sole priority was to convey generic “hotness”.
First of all, this is not an argument that women’s armor in media should be the same as dudes’ armor. Most main characters are supposed to look attractive most of the time they’re on screen; whether because of social or biological conditioning, the bulk added by armor on dudes’ chests and shoulders hottens them up. Dudes in practical armor still meet the hotness standards they’re held to. Women, however, genuinely are trickier to armor up without losing the hourglass figure or lean lines expected by their hotness standards. That’s a thing. Whatever you may think of it, it’s a thing. And it’s not like anybody ever gets a closed-face helmet.
TRICKIER. Not impossible, and I’m looking at you, director Patty Jenkins and costume designer Lindy Hemmings of Wonder Woman.
Honestly, I would have just let this bullshit armor go as typical Hollywood bullshit armyr, but Jenkins made the mistake of arguing, “To me, they shouldn’t be dressed in armor like men […]It should be different. It should be authentic and real – and appealing to women.”
Authentic and real, my functional-armored ass, and yes, I have armor for swordfighting, and yes, it’s damn well functional because I have a thing about avoiding cracked ribs and collarbones. They hurt.
Jenkins is open about the heels and leg exposure being wish-fulfillment, which is stupid, because you can show off muscle without showing flesh (*cough* Superman *cough* Batman *cough* every Superdude costume ever), but fine, we’ll let it go. What I will NOT let go is the belief that this armor is functional, or that you can’t have sexy AF armor that shows no skin whatsoever, AND is entirely functional.
But, Scarlet Librarian, What Exactly is “Functional?”
Let’s be clear on this before we jump in. There’s a lot of bits armor needs to protect, but for the purposes of this discussion, we’ll mostly be talking about breastplates, the biggest offender of Stupid Armyr Bullshit. The point of a breastplate is to protect the squishy bits like the heart, liver, lungs…do you know how high up in the torso lungs go?
THAT HIGH. The lungs are higher up than the bust stops, which is why a functional breastplate does not STOP at the breasts, it needs to cover the full torso in order to prevent getting stabbed or shot in the lung, which is frequently lethal, by the way, almost certainly in a premodern context. Mail usually doesn’t stop an arrow, although it can reduce the damage done. That’s what plate is for.
Any breastplate that does not protect the lungs is completely non-functional, and will not be discussed here. We shall pretend these abominations simply do not exist.
Also important, although less vital, are the collarbones, which I trust you can find yourself. They’re right where many a sword swing tends to go, and yes, a piece of rebar swung at full-strength into your collarbone is going to crack if not snap it, and even mail is only going to help so much. If you are very, very lucky, you will be so hopped up on adrenaline you won’t register the pain until after it’s no longer necessary to use both your arms to protect yourself. You’ll still lose strength and mobility in that arm, and if you’re very, very unlucky, there will be nerve damage rendering it useless.
Stupid Hollywood Bullshit, But Demonstrates That a Completely Armored Woman Can Still Be Sexy AF
As many people have pointed out already, cleavaged breastplates (as seen on Gal Gadot and co. as Wondwoman), which make a dip or crease in between the boobs, are not actually functional. They’ll direct a strike, and all the force behind it, directly into the sternum, rather than deflecting it like an outwardly curved shape. As such, the following are not entirely functional, but still cover everything without rendering the wearer a shapeless hag.
Sonja (Rhona Mitra), Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. She is awarded compensation points for her excellent gauntlets, and especially for the heavy gorget protecting her neck.
Lady Sif (Jaime Alexander) from Thor. I don’t like this aesthetically, personally, and the whole “oh, we’ll just put some stupidly-light mail over her upper chest and that will take care of the GAPING OPENING at her upper chest” is bullshit, as is having mail directly over skin with no fabric or leather beneath (you’ll have mail shaped bruises and abrasions if you take a hit there, and it’s just uncomfortable even if you don’t). However, once more, completely covered (the mail at least covers the skin), still shapely.
Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson) in Jack and the Giant Slayer. The cleavage here isn’t excessive (especially in comparison to Gadot and co., whose boobs are damn near mummified), but it’s enough I can’t put it in the other categories. I also have maneuverability concerns–the pauldrons are attached at the shoulder weirdly, and the integrated turtleneck, as opposed to a separate gorget, could be problems. How the hell do you get into this thing, anyway? Body armor is typically a breastplate, which is attached to a matching backplate if you can afford it, not a bronze tunic thing. Seriously, where are the openings?
Fantasy, But Included For the Sake of Argument
Stuff that, while not entirely functional, covers everything without making the wearer look a shapeless hag, or whatever these costumers are so afraid of.
Emily Blunt as Freya in The Huntsman: WInter’s War. Again, no neck armor, and the neckline itself is a little low for my liking, but most of her torso is covered, along with her arms, which have both pauldrons on the shoulders and bazuband-style vambraces protecting her forearms and elbows. The scales are really small, which won’t protect her as well as more historically-based lamellar (see below) would, but this is is probably as good as mail, and the point remains that she’s completely covered in metal and still looks damn good. It’s also worth mentioning Freya is a scary-ass winter witch with guards around her RIDING A GODDAMN POLAR BEAR, so while this is fantasy armyr, it doesn’t have to be functional so much as look badass and sexy, and it’s doing just fine with that. While still being more functional than a lot of hands-on-Warrior-Chick armor is.
For sale by Armstreet, this is…okay, this is a really weird bastard child of late 16th-17th century stays and someone’s perception of Greek armor. I wouldn’t want to wear this in any actual combat situation, since mobility is pretty restricted, and my god, please wear some pants and something with sleeves or that shit is going to chafe, but again–Female torso, fully covered, even her neck, still a very feminine look. (And it comes with a helmet!)
Also from Armstreet. She has been granted, of all shocking things, clothing under her armor! Heavens to betsy. I’m not a huge fan of those pauldrons and the way they fit, and for this to be a wholly protective kit she’d need a chainmail coif (like a hood that also pools around the neck and upper shoulders), but we’ll roll with it, especially as the coif would cover the armor that it’s advertising here.
Really, Not Bad
Virginia Hankins, stuntie and performer at the Southern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire (and who thought that was a good name for it?). This is clearly costume armor that’s never been hit in its life (she doesn’t joust, as we’ll get to later, but rides around hitting targets, which, yes, is very difficult, and how the hell she does it with that hair I’ll never know, because mine would be trying to strangle the horse, but doesn’t require impact-resistant armor). It’s too tight-fitting to be entirely functional, because the idea here is to look badass and feminine on horseback from a distance. Fully covered. Still clearly woman-shaped.
Mia Wasikowska as Alice in Alice in Wonderland, really weird pseudo-mail sleeves that the vambrace bits are just sort of riveted to, but whatever, quite reasonable pauldrons, and even gauntlets!
Sans bunny.
Kristen Stewart as Snow White in Snow White and the Huntsman, with surprisingly better-looking mail. It’s less girly, both in the shorter and less fluffalous skirts over the hips and thighs, the embellishments, and the overall design, but SW and the H has a weird attempt to be gritty and realistically semi-medieval thing going on (which is hilarious on multiple levels). Honestly, they may have been going for borrowed dude armor here, but, again, completely covered, still looks fine. (Okay, except for that hair, nobody ever looks good with their hair scraped back directly from their forehead. That has nothing to do with the armor, the armor is fine.)
Gwendoline Christie as Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones, in a padded gambeson, mail (still stupidly light, but mail), and even a helmet! The lobstered plates coming down over her hips are too short and too narrow, but she does have something. She can’t really be described as “shapely,” but she’s not supposed to, the point is she’s mistaken for a guy with her face hidden in the helmet anyway (nor is Gwendoline Christie the most hourglassy lady to begin with). The design of the breastplate could very easily be altered to taper in more at the waist as well if you really wanted to girl up the look. (Also included because a number of fighting female friends would beat the crap out of me if I didn’t, this armor is BELOVED among them. And it really is quite schnazzy.)
Miranda Otto as Éowyn in The Lord of the Rings, also disguised as a dude, and it’s hard to get a cuirass like this to fit really snugly when it’s over accurately-sized mail. So while she doesn’t look all that girly here, she’s not supposed to, and again, like Brienne’s, this armor could be feminized without losing functionality. (There is, however, NO excuse for this hair being all over the place, NO excuse whatsoever. Tolkien SPECIFICALLY refers to her hair being braided, besides the fact that you do not, ever, want long hair around mail, because it WILL get caught and it WILL hurt; long hair worn down on your neck is really hot and sweaty and gross if you stick a metal pot on it and then run about in a very active manner; and two words, ladies and gentleman: HELMET HAIR. It’s real. It’s sweaty. It’s gross. It’s at least a little tangly even if you braid your hair, which is what very nearly every long-haired (and by that I mean even to the shoulders) woman I know who sticks her head in a metal pot and then bounces around excitedly while wearing heavy, warm protective clothing does, because HELMET HAIR. Would you play hockey, or roller-derby, or any other active sport that requires a helmet, with waist-length hair left to its own devices? I’m not even talking about how it looks when you don’t have a professional team making sure you look rugged and a bit tousled but, not, you know, sweaty and gross and afflicted by HELMET HAIR. This is just about how nasty it feels.)
Historically-Based
Nicole Leigh Verdin in Shroud. While cinched in at the waist to an impractical degree, it still follows the lines of the late-fifteenth-century Gothic armor I promise I’m getting to, so it still keeps EVERYTHING COVERED.
Valentina Cervi as Caterina Sforza Riario in Borgia, set in the 1490s. See what I mean about Brienne’s thigh protection?
Gina McKee as Caterina Sforza Riario in The Borgias, yup, still 1490s. Both the pauldrons and helmet are weird, but the breastplate is decent, and that’s the main culprit in bullshit female armor.
Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I in Elizabeth: The Golden Age. This armor is more than a century too early, but put her in period-accurate armor and you get…
Helen Mirren in Elizabeth I, an HBO minseries. The costuming in this miniseries is damn near reproduction quality, and I’m happy they went with an accurate peascod shaped breastplate because I’m an accuracy geek, but nobody has ever looked good in either a peascod doublet or a breastplate shaped like one, which is why the costume team on the appealing-to-a-broad-audience-that-just-wants-to-see-Cate-Blanchett-Look-Hot-In-Armor Golden Age went all Gothic instead.
So this is actually a gaming mini made by Thunderbolt Mountain, designed to be 12th century Rus, including lamellar (interlocking plates) armor over mail. This is actually pretty accurate except for some weird draping in the mail coif over her neck and head (and the fact that there’s nothing between the mail and her hair–DO NOT LET MAIL TOUCH YOUR HAIR, you will be very, very sad and possibly bald). Lamellar, which is I what I wear for several practical reasons not all to do with the Girl Body Thing, is awesome for female armor because of how easy it is to adjust the fit as you make it, and because of its flexibility once it’s made. My quibble here is actually that she only has a sword belt, not another belt cinched in snug around the natural waist, because that makes a HUGE difference for both men and women by getting some of the weight to settle on the hips rather than hanging off the shoulders and back.
Actual Damn Armor
Armorer Jeff Wasson’s wife Stacey, wearing early- to mid-15th century armor. As armor. Because she’s not an actress or performer, she’s a legit jouster (this is why she has the larger pauldron on the left shoulder, where she’s most likely to get hit).
Here she lands a hit on her opponent. This group used balsa-wood inserts in the lances that are designed to break on impact, the idea being that you get hit but don’t, you know, die (this is historically accurate; tournament lances were designed to break themselves, not break people). That being said, you’re still being hit with a bigass stick by someone on a galloping horse; I would bet money she’s not only taken hits in that armor but also fallen off the horse in it.
(Thomas Swynborn Dating 1412 Church of St Peter and St Paul, Little Horkesley, Essex, England.) What dude armor from the same period as Wasson’s is based on. The hourglass was in for guys as well as women, to the point that men’s clothing heavily padded the shoulders and chest to exaggerate it, which is what makes the 15th century a great period to base feminine-looking female armor on.
Other examples of extant (and thus made for dudes) armor that would make excellent inspiration for functional and feminine armor, JUST SAYING, PROFESSIONAL COSTUMERS, is from the late 15th century, google “gothic armor” for more:
15th c. German,courtesy of Dr. Andrea Carloni (Rimini, Italy), AAF ID.
1470 Leeds, UK, Royal Armouries, II.168, composite armour “alla tedesca”, breastplate formerly in Churburg, Milano and Brescia Images courtesy of Igor Zeler*, AAF ID.
1484 – Vienna, Austria, Kunsthistorisches Museum, A 62, armour for Archduke Sigismund von Tirol, by Lorenz Helmschmid, Augsburg Front image courtesy of Blaz Berlec, AAF ID.
No attribution, but typical of late 15th c. and holy shit, gorgeous. Look at me, I’m a pretty, pretty badass!
In Conclusion
Armor: Can be feminine, functional, and hot at the same damn time, without showing any skin. And while I’m of the opinion that armor needs to look functional for the wearer to be badass, and that wearing a metal swimsuit makes the wearer look ridiculous and neither badass nor sexy, I recognize that when catering to mainstream audience, female characters frequently need to look sexy as well as functionally badass. That’s the reality in Hollywood right now, like it or not. I do NOT recognize that skin is necessary for this, or that bullshit fantasy armyr is, because holy shit, how hot would Lady Badass look in some of that Gothic stuff? SMOKING hot. All the more so because it would be completely functional.
Just saying, costume designers and denizens of the internet. Just saying.
When creating fictional female armor, the designers can go literally anywhere on the scale between “Stupid Hollywood Bullshit” and “Actual Damn Armor” and not worry about the character losing her femininity or sex appeal, if they do their job right. All without showing an inch of randomly exposed skin.
Things like flaunted cleavage or suspiciously uncovered thighs are a dead giveaway that whoever approved the costume just opted for “sexy” shortcuts. They really highlight that the sole priority was to convey generic “hotness”.
