Action Fashionista

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
When ass-kicking needs a little variety.


Some people like to look good. Damn good. And they like to do it while they kick ass. Take a character with those traits and you've got the Action Fashionista.

The Action Fashionista is some type of Badass partly characterized by how vast their wardrobe is. While they may have a standardized costume or uniform, they almost never seem to wear it to its strictest definition. The vast majority of their screentime features them with completely different articles of clothing, or major alterations of the same outfit. (For example, what was a blouse in one scene has become a chainmail in a later scene, a mink coat in another, and a pink-and-white jacket in another.

This trope is reserved for characters who prefer a varied and unique wardrobe. It is not for plot-related costume changes (such as an Evil Costume Switch, Frilly Upgrade or Fan Service Pack). The character must also be an active Badass or Adventurer.

May possibly be Ms. Fanservice or Mr. Fanservice. Possibly used as a means to show off that they're a Cultured Badass. Can also overlap with Kicking Ass in All Her Finery. Male examples may also be Agent Peacock.

May necessitate Changing Clothes Is a Free Action or Clothing Combat.

A subtrope of The Fashionista (naturally), and possibly of Stripperiffic, The Dandy, Costume Porn, Unlimited Wardrobe, Impossibly Cool Clothes, Custom Uniform of Sexy, and Impractically Fancy Outfit (especially if some of them are different outfits). Contrast with Limited Wardrobe.

Examples of Action Fashionista include:

Anime and Manga

  • Fairy Tail:
    • Lucy Heartfilia is constantly seen changing outfits throughout the series and while she mostly prefers adventuring in her blue-and-white default, she has been prone to wear whatever is convenient.
    • Erza Scarlet, who has over 100 outfits, and has the ability to rapidly switch between the (very fancy) powered armors, bunny suits, cat suits, dresses, pajamas, etc. she stores in Hammerspace.
  • Uryu Ishida in Bleach, who is a seamster. There's even a gag which demonstrates that he brought a change of clothes into Hueco Mundo!
  • Also Sakura from Cardcaptor Sakura. Her best friend Tomoyo is explicitly stated to make Sakura a new costume for every single clow card incident, (of which there are fifty two clow cards, though a few were caught in the same chapter/episode).
  • Mukuro Rokudo from Katekyo Hitman Reborn.

Comic Books

  • Founding Avenger and Ant-Man co-star Janet Van Dyne (aka "The Wasp") constantly makes alterations to her costume. Justified in-universe, as Wasp actually is a fashionista.
  • All of the kids from Runaways.
  • Ramona Flowers, who makes constant changes to her attire, mostly her hair.

Film

Literature

  • Inquisitor Amberly Vail from the Ciaphas Cain novels has an enormous amount of various outfits and disguises. Cain suspects she adopts them for fun as much as for subtly.
  • Malveria from Lonely Werewolf Girl books. Her species has Fashionista as its Hat. She has several dragonskin outfits made from the dragons she has personally slain, and although she acts like a high-class ditz most of the time, she occasionally likes to remind everyone she earned the right to do so by personally wiping her enemies from existence in combat.
    • And then there's her designer, Thrix, who puts up with Malveria's bizarre demands because she truly loves high fashion. She's also not just a werewolf, but an extremely powerful sorceress.
  • She might look like Little Miss Teen Model but Rachel from the series Animorphs acts like Xena: Warrior Princess.

Live Action TV

  • Buffy has an amazing wardrobe. Even when she is working at a fast food restaurant.
    • Spike and Angel as well.

Video Games

  • Robert Garcia (pictured) and Athena Asamiya from the King of Fighters series, as both change their outfits with nearly every installment. Athena even goes so far as to invoke this trope as one of her HDM's, which has her magically change into each of her outfits along with each hit.

Web Comics

  • Kanaya of Homestuck is one of the few trolls who is in any way interested in fashion, and as a result she can be seen wearing various other outfits than the default black-shirt-with-sign a lot more than the other trolls. She is also arguably one of the more Badass, and her trademark weapon is a tube of lipstick that transforms into a chainsaw.
  • Patchwork and Lace features Lilika, a monster hunter who goes into action wearing lolita-style outfits.
  • Girl Genius has Tarvek Sturmvoraus, who occasionally still spaces out over costumes and is always happy to pick on his cousin (and the other contender for the Lightning Crown) Martellus for inability to dress up as befits a noble in his opinion. Also, he's a Smoke Knight capable of taking out trained commandos — and, of course, remaining alive in his family and with the rival like Martellus (though he had more than one very close call).

Web Original

  • RWBY has Coco Adel, leader of Team CFVY: elegant, stylish, and carrying a minigun in her handbag. During the Grimm incursion into Vale at the end of volume 2, she informed an Alpha Grimm that it had to die because it had just demolished her favorite clothing shop.

Western Animation

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