Fluffy Fashion Feathers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Presenting A Pleasing Plethora Of Pretty, Primped, Peacocked Plumage.


Wearing feathers for, fashion. There aren't any ceremonial reasons for trying to look/be like a bird, the feathers are being worn just to look nice. Whether wearing large plumes or trimmings of down feathers, it's all fashionable, in fiction or in Real Life.

Common forms are feathers on hand fans, feather boas, plumes on hats, trimming a rich lady's nightgown, trimming Pimped Out Dresses, trimming Sexy Santa Dresses, and trimming sexy lingerie. The latter two also make this trope Fetish Fuel.

Common in Costume Porn.

A Sister Trope to Pretty in Mink (in that many times feathers are worn in a similar way as fur).

Finally, any examples of Peacock Girl, where the feathers are worn instead of a character having a peacock tail, would be examples of this.

Compare Gold Makes Everything Shiny, Feather Motif.

Examples of Fluffy Fashion Feathers include:


Anime & Manga


Comics

  • Recent DC Comics stories set in 1880s Gotham City have shown Mayor Theodore Cobblepot with a feather in his top hat, and his coat seems to be lined with plumage rather than fur; an ironic Call Forward to his descendant's fondness for birds.


Film


Live Action TV


Professional Wrestling


Theatre

  • Takarazuka productions are also rife with this. Just look them up on YouTube.
  • The 1992 production of Guys and Dolls had chicken costumes for "A Bushel and a Peck" that involved large feather tails.
  • The "traditional" Las Vegas showgirl wears loads with many of her outfits (often in tandem with a Showgirl Skirt).


Toys

  • Barbie has some outfits with feathers.


Video Games

  • Yuna's wedding dress in Final Fantasy X.
  • Edea's dress in Final Fantasy VIII
  • Lightning's new outfit in Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a Showgirl Skirt of white feathers.
  • Aya of OneChanbara wears a feather boa and feather-trimmed bikini.
  • The empress's dress in Skies of Arcadia.
  • Ling Xiaoyu's dress in Tekken 5 and 6.
  • Alita Tiala from Apollo Justice Ace Attorney wears a dress with white feathers on her chest arranged like angel wings, to make her seem sweet and innocent. But like previous seemingly pure and innocent characters, she wasn't, killing that one guy and trying to frame her fiancee.
  • Rare male example: Balder from Bayonetta wears not only peacock feathers, but enormous peacock feathers... that come from a dead white peacock he has draped over his shoulder. The feathers later become a part of him when he goes One-Winged Angel (or Twelve Winged Angel, in this case) for his Boss Battle.
    • Then there's Jeanne, who has enormous feather tassels on the ends of her guns for most of the game.
  • Dance Dance Revolution (Wii) has a sexy angel dress trimmed with white or black feathers, and a similarly trimmed hand fan.
  • Gwendolyn's Battle Ballgown in Odin Sphere.
  • The showgirl in Bloody Good Time.
  • Morrigan of Dragon Age has crow feathers on her ridiculous patchwork outfit, a reference to the Celtic goddess. Anders and Merrill, the mage party members from Dragon Age II, both wear gray feathered pauldrons on their shoulders. This ties into the symbolism of the Feather Motif; as mages, both live in fear of being hunted down and imprisoned for the rest of their lives, and freedom for all mages is Anders's primary motivation. Furthermore, Anders eventually starts wearing black feathers, bringing him closer to the evil/death Ravens and Crows motif (Merrill even tells him he looks like a crow), symbolizing his corruption by the demon of Vengeance possessing him and his decision to blow up the Chantry.


Web Original


Western Animation

  • A George of the Jungle story told of the Oo-oo Birds, whose tail feathers had the effect of making the women who wore them look gorgeous, resulting in a rash of poachers plucking the hapless birds.
  • The Dinoco girls from Cars.


Real Life

  • Feather earrings and hats with feathers on are often in fashion. Same for handbags with feather decoration.
    • These hats were very popular in the early 20th century. It had the effect of decimating entire populations of herons, egrets, and other birds with fancy plumage.
  • The Fairytale Wedding Dress worn by Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari, the second wife of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. See it here and here.
  • The pink dress that Angie Harmon wore to the 2011 Screen Actors Guild Awards had a feather neckline and feather skirt. Also the designer based it off an earlier wedding dress she made.
  • Cee-Lo Green's performance at the 2011 Grammy Awards used rainbow-colored feathers.
  • Bjork's infamous and oft-parodied swan dress that she wore to the Oscars one year. It wasn't just feathers; she rocked the whole bird.
  • Beyoncé wore a show Fairytale Wedding Dress with a feather-trimmed skirt at the 2009 BET awards.
  • The extravagant costumes worn by The Mummers during their annual New Year's Day parade in Philadelphia. Each individual costume has dozens of ostrich feathers, each of which can cost as much as $5. And since some of the clubs have several dozen performers marching down Broad St. in a performance...
  • Several outfits worn by female dancers during the Brazillian carnival sport giant, peacocked back feathers.