Outdated Outfit: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:80suit.jpg|link=Miami Vice|
{{quote|''"Does anyone... still wear... a hat?"''
Fashion is merciless. It beguiles kings and makes them slaves. It should come as no surprise that in the space of years (if not months) a perfectly fashionable dress or suit can go from ''tres chic'' to ''horrible,'' what ''is'' surprising is when someone keeps wearing said outfit... [[Long Runners|for over fifty years!]]
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No, this is not the [[White Dwarf Starlet]], but rather a character who is [[Memetic Outfit|identified with]] a type of outfit [[Limited Wardrobe|(or just one)]] and have kept the look for far too many years without getting an update. This is common in [[Comic Books]] where the story is set in the "[[Comic Book Time|Present Day]]" and the clothes become hilariously anachronistic.
If they ever ''do'' get some new duds, expect much poking fun at their hilarious past fashion sense, while said character adamantly maintains the look is "still cool!" and it's the world that's out of touch. On the flip side, if the outdated outfit [[Grandfather Clause|has become an intrinsically linked part of the person's image]], it can lead to fans crying that [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|they should have stuck with the old clothes]].
See also [[Grandfather Clause]]. Compare [[Awesome Anachronistic Apparel]], where a character's clothes are so cool that, while they may be out of fashion, they are certainly never out of style. If a character has one oddly anachronistic detail on an otherwise unremarkable outfit, that's [[Bow Ties Are Cool]].
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See also [[Unintentional Period Piece]] and [[Popularity Polynomial]].
{{examples
== Comic Books ==
=== [[The DCU]] ===
* Jimmy Olsen sometimes still wears a blazer and bowtie in ''[[Superman]]''.
** Possibly lampshaded in ''[[All
*** [[The Flash|Barry Allen]] was also associated with a bowtie long after they were popular. With his return, Geoff Johns has Barry explaining that he had to borrow an old bowtie on the fly for a court appearance where he met his future love, Iris West, for the first time. She liked the look. He said nothing.
** Superman himself. The "shorts over tights" thing was actually the outfit worn by athletes in the early 20th century and heavily associated with circus strongmen. So the "classic super-hero look" is [[Older Than They Think|actually over a century old.]] (And ironically the way that spandex outfits are sometimes worn with shorts brings the whole trope full-circle, with reality becoming fiction becoming reality again.)
* There is a scene from an old ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (
* It's come full circle with Superboy. His leather-jacket, colorful outfit, piercings and surfer cut suggest a completely different personality than the one he was originally going for. He has updated his look a couple of times since then and is now a T-shirt and jeans kind of guy.
* The [[Beehive Hairdo]] associated with Night Girl of the Legion of Substitute Heroes.
** She did switch to 'letting her hair down' for a few years in 1970s, and again for the long-term in the early 1980s to the very end of the original Legion continuity in 1994.
=== [[Marvel Comics]] ===
* Mary
** Played for laughs in ''[[Spider-Girl]]''. After May time travels to the past accidentally she meets her mom (Mary-Jane) who, unaware she's her daughter, tells her to fix up her wardrobe. Upon returning to the present May asks her mom to take her shopping and May acknowledges her sense of fashion is horribly dated, though she's glad to spend more time with her mom. As a teenage girl, most of May's outfit are now pretty dated themselves a mere two decades after they were first drawn.
** Also in ''Spider-Man'', supporting character Captain Jean DeWolff dressed like someone out of a 1940s film noir and drove a matching vintage roadster, but that seems to have been a deliberately retro look.
* 616-verse Dazzler; it doesn't help that she was created to cash in on the disco craze. And in 1980, when disco was running down.
** Dazzler wears her 1970s costume these days, though. Apparently, her singing career got a revival, so she's all glam again.
* Misty Knight still wears a poofy 1970s-era afro (weirdly, though, it's far more exaggerated than her actual style in the '70s). [[Luke Cage, Hero for Hire|Luke Cage]], on the other hand, has managed to get his shirt buttoned all the way up.
* [[X
** In Jubilee's early appearances she was a sidekick to Wolverine. Her costume was a parody of [[Batman
** She did have a more modern costume during her time with the New Warriors.
* Flashbacks to Marvel superheroes' origins and early adventures often show them in their original 1960s civilian
* Dum Dum Dugan's trademark derby hat was already old-fashioned for his social class and nationality during World War 2.
=== [[Disney]] Comics ===
* Several examples: [[Donald Duck]]'s sailor suit, Big Bad Wolf's one-suspender-trousers and Cat-in-the-hat-hat, Daisy's bow, and so on. Admittedly, both Donald and Scrooge's outfits were supposed to be outdated from the start. Attempts to modernize them (as in ''[[
** Part of this is caused by a schism of canon among the comic writers: some of them consider the stories to still be set in the 40s and 50s while others insist that they take place in the modern world.
=== Other [[Comic Books]] ===
* ''[[Archie Comics]]'' are painfully guilty of this. Jughead's hat [http://learning2share.blogspot.com/2009/04/search-term-jugheads-hat.html was actually in style] for [[High School]] boys in the late Thirties/early 1940s. Archie's ''car'' has gone from the intended "old beater" to "classic" ''twice'' (generic 1930s tourer and early Mustang).
** In [[The Nineties]] Jughead got a backwards baseball cap. Fortunately [[The Powers That Be]] decided to change his hat back, given that [https://web.archive.org/web/20131022204816/http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/12/18/comic-book-legends-revealed-186/ he was named after it].
** Reggie's central parting seems to come and go.
* ''[[Tintin]]'':
**
**
*** Nowhere more hilarious than ''The Blue Lotus'', where they come wearing '''17th century Manchu era''' clothes, complete with ponytails and fans! The result?
{{quote|
*** They were also holding their canes behind their backs as they walked down the street, making all the more funny.
* ''[[Spirou and Fantasio
** Of course, it's lampshaded in ''Le Petit Spirou'' where every single member of Spirou's family wears the outfit 24/7. Recent takes on the series justify the clothes in different ways: in Emile Bravo's version for example, Spirou is a bell-boy operator but the reason he wears the outfit all the time is that he's too poor to buy new clothes. Meanwhile, Fantasio's fondness for bow-ties remains unexplained throughout the series.
* The ''[[Bash Street Kids]]'' from ''[[The Beano]].'' There was at least one strip where this was [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]].
** In ''[[The Beano]]'', the artists occasionally tried to 'update' the characters clothes. It usually didn't take (as with [[The Bash Street Kids]] and, to some extent, ''[[Dennis the Menace UK|Dennis the Menace]]''), but subtler changes did (as with ''[[Roger The Dodger]]'' getting long trousers).
* Swedish military-humour character 91:an Karlsson still wears a blue uniform (outdated already when he was created in the
== [[Film]] ==
* The 2009 ''[[Star Trek (
** Somewhat ironic, since the original ''[[Star Trek]]'' is supposed to be set many years in the future. (For one thing, James Kirk hasn't even "been born yet.")
* Plot-relevant in ''[[
* Steve Rogers in ''[[The Avengers (
== [[Literature]] ==
* The [[James Bond]] of the novels has a pretty good sense of timeless style, except for the ''nylon underpants''.
* In ''[[Harry Potter and
== [[Live
* The notion of an
* ''[[
** [[Joss Whedon]] originally intended all vampires to wear [[Frozen Fashion Sense|clothing matching the time period in which they died]], but realized that the concept was major [[Nightmare Retardant]]. The first episode had a passing reference to the idea, with Buffy identifying a vampire based on his 80's fashion.
** Spike has been using the same leather jacket since he looted it off of Nikki Wood and has had the same bleached hair since at least before Billy Idol, seeing as it's been mentioned in canon that Billy stole his hair from Spike.
* Captain Jack Harkness of ''[[
* [[Steve Buscemi|Tony Blundetto]] of [[The Sopranos]] went to prison in [[The Eighties]]. [[Miami Vice|It shows]].
* ''
** Fedoras and trenchcoats remained popular with older men in some of the more "traditional" eastern U.S. cities well into [[The Nineties]].
* Parodied in [[Flight of the Conchords]]. Jemaine and Bret have updated their look, with gelled hair and 80's synthpop-like clothing, which leads to this exchange;
{{quote|
Jermaine: They're not from the 70's, they're from New Zealand.
Dave: Isn't that the same thing? }}
* Captain Peacock of ''[[Are You Being Served
* At one point in ''[[The Red Green Show]]'', during a discussion of Dalton's driver's license (expired in 1994), Mike comments that his wardrobe suggests 1962.
== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==
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== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* ''[[Blondie (comic strip)|Blondie]]'': Dagwood Bumstead
* Most of the girls in ''[[Peanuts]]'' usually wear typically [[The Fifties|1950s]]-style dresses. (Lucy and Sally eventually started sporting slacks, but kept their coiffed '50s hairdos.)
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[
== [[Web Original]] ==
* In ''[[
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Freddy's orange ascot on ''[[Scooby Doo]].''
** Pretty much everyone's outfit really! Daphne and Velma when not wearing more modern duds look incredibly dated. The only one that could be said to have avoided it is Shaggy, and he's only avoided it out of
** In the animated movie ''Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase'', their clothing was updated (and carried over to ''What's New, Sccoby-Doo?''). It had a hilarious comparison between present updated Daphne and her old-style Video Game counterpart:
{{quote|
'''VG Daphne:''' That jacket, with that skirt?
'''Both:''' Hmmm... }}
*** Fred and ''his'' counterpart, on the other hand happily reminisce on the relevance of the ascot.
{{quote|
'''VG Fred:''' Works for me! }}
** When the Scooby cast appears in ''[[Harvey Birdman, Attorney
** Velma's outfit remains the same throughout, though.
* ''[[
* Lampshaded in [[The Venture Bros]]. The titular brothers (and even their father) dress in a mostly 60s pulp fashion. Same goes for Dr Orpheus (who dresses like Dracula, for lack of a better term). All of them have had their outdated duds remarked upon by people who avoid the trope.
** Dean and Hank have both remark that their fathers ''forces'' them to wear those painfully out of date clothes. They'd much rather wear something more.... normal.
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* Portuguese fashion was decades behind other countries in the 17th century, which was embarrassingly shown when a Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza, sailed to England to marry [[The House of Stuart|Charles II]].
* Likewise the [[Commie Land|Communist bloc]] during the [[Cold War]]; this was much commented on in media coverage of the fall of the [[Cold War|Berlin Wall]].
* In 16th century England, portraits and funeral images show that the fashions of the country nobility were at least 20 years behind those of the royal court in London.
* Jeff Foxworthy once did a routine on how men in general (and his father in particular) tend to tune out fashion at a certain point after marriage and parenthood and simply keep wearing old stuff; the usual timing of fashion cycles and human development mean that dads' clothes are the most horribly dated when the kids are in early adolescence.
* Jerry Seinfeld also did a bit, saying you could tell what a man's favorite year was, since that's the fashion style he'll wear for the rest of his life.
* "Throwback uniforms" began appearing among US sports teams when baseball's Chicago White Sox brought back the 1917 design for one game during the original Comiskey Park's last season in 1990. The trend quickly spread to other teams and leagues. In 1994 the [[
** Similarly in England Arsenal used a kit design based on their original colours during their final season at Highbury stadium.
** The Los Angeles Lakers tried to play a game with the uniforms from [[The Eighties]]. They changed back to their normal uniforms at half time. [http://awfulannouncing.blogspot.com/2007/12/lakers-bring-back-short-shorts-for-80s.html Short shorts on gigantic men do not work well together.]
** The Canadian
** For some reason the Tampa Bay Buccaneers trotted out throwback unis based on their infamous orange-and-white "creamsicle" look in 2010. [[Nostalgia Filter]]?
* Think you'll be immune to this if you wear a nice, conservative suit? Nice try. The cut of the jacket, the width of the lapels, and the height of the gorge (the point where the collar and lapels come together) all change drastically over the decades, and it's immediately obvious in a crowd when your suit is not the same as the ones currently in fashion. That said, you could probably get away with a [[Awesome Anachronistic Apparel|double-breasted '30s suit with a pleated back]] in a way that you couldn't with a hilariously exaggerated '70s number with a wide tie, or an '80s Power Suit. Just hope that you're at the age where you buy most of your business apparel when things are at a happy equilibrium. If not, you will look dated for the rest of your adult life.
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*** No, you won't. What about venting? Structure? Silhouette? Canvassing? Pleats? All this stuff noticeably changes the look of a suit. Fashion is persistent and inescapable, even in conservative menswear.
*** Then again, fashion can ''also'' be consistent. The basic appearance/design/template of a suit has stayed more or less intact from the 19th Century.
* Likewise, neckties. Historically, they have varied in width from 1 inch up to 6 inches, according to the whims of fashion. The pendulum has just swung to the point where all those narrow ties from [[The Sixties]] and [[The Eighties]]
** High-waistedness is coming back{{when}} for men and women, at least in America, and vests have just become extremely popular, possibly because of ''[[Mad Men]].''
* The dress uniforms worn by the Swiss Guard at the Vatican
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Costume Tropes]]
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[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]
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