Fashion-Forward: The Legend of Zelda

Fashion choices in the gamerverse has been brutally ignored until very recently. Meanwhile, characters like Link, Zelda and Ganondorf have been working hard on their outfits.

By Andrew Hsieh. Posted 08/20/2010 16:00 6 Comments     ShareThis

Regality at its finest. Check out that embroidery.

In the age of American Apparel, it’s easy to find hipsters left and right, looking like they jumped straight out of Leave It to Beaver, except with astonishingly brighter colors and/or ridiculously shiny fabrics– which is why a character with an outfit like Princess Zelda’s is such a breath of fresh air. Zelda’s outfit may, at first glance, seem in line with the American Apparel philosophy– essentially, throwing basics together in bold, possibly slightly insane, new ways. After all, Zelda’s essentially wearing a magnolia dress with a wisteria bodice– the kind of thing found at thrift stores the world over. Fortunately for Zelda fans, the good princess knows how to put her own spin on things.


Zelda disapproves of such casual frivolity.

Zelda goes a step further than American Apparel, while losing none of the relevance in the process. While American Apparel’s been known to be highly polarizing among the sartorial– it’s a love-it-or-hate-it affair, most of the time– nobody can deny the brilliant quality of Princess Zelda’s outfit. It’s all in the details: the golden Hyrulian crest, as well as the elusive Triforce, top off a beautiful blue portion of her dress, shaped somewhat like a blade– warning onlookers that Zelda, despite her regal looks, wields some massive magical power. (That’s if the sword doesn’t scare them off already.) The curved embroidery of a darker shade fills out the rest of the blade, echoed in similar embroidery on the edges of Zelda’s dress, which was clearly sewn in by the best of Hylian tailors. What looks like the hilt of a sword– or is it a pair of scales?– provides a grounding center to the whole outfit, literally pointing the way to both the lavish embroidery of Zelda’s dress and her upper torso, which is decked out with actual armor.

Let’s talk a little more about accessories, actually. As anyone who’s played an MMORPG knows, it’s not all about the stats your gear gives you– a huge part of character customization involves actually being able to look good in front of fellow players. Zelda’s got that covered– her shoulders, as we’ve discovered, are decked out in what looks like bronze plate (with embroidery-like designs of their own; Zelda’s a big fan of that), and her arms are well-decorated, if not protected, with long white gloves with, you guessed it, embroidery. Zelda, or whoever the royal fashionista is, has clearly got her eye on the details, and in so doing exemplifies a princess that her people should feel unworthy to serve. Even her tiara, unlike the in-your-face bling that certain other Nintendo princesses might sport, is fairly conservative, though it certainly frames her face well with her braids. Zelda’s style-savvy, sure, but she also knows how to lead her people– and in her case, it all revolves around style. And maybe that famous royal self-sacrificing nature of hers.

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