Previous TRS thread that led to the creation of this trope
Personally I think 'iconic' is what is the problem here it's way too opinionated. Signature Outfit would probably be a lot better for a name, it's their outfit and that's what they appear in 99% of the time even in all promotional materials. All appearance and Weapon Of Choice tropes really only apply to this outfit not the one they appeared in for 1 panel in X random chapter.
Now a Signature Outfit Shout Out I think is a fully valid trope but a different one than this one, more related to Cosplay and potentially DLC Costume Crossover and Instant Cosplay Surprise.
Stuff like the Falcom DLC
◊ [1]
◊ in Dead Or Alive 5 Last Round.
edited 12th Jan '17 12:04:56 PM by Memers
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
While I would agree with "it's the costume they wear the most", there are also cases where an outfit that they only wear for special occasions (or even for just exactly one time) becomes a hit with the fans. Like a variant of One-Scene Wonder.
Now what would we do with that?
We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.
Then it's not their signature outfit. It would be some other trope and getting all Tuxedo Suited Up and such outside their normal outfit would be a trope in of itself.
Could there be two Signature outfits? Yes, in special cases like say Cinderella and the tatters and the dress both got pretty equal billing in and outside of the movie.
So I guess the problem is like Ensemble Dark Horse vs Breakout Character - the former is when the minor character is popular and the latter is when the minor character becomes major because they are popular.
So here... does this count outfits that are well-known to fans or outfits that become featured a lot because they're well-known to fans?
We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.
How about we limited this trope to the 3rd way it's being used? Something like Promotional Outfit? Where a character wears or (with videogames) can wear multiple outfits but cover art and ads only feature them in one of them.
Raven Wilder
That seems far too limiting. A character wearing a certain outfit a lot, to the point that the character becomes highly associated with that outfit (and vice-versa) is very much a real, tropeworthy thing.
"It takes an idiot to do cool things, that's why it's cool" - Haruhara Haruko
To the audience or in-story?
Not just that, sometimes it goes cyclic: audience identify with a certain outfit a lot that it becomes used more in official works.
This page is too vague then because "character associated with one outfit" can be trope or an audience reaction.
edited 19th Jan '17 11:23:16 AM by captainpat
Clock is ticking.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
After reading the previous TRS thread, I'm not sure that the definition was really agreed upon... Posters said that the trope definition should be objective, but the first line in the description says "sticks in the viewer's mind for whatever reason", which is very audience-dependent.
Would it be helpful to rewrite the definition?
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Zero progress so far, so closing.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
This trope has a couple problems.
Its description doesn't explain how exactly the trope manifests in works.
A lot of the examples and entries seem to fall under three categories 1) just a simple descriptions of the characters outfits 2) An outfit a character always wears 3) the outfit appears in other media: adaptations, ShoutOuts, or advertisements despite, in some cases, such as video games with Character Customization, not being the character's only outfit.
Wick check results (50 wicks out of 905 total):
Description of outfit (29)
Outfit character always wears (12)
Outfit appears in other media (9)