"We wear fur coats, in the Summertime. So ice cold, that we don't mind!"
— Hooligans Never Say Die
When a character is An Ice Person, has a Freeze Ray, or uses other means to Kill It with Ice, he tends to go one of two ways when it comes to costuming, wearing either a properly warm arctic suit (in a lovely blue/black/white color scheme), or a... bathing suit?
Why the opposite extremes? Well, getting decked out for cold weather makes sense when the cold-wielding character is still a warm-blooded person, so it provides insurance against being hoist by their own petard. However, if they happen to be an Elemental Embodiment of Ice/Cold, then there's no need for protection from the elements, so they can cavort around in summer beach wear during a cold spell. Interestingly, just because he or she doesn't need to wear cold protection gear doesn't mean they won't indulge in an excuse to be Pretty in Mink!
Special mention goes to characters who wear heat proofing gear to avoid overheating or being melted by Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors savvy foes, as Mr. Freeze demonstrates in the page image. Ice suits also tend to be blue because Blue Means Cold.
Compare Stylish Protection Gear, Winter Royal Lady, Happy Holidays Dress, Sexy Santa Dress, Fur Bikini, Pelts of the Barbarian, Clothes Make the Superman.
Do not confuse with Impossibly Cool Clothes, though there may be some overlap. Also not to be confused with Elemental Armor, which would involve the character actually wearing ice as their clothing.
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Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Dororon Enma-kun: Yukiko-Hime wears a very short Yukata, a pair of sandals, and nothing else.
- Gray Fullbuster from Fairy Tail was conditioned by his training to be completely immune to cold, but tends to leave him feeling uncomfortably warm in what others would consider pleasant temperatures, and so he tends to forgo the shirts and long pants... That is to say, he has a habit of reflexively stripping down to his skivvies, much to his guildmates' annoyance.
- Ghiaccio from Jojos Bizarre Adventure Golden Wind is a variant: the primary manifestation of his Stand, White Album, is a suit of armor that can lower the temperature of Ghiaccio's general location. However, the interior is insulated to be comfortably warm since he doesn't have any special resistance to cold.
- Shoto Todoroki's hero costume in My Hero Academia includes a temperature regulator that heats up or cools down to help mitigate the risk of frostbite or heatstroke, both side effects of overusing his powers.
- The ice dress in Prétear.
Comic Books
- Batman: Mr. Freeze in just about any continuity wears an environment protection suit to protect himself from... mild warmth. Due to an accident he can't exist in temperatures above freezing, so the only time he's ever out of his suit is if the area is solidly frozen. The suit also has a practical function of augmenting Freeze's strength and durability, making him a physical match for Batman.
- The irony is played up in the animated movie Sub-Zero, where he wears summer gear and swims in simple trunks at his lair in the Arctic.
- Legion of Super-Heroes: Polar Boy goes for the "warm clothing" variant, but there's a twist in the reason why - his people developed their cold powers because their home planet is so hot. So the temperate climate of an Earthlike world is highly uncomfortable to him.
- Justice League International: Ice actually pinballs between both ends of this trope, but usually leans closer to the first description; she's mainly seen in a snug bodysuit that completely covers her skin, but it has been cut in a variety of ways.
- Firestorm:
- The Louise Lincoln Killer Frost's costume, which is basically a fur-trimmed swimsuit. This is justified by her powers— she absorbs heat and turns it into cold. The version of her in the page picture from Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, as well as Justice League, uses a bikini and a one-piece, respectively. While she sometimes complains about how cold her powers make her, there's no sense in her wrapping up, because she doesn't generate any heat for warm clothes to trap, and if anything risk blocking external heat out.
- The Caitlin Snow Killer Frost's costume is somewhere in the middle; she wears a long coat with a fur trim along the neck, but underneath it she wears a black tank top that leaves her midriff exposed.
- The Flash:
- Captain Cold wears a blue and white set of arctic gear, which is pretty helpful since he's a normal human whose shtick is to use a Freeze Ray.
- Golden Glider, sister of Captain Cold, is also an ice-themed villain (though the ice motif has been downplayed since her original appearance, at least until she began pairing up with Chilblaines), though despite her's also being derived from tech she instead chooses to use an ice-skater motif, wearing a short dress with a low neckline. Somewhat justified as she is actually an Olympic level ice skater so this is the clothes she's used to wearing in such environments, and her ice abilities are largely based around creating ice she can skate on, even defying gravity.
- Wonder Woman Vol 1: Minister Blizzard wears an ice-like helmet, cape and briefs, going in the wearing nearly nothing direction of ice themed outfits.
- X-Men: Iceman. Technically he's wearing clothes under his ice-body, but when he's iced up he looks like he's pretty much in the buff.
- In the old days, he wasn't. Getting his ice coating broken or melted left him in his boxers. He doesn't get a proper costume until well into his stint with the Champions. As is common for X-characters suffering Clothing Damage, he doesn't get too embarrassed by it.
Fan Works
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: Ami fits her ice golems, who look like her, with chainmail made of ice, for modesty.
Films — Animated
- Frozen: Elsa makes a dress for herself made of ice. It's a rather slinky dress (save for the long, flowing cape), but, hey, the cold never bothered her anyway, so it's okay.
- Frozone of The Incredibles wields ice powers and wears a suit tailored to his abilities, like goggles to protect his eyes from snow blindness.
Literature
- Doc Savage and his trusty men are able to walk briskly across Antarctica in "The South Pole Terror" just by covering their skin with a substance developed by their genius leader.
- Jadis in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe demonstrates quite a love for winter finery, but is herself the cause of all the cold and dresses that way only as part of her Requisite Royal Regalia. The movie even has her ice-crown slowly melt after the Pevensies return.
- As a priestess of the Fire-and-Light god Rh'llor, Melissandre of A Song of Ice and Fire always wears the same revealing open dress everywhere. This includes the top of a 700-foot (215 meter) ice wall. In her own words: "I am never cold."
Live-Action TV
- In addition to the aforementioned Melisandre, the White Walkers in Game of Thrones wear little if anything (their book counterparts wear literal ice suits as armor).
Professional Wrestling
- Alex Koslov and Rocky Romero's ice powers are (probably) in their heads, but it's Forever Hooligan's excuse for wearing coats in blistering heat.
- Lady Frost wears both examples, coming to the ring in fancy fur coats and stripping down to a one piece with a hole over her stomach and a Cleavage Window. Later the cleavage window got a screen that was obscured with painted on frost.
Video Games
- Freon, ruling monarch of the frozen realm of Poleria in Bloodstorm, goes shirtless even in his own homeland, due to being literally made of ice.
- Body Blows: Warra is the cryokinetic king of an eternally frozen domain on one side of a Tidally Locked Planet. In addition to being able to freeze opponents with his cold breath he also creates a suit of snow and ice to protect himself.
- Recurring summon Shiva from the Final Fantasy series has a very regal aura, but rarely wears more than is necessary to retain her modesty.
- And sometimes not even that much; creative angles or Barbie Doll Anatomy prevent the player from seeing something that might upset the Moral Guardians.
- Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and its sequel are rare subversions, however, as their incarnation of Shiva wears icy full-body plate armor with a visored helmet along with a sword and shield.
- Nuclear Winter and his female minions from Freedom Force dress in stylish warm clothing.
- Genki Girl Kula Diamond from The King of Fighters wears a leather bodysuit as combat attire.
- In The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Death Mountain has a special version of the monster Hinox, wearing a thick blue coat instead of a red sleeveless jacket and throwing snowballs instead of bombs.
- Ice Man from Mega Man can generate ice and is dressed in a blue and white Arctic gear. It would be justified since his original job was Arctic investigation. In case you're wondering why a robot would need protective clothing, the reason is that frost can still damage machinery, especially if it uses any sort of liquid for cooling (when it's not in arctic weather), hydraulic pressure system for movement, or water tank for it to manipulate ice.
- In Mortal Kombat, Sub-Zero and his student Frost wear leather ninja gear that tends to expose quite a bit of flesh. Of course, being ice manipulators, they don't ever get cold.
- Mei, from Overwatch, wears a thick set of arctic gear. Partly due to Limited Wardrobe (her former job was as an arctic researcher), partly to avoid Hoist by His Own Petard (she wields a Freeze Ray).
- The Ice Climbers are a pair of Eskimo children wearing parkas.
You may best remember them from Super Smash Bros..
- There are two ice-associated characters in Touhou Project. Cirno only ever wears a light dress, but Letty Whiterock is probably the most heavily dressed character in the series. She is a Yuki-Onna, a creature of Japanese folklore which is basically a snow siren.
- Red Alert 3: Cryo Legionnaires wear Power Armor more advanced than the Soviets', being able to Walk on Water and jump up cliffs, along with spraying liquid nitrogen that quickly freezes anything caught in it. Naturally, the man in the suit speaks with an exaggerated Austrian accent with so, so many ice puns.
Webcomics
- Girl Genius: In a winter seasonal poster, Agatha is walking in a winter scene, and dressed in a fur-trimmed coat full of strange mechanical trimmings, including a crown made of small, old fashioned power conduits.
- Ménage à 3: Pro wrestler Tess has An Ice Person theme to her ring persona, so she wears a version of the bathing-ice suit in the ring, with a fur-trimmed jacket sometimes worn over it.
Web Original
- Deviant: The cryokinetic Blizzard wears a bulky, heated ice suit - though she also has the secondary power of being unaffected by temperature, so she doesn't particularly need the suit.
Western Animation
- Mr. Cool, a villain on Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, dressed for a tropical climate. His henchmen, however, wore Anorak parkas.
- Iceman in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends usually wears standard street clothes but when he transforms he appears to be wearing just trunks. What happens to his street clothes in transformation is never discussed.
- In Tabaluga, the Snowlem Evil Overlord Arktos needs to wear a cooling suit whenever he goes to Greenland or the desert, so he won't thaw and die.
- The opening scene from the first episode of Young Justice features a string of attacks from four ice-themed villains: Mr. Freeze, Icicle Jr., Killer Frost and Captain Cold. Unlike above, it's not Killer Frost who's the least-dressed, but Icicle Jr.
