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Aeris's Fashion An Indepth Look. Sort Of; (lots of images here)
Topic Started: Dec 10 2008, 11:50 PM (2,331 Views)
Alan Bates
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That one guy
For no particular reason in particular, I've decided it might be nice to more closely examine Aeris and the various outfits that's she's worn though out the series and how that reflects on her character and roles.

First let's start with the very basic original appearance for Aeris.
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The pink actually gives her a very sweet and feminine look, but it's the details that sell it.

Her "jewelry" consists of a few undecorated pieces of metal, a string necklace, and some ribbon. Very cheap stuff. This helps drive home the fact that she really doesn't have a lot of money. She is from the slums after all.

The boots show a more practical side to her. You'd need decent footwear to get around all of those bad streets and some of that rubble.

The jacket, with it's bulky shoulder pads and cold metal plating adds a bit more strength to her look. This goes well with the basic metal bracelets and thick boots in bulking her up and giving her a stronger physical presence.

As this is Aeris's only game where she plays a real physical role, this will also be the only game that she's beefed up this way.

The open dress seems a subject that's brought up in debate often, but it fits the character. In a way it can be a show of vulnerability, but it also expresses a coy bit of confidence and teasing as well as being open to allow for a greater range in movement.

(I've actually seen one idea that I liked from a fanartist that I feel like sharing on that subject. Somebody put forth the idea that Aeris probably wears spandex bicycle shorts under that dress. I'm not sure I'd agree with that, but it's intresting and plausible enough that I feel the need to mention it here.)

Moving on, or rather backwards, we get to see her as a six year old.

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As seen escaping from the Shinra with her mother, Aeris is in a brighter green dress. I thought this was odd that she would be pictured in such bright uplifting colors considering her state at the time, but I thought about it a bit and realized two things.

The first being that Aeris for the first time in her life is out of the lab and know some semblance of freedom. While they never elaborated as to how badly she may or may not have been treated, I can't imagine it was in a very nice way. So, if you want to look at it that way, for the first time she really has something to be optimistic about and her outfit should reflect it.

Of course, that's one interpretation. There's another one you may want to think of.
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Her outfit is pretty much the color of hospital scrubs.

Later in her life, we also see a flashback to when the Turks were coming to see her.
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She really didn't seem too happy with her life at this point and seemed so what in denial of her heritage and abilities. The colors she's wear are a very earthy dirty brown. Not exactly an optimistic look for her. Rather it's basic and purposely ugly color scheme. Browns. More browns and some black. Although at the same time it also seems to tie her to the dirt itself, which would show a nice growth into her flower fields as well as illustrating that she is "dirt poor" here.

Also note that this is where it seems she's started to not bother buttoning her dress all the way.

Back to the present. Going with Cloud to Wall Market, Aeris gets a chance to show off a bit.
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Here, she redoes her hair and ribbons, ditches the clunky jacket, metal bracelets, and string, and sleeks her look down considerably. She actually wears earings, high heels, and a long spaghetti strapped dress with bare shoulders. It's all a very vibrant very powerful red.

Now while the whole idea here is for them to look attractive enough to get in to see the Don, it's very noticeable the different way Aeris and Tifa present themselves here.

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Aeris presents herself with a very strong yet classy sensuality. Alluring, but powerful and still in control. Tifa on the other hand goes with an outfit that's much more reminiscent of a easy cub goer just looking to pick some one up. Granted, Tifa's intention probably was to look a bit slutty, but it's an interesting contrast all the same.

(I'd also like to add that I really wish we could get a more high definition look at their outfits, but we'd probably have to get a completley re-make to see that.)


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Later on in the game, the party makes use of disguises to sneak aboard a Shinra ship. This doesn't reflect much on Aeris's choice of outfits, as the whole team does so. Except Barret who wears a sailor suit.

This is one of the times I really wish they'd do a movie adaption of the whole game. if nothing else, it would be quite interesting to see Aeris and Tifa fight along side Cloud all in Shinra outfits. It's kinda like when Han and Luke rescued Leia on Star Wars.

At this point, we're finished with the main game itself. All other outfits would come later and would be built upon what kinds of reactions the fanbase here developed.

Except one.

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Aeris makes a surprise cameo on Final Fantasy tactics. However as the world itself is much more a dreary medieval fantasy world as opposed to a more Lovecraftian Cyberpunk world, her outfit is give a completley change.

Again, she's back in plain earth tones, (of course so is everyone else in the game) but this time is dressed with a bit more style and somewhat brighter colors than her youth from FF7. Basically though, as she's shown to be a poor peasant girl with money troubles and a minor character at best, she's really not given anything to make her stand out. She's simply a regualr flower girl.

As it would be a long time (real time) before there were anymore prequels, sequels, or spin-offs, perhaps we should talk about Aeris as depicted in the popular unoffical art produced by the fanbase.



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...

On second thought, let's not.


Let's talk about her in concept art.

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While the game itself was far from finished and apparently alot changed in development, it's still interesting seeing the old looks.

In the design phase, Aeris is missing alot of what I had previously mentioned as toughening up her look. Her boots are smaller, she lacks the bare metal, even her jacket is shown as more revealing. Essentially she's give an much more ethereal and even majestic presence. If she was shown in the game this way, more than likely she would have came across much more in the lines of your average spunky princess type. While that could have worked, I think we would have lost some of the impact of the character.

Aeris next appears in Kingdom Hearts.
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Here, she's taken out of the action almost completley and serves only as a supporting character, a role she still holds onto. Gone again is the metal bracelets, the entire jacket, and the twist in her hair is less thick. In it's place, she wears a belt that serves no purpose except to add a bit more color into her outfit and a string bracelet. Of course, taken out of a mostly negative world, her role as the symbolic sole source of light in a dark world is kinda gone. I guess they attempted to make up for this by adding even more color to her look. Her dress sports two shades of pink, her ribbon has been switched to red (a subtle reference to her Wall Market appearance?), and of course the belt.

The belt itself is thick for the most part, tied together by string, and has several round shapes in the middle. This is somewhat reminiscent of the bars on her jacket sleeves or how the FF7 world in general tended to revolve around Materia use.

All in all, it's a much less stand-out-ish and more gentle appearance for her, which does fit her role.

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I'm going to be honest, I haven't played Before Crisis and know little about it or Aeris's role in the game.

I will say this however, if nothing else, this is Aeris's most colorful and fancily designed look so far. I don't know why it would be important for her to look really good here, but she does.

Also, the pink and green colors always reminds me of Strawberry Shortcake.


Kingdom Hearts two slightly alters her Before Crisis appearance.
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Replacing the green with pink, it ties better to her past looks and stands out less. Also, the fancier look suits her better in the Kingdom Hearts continuity, as she is never depicted as being poor in this series. Given the fact that her part of the story also revolves around her finally being home and working to improve the place again, it makes more sense for her to dress up a little. There actually is some cause to celebrate.

For no reason, here's a cheap photoshop of KH2 Aerith done to better match the Before Crisis look.

And here it seems I've reached the limits of pictures per post.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/cha...wmidget/a15.png



Crisis Core takes her look an entirely different direction.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/cha...wmidget/a16.png

Here Aeris is shown in much brighter sky like colors. Really puts, the "Air" is "Aerith", right? ... Okay. I'm sorry. that was bad. I apologize.

ANYWAY, essentially, Aeris is shown in a much more upbeat and not nearly as series role and personality here, very free, very positive, and unfortunately almost flighty at times. S naturally her outfit is much more lose and flowing, and a much more brighter skytone to match. She doesn't even wear her boots, going to open toed sandals, again adding to her more innocent appearance.

And finally we get to her end of Crisis Core and Advent Children appearance.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/cha...wmidget/a17.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/cha...wmidget/a18.png

While at first it appears to look like her original outfit, there are a few noticeable changes. We'll start with her jacket. The shoulder pads are gone completely and the metal bands have been replaced by belt-like straps. As if that didn't soften her up enough, they also made the stitching visible in her jacket.

Her bracelets appear to be more hollow and less solid now, giving them the appearance of actual real jewelry, (even if it's just the cheap stuff.)

Also, her dress has adopted the darker pink trim as seen in Kingdom Hearts.

This softening of her image is probably due to her more NPC status. It's also worth noting that in later games, she lacks more of the flaws in her character that she was shown having in the original game, having her come off as a more perfect and ideal individual, which kinda takes a bit of the fun out of the character if you ask me.

And, to the best of my knowledge, that covers all her looks. If I messed up somewhere or missed something, let me know.




(This post and pictures here are available for whoever wants to use them for whatever reason.)
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Angelalex242
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Keeper of the Intimacy of Aerith's soul living in Cloud
Actually, her perfected appearance makes a good deal of sense in Advent Children. She is a spirit by that point, beyond her previous mortal self. By this point, she has already saved the world once from beyond the grave, and is preparing to heal the world again, this time from Geostigma.

Her perfected appearance, along with the inability of the camera to show her eyes in most cases, serves to remind the audience that it is not just anyone who can look a being like the transformed Aerith in the eye.
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Alan Bates
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That one guy
Very good point.
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Vanelo
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One Emerged From Shadows Into Light
Does anyone else think it's sorta inconsistent to show Aeris in a more perfected form in Crisis Core? I can understand in all other cases since KH is seperate and AC takes place after FFVII. But think about it, during her childhood and during FFVII, Aeris was shown in her slightly rough, "poor" attire, whereas in CC, she's depicted in between those two times, yet she's all pristine. To be fair, I've not played Crisis Core, so I could be missing out on some justification for this.

Also, like Alan Bates said, not only does it take the fun out of her character, I also think she's geuninely more attractive in her FFVII and AC attire.

This further seems to say to me that after FFVII, the developers went more with the fans' perception of her than how she actually is (and I think the actual plot does this in certain cases too, but that's another subject). Though at least this provides one interesting spin on things... we're seeing one aspect of her character, her perception amongst the real life fans, evolve in the order the story is released via the compilation as opposed to how she grows up chronologically in the plot itself.
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Alan Bates
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That one guy
Quote:
 
This further seems to say to me that after FFVII, the developers went more with the fans' perception of her than how she actually is (and I think the actual plot does this in certain cases too, but that's another subject). Though at least this provides one interesting spin on things... we're seeing one aspect of her character, her perception amongst the real life fans, evolve in the order the story is released via the compilation as opposed to how she grows up chronologically in the plot itself.

Yeah. In the later games they seem to go with the perception of the characters and dumbed down what made them intresting. While it happened to everybody, Aeris, Cloud and Sephiroth were the most obvious.

Aeris has lost alot of her flaws. Her temper, stubborness, impulsiveness, and rather blunt nature is all but gone, leaving her as a more "perfect" character.

Cloud's lost his good natured dorky aspects where you could tell at times he was tryin g too hard to be cool.

Sephiroth has shifted away from his more grandiose and obsessed cold hearted and calm world view to focus more on generic evil and tormenting Cloud, where in the first game, Cloud was little more than a tool or slight obstacle to him.
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Coral
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I just wanted to ask: did you forget her appearance in Itadaki street or did you choose not to talk about it?

Here's an official picture

And another one I collected

Thanks to your brillant article, I'd say that her design is closer to FFVII's one. Which is strange because Itadaki Street was made after KH, right? So her ribbon should be red, her eyes less blue (and more green) and should wear belt-like straps instead of her traditionnal metal buttons lol.

We can also see a bit of her shoulder pads in the second image - but then it disapears on the second picture....
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Alan Bates
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That one guy
I didn't think to mention Itadaki since when I think of it, I just think of it as a cutesy-fied version of her FF7 look.
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imaninjawoo
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Wow, I didn't know Aerith had so many different looks... She looks great in all of 'em!!!!!! So pretty!!!! :lol:
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Faithly
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.*starry night *.
Yeah, Aerith looks great regarding the colors of her clothes, lol.

I think green/brown resembles a lot of "Mother Nature" and red/pink resembles a lot of cute flower colors!

Interesting topic :D.
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