The Dress Makes the Woman

Granado Espada is a Korean MMORPG that was met with a mixed reviews, but everyone agrees that the costume designs are incredible. There is so much detail packed into every outfit, but the elaborate “Le Noir” dress worn by the female Elementalists is especially remarkable. The dress has layers upon layers of fabrics, and the various textures and colors compliment each other brilliantly. Although the dress takes the shape of an impossibly-proportioned woman, the garment flows majestically around her and feels like a natural extension of her body. As an optional costume worn by player-created characters, the Le Noir isn’t as iconic as the other dresses on this list. It’s easily the most fabulous dress I’ve ever seen in a game, however, so I felt compelled to give it some recognition.

American McGee’s Alice acts as a macabre follow-up to Lewis Carroll’s beloved fantasy novels. The games paint Wonderland in a more horrifying light than Carroll’s stories did, however, and the characters that Alice encounters are a lot more heinous. The corrupted dream world is a manifestation of Alice’s fractured psyche, and her nightmarish surroundings reflect the unspeakable horrors she lived through. (I don’t want to be too negative, but her therapist was a real jerk!) Everything in Wonderland is dark and grisly, but her classic blue dress and white apron remind us of the colorful dreams that Alice once had. The dress would be suitable for a children’s book if it wasn’t stained with blood. Anyone can make a fashion statement, but Alice’s dress makes a statement on a metaphorical level.

Mai Shiranui is a master of disguise that can change her clothes with a single gesture. Naturally, she usually chooses to wear exceptionally low-cut dresses that barely cover her body. It would be easy to write her outfits off as masturbatory fantasy, but they’re a perfectly logical choice for someone in her line of work. Kunoichi differ from their male counterparts in that they put more focus on the intangible aspects of warfare. While shinobi are more concerned with physicality, kunoichi put an emphasis on psychology, intuition, and manipulation. Depending on the situation, Mai’s revealing outfit could distract an opponent or otherwise influence a fight in her favor. Certainly, her enemies must be caught off guard by all the weapons she hides in her dress. Where does she store all those paper fans?

Throughout the course of Parasite Eve, Aya Brea typically wears blue jeans, a plain white tee, and a black leather jacket. To put it another way, the rookie NYPD officer basically dresses like the Fonz. When the game begins, however, Aya is decked out in formal wear and attending an opera at Carnegie Hall. Her long black dress is atypical attire for an RPG protagonist, but it was suitable for the contemporary environment she was in. If anything, she would have looked out of place if she wasn’t dressed to the nines. She hadn’t planned on fighting biological monstrosities when she put on the dress, so the elegant outfit serves as a constant reminder for how unprepared she was for the events that unfolded. Although Aya only wears the dress during the game’s opening act, it’s easily her most iconic outfit.

YoRHa No.2 Type B (better known as 2B), is a battle android that was sent to Earth to fight hostile robots that were created by alien invaders. She’s equipped with a multitude of weapons and standard-issue military gear, but her outfit consists of heels, nylons, and a dangerously short dress that leaves her thighs exposed. Whether she’s fighting onslaughts of killer robots or simply showing off her feminine strut, it’s never hard to catch a glimpse of her thong leotard under her frilly skirt. Players can also destroy the skirt with the press of a button, there’s an achievement for looking up her dress ten times, and the game’s creator even asked fans to send him pictures of her butt. 2B’s destructible loligoth dress was clearly designed with fanservice in mind, and in that regard it serves its purpose well.

None of the girls from Dead or Alive can decide on a single outfit. There are dozens of alternate costumes available for each gal in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round, and it would cost over $1,000 (in real world dollars) to unlock them all. Fetish fuel is expensive! Given the staggering number of outfits in the series, it’s remarkable how distinctive and immediately recognizable Kasumi’s trademark dress is. The blue, side-tie dress has graced the cover of several Dead or Alive games and countless gaming magazines, and it has even been featured as a bonus costume in other titles like Super Swing Golf and Fatal Frame II. The eye-catching dress is a strange choice for a ninja that’s supposed to be in hiding, and her thigh-high stockings are bound to turn a few heads, but I’m certainly not going to complain.

Elizabeth is the video game equivalent of a Disney princess, and her outfit from Bioshock Infinite‘s first act looked like something Belle from Beauty and the Beast would have worn. Although she spent most of her formative years locked up in a tower in the sky, she retained her childlike outlook on life. Her initial outfit reflected her innocence, but Liz was forced to give herself a makeover after her blouse became torn and bloodied. When she swapped her conservative clothes for a sexy dress with an elaborate corset, it represented an evolution of her character. The blue dress made it blatantly clear that Elizabeth was no longer a child. She wore the dress reluctantly because it was the only one she could find, and this is a perfect allegory of the burdens she was forced to carry as a young adult.

The iconic red evening gown Ada Wong wore in Resident Evil 4 was both stylish and practical. Some argued that the dress was inappropriate for fighting zombies, however, and one critic went so far as to describe her as an “out-of-our-price-bracket Shanghai hooker.” I’m not sure I’d go that far, but I will concede that “Ada Wong” would be a fantastic name for a call girl. In all seriousness, her high-slit dress makes sense for a number of reasons. Firstly, she’s a secret agent who uses her sex appeal to manipulate men. Secondly, the dress lends itself well to Ada’s acrobatics since it doesn’t restrict her movement. Finally, the dress gives her quick access to the gun holster that’s strapped to her leg. The fashion world often makes you choose between form and function, but Ada’s dress allows for both.

Chun-Li is one of the gaming world’s most progressive women, and she’s as determined as she is beautiful. She has a fulfilling career as an Interpol agent, and the self-proclaimed “strongest women in the world” holds her own in street fights against the greatest martial artists on the planet. She’s an independent woman if ever there was one, but she also respects tradition. She usually dresses in a traditional Chinese gown called a qipao that rose to prominence during the Qing Dynasty. The dresses were originally tailored to cover most of the body, but they became more form-fitting and revealing after they became fashionable among socialites in the 1920s. These kinds of dresses represented liberation and political expression, so the fact that they highlight Chun-Li’s powerful thighs is just an added bonus.

There are many princesses in the Nintendo pantheon, but Peach was the obvious choice for this list. Every new iteration of Zelda has her own personality and style, but Princess Peach has shown remarkable consistency over the years. The design of her iconic pink dress has barely changed since 1986, and the floor-length gown is the picture of grace and elegance. Although the dress was likely intended for a ballroom, its durable enough to withstand any environment. Peach wears the dress in the snow, under water, and in lava-filled caverns, but it never gets torn or dirty. Most of her adventure pals wear denim overalls, and this makes the elaborate gown even harder to ignore. It has been speculated that the dress is the key to Peach’s unique hovering abilities, but it’s an iconic outfit in either regard.