Cartoons and Couture: Fashion Inspiration from Animation

As I’ve been trying to develop my sense of style and improve my eye for fashion, I’ve

found myself exploring more niche places for inspiration. While Pinterest, fashion magazines,

and just walking around campus are of course reliable and easy ways to gather ideas, sometimes

it isn’t what you’re looking for. A solution I’ve recently been turning to is just turning on my TV

and watching my childhood favorite cartoons.

By looking to animated characters for fashion inspiration, especially shows from the 90s

to the early 2010s, the clothing worn by characters were very representative of style as a whole

during these eras. Retro culture hadn’t quite taken off in pop culture yet, so artists simply

designed their characters with whatever was cool at the time, rather than attempting to evoke

feelings of nostalgia. Take a favorite of mine, Pokemon for example. Ash Ketchum, in the

original Pokemon series, wore an outfit that would fit right in with current trending fashion:

wide-leg jeans, a sporty jacket, a trucker hat, sporty sneakers, and fingerless gloves. While each

piece individually may not be worthy of recreating, looking at the boxy fit of the clothes as

they’re drawn and how the proportions come together as a whole are spot-on to what’s popular

currently on social media.

In a similar vein, animated characters are designed by artists so they usually understand

color theory. If you struggle to add color to your outfits, using cartoons as a base of reference is

smart. As it’s rare that characters are drawn with entirely monochrome outfits. With that in mind,

I’ve included some of my favorite time capsules of their era to get you started!

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