Adventurer Outfit

"There's no place we won't go! ... except Offbrandia, nothing but pirates there."

Whether it's a trip through the glaring heat of the Serengeti, a trek through the Antarctic ice in gale-force winds, a jaunt through time to a Lost World or pulp sci-fi/steampunk adventures, these are the outfits you want to wear! Worn by the Adventurer Archaeologist, Lady of Adventure, Great White Hunter, Egomaniac Hunter and Gentleman Adventurer, as well as the Ace Pilot, and, sometimes, the Bold Explorer.

There are several stock ensembles that make up this trope, though it's sometimes mix-and-matched with other Stock Costume Traits:

Safari Outfit: Going to Africa or the Middle East? You need loose beige or tan linens, a big brown belt, boots, a light scarf to keep the sun off your neck, a rifle and binoculars; a canteen, a safari hat called a pith helmet. (Monocle optional but recommended). Usually, the wearer is a book-smart professor, but ignorant of what they should actually wear for the expedition. Counterintuitively most of them needed more coverage in Real Life to avoid sunburns and harmful insects and during the age of African exploration the pith helmet was the narrow-brimmed model◊ of Zulu War vintage, not the broad-brimmed "Bombay Bowler" of the post-1900 years.

Airman: Start with a bomber jacket (the kind with a large wool collar and lapels), then add a Scarf of Asskicking, leather gloves and light boots.^note These double as Stylish Protection Gear; aircraft cabins can get pretty cold at altitude, and the scarf also prevents neck chafing from a flyer constantly turning his head to check his environment (especially in wartime). Usually has goggles (which may or may not be useful) or a flying helmet, or sometimes a peaked cap from whichever air force they learned to fly in. When the Airman travels IN SPACE! they'll probably swap out for a Latex Space Suit. If armed, it'll be with a pistol, as there's not much space in the cramped cockpit.

Archaeologist: Think Indiana Jones. A hat that stands out, typically a wide brim fedora, Perma-Stubble if male, leather jacket, long-sleeved collared shirt, plain pants and sturdy boots, old pistol in a leather holster or harness, and Ancient Artifact-holding satchel. If the character is a trope-for-trope Expy of Indy, they'll also have a whip. A vest may substitute for the jacket, and the pistol harness might become two for Dual Wielding.

Polar Outfit: Arctic and Antarctic explorers must face icy winds, blizzards and blinding sun, but that's no reason they can't be stylish! So they wear heavy, thick parkas with fur trim, big leather mittens with fur lining, large, well-insulated boots, and goggles with slits to preventsun blindness. The gun of choice in the Arctic is a large-calibre bolt-action rifle capable of protecting them from predatory polar bear. They carry food and supplies in a big backpack and often wear cross-country skis. The mountain climber is related, but add an oxygen tank and mask, crampon-equipped boots and an ice axe. In a pinch, a cold-themed superhero or villain can don this outfit as An Ice Suit.

From 1915-1950s, all of the first three tend to wear jodhpurs (pants with extra room around the thighs to aid in horseback riding). A Mad Max, post-apocalyptic Wanderer look can be related. A few settings take the Airman outfit, remove the scarf, adds chains, lots of belts (though a few shy of Too Many Belts), much more grime, a Badass Bandolier and a rifle. A trusty dog is optional, but recommended, but a motorcycle works as well. To add a Steampunk flavor to either of the above, add clocks, light metal armoring, a tool belt, and Ray Gun as needed.

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Examples:

Advertising

• Emil Holub is a famous Czech traveller and explorer from the 19th century, and a safari outfit is a staple for his fictional portrayals. A series of adverts for beer company Pilsner Urquell employed the use of Czech patriots and historical figures. Emil Holub's adventure in Africa could not be achieved without this safari outfit and a couple of beers he brought with him. Link to YouTube.

Anime and Manga

• America in Hetalia: Axis Powers has the "airman" look with a leather bomber jacket (sporting a giant "50" on his back) and black leather boots, and occasionally goes all-out with goggles, gloves, and a WWII Air Force hat. Of course, all done to complement his overblown Love Freak attitude, his status as the Ace Pilot of the Allied forces, and his self-declared role of "the hero".
  America: [slurping a milkshake] Allies... good guys... Axis... bad guys... [finishes milkshake] ...And the hero is ME!

Comic Books

• Comic Cavalcade: The well traveled botanist Iris, who ends up captured by the Turtle in The Flash feature but only after shooting several of his henchmen, wears a white blouse with jodhpurs and a very visible shoulder holster.
• The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones: Indy, of course, wears his iconic Archaeologist outfit. One his villains, the evil treasure hunter Siegfried Klexx, wears the Safari version, including pith helmet and jodphurs, combined with Bald of Evil and a High-Class Glass to make him the perfect embodiment of the Evil Colonialist.
• Heck: The protagonist of the graphic novel wears a pulp-inspired outfit of leather and khaki.
• Planetary: Axel Brass' team◊ depicts the Safari, Air Man and Archaeologist outfits as well as few other classic genre outfits.
• The Rocketeer: Cliff Secord/The Rocketeer is another good example of the adventure outfit, albeit with more of a pilot bent. His most common outfit is a pair of classic pilot boots, khaki pants, and a stylish double-breasted jacket. Also his rocket pack, which greatly adds to his adventurous nature by virtue of being a rocket pack.
• Runaways: Gert's Time-Traveling parents are a good generic explorer example, with all the leather and goggles and such.
• Tomorrow Stories: Greyshirt's occasional ally, the globetrotting adventuress Pandora Siam, dresses in a 1930s-style outfit of riding boots, jodhpurs, safari jacket and pith helmet.
• Von Herling, Vampire Hunter: August Von Herling wears the Archaeologist outfit complete with wide-brimmed hat, jacket and pants with plenty of pockets and a satchel for carrying weapons against vampires.
• Wonder Woman Vol 1: Bobby and Glamora give the concept a nod with the way they don a pith helmet every time they get to go on an adventure, but other than putting on boots they just wear the Holliday Girls outfits they always wear.

Fanfiction

• Johanna Smith-Rhodes has the safari outfit look in A.A. Pessimal's Discworld fic Nature Studies. But then, she's from Howondaland, where everyone dresses like this, as befits the Discworld expy of South Africa. Scroll forward by about two decades, and she is happily married and semi-retired from active adventuring - but her oldest daughter of three - a Witch, not an Assassin - chooses to dress like Mum. Some things are in the blood.
  • Elsewhere in the Pessimal Discworld, the Air Witches tend to favour the leather-jacket-and-flying-helmet look. although being Witches, the flying helmet tends to have a very distinct and recognisable pointy bit to it. This is when some of them are not dressing as Cossacks.^note Even then the ushanka fur cap has a point on its crown
• In the Gunslinger Girl fanfic And the Adventure Continues, Jethro has to fly a 1930's Grumman Goose into the South American jungle. When Monty gets him some jungle greens to wear, Jethro indulges his love of retro with the appropriate pith helmet, to her annoyance.
• Penelope laFloo in Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse dresses in a combination of the Safari Outfit and Archaelogist looks, with the added quirk of being dressed to completely obscure every inch of exposed flesh... though, strangely, the clothing hugs her figure well enough to make it clear that she is quite curvaceous beneath, in an inversion of Hidden Buxom. She claims the all-concealing nature of her garb is due to her religion, which requires such covering in the name of modesty. It's actually to hide that she's a skunk-featured member of the Mink Tribe.

Film — Animated

• The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: Victor Quartermaine wears a safari outfit complete with an ascot.
• Charles Muntz from Up, aviator outfit.

Film — Live-Action

• The ABCs of Death: In the "H" segment, Bertie wears the classic 'airman' version': bomber jacket, scarf, gloves, boots, flying helmet and goggles. He is also an anthropomorphic bulldog.
• Adele Hasn't Had Her Dinner Yet:
  • Detective Nick Carter wears a safari/jungle outfit in a flashback scene from African swamps when he remembers his famous defeat of The Gardener.
  • A man whose flying bicycle with wings and propellers happens to be a Chekhov's Gun wears the pilot outfit.
• The protagonists of 1980s adventure movies Allan Quatermain and Dakota Harris borrow much from Indy's wardrobe.
• Beetlejuice: One of the souls in the Netherworld Waiting Room is a big game hunter who carries a rifle and wears a Safari Outfit, but with a slouch hat substituting for the pith helmet. Unfortunately, he can no longer wear his hat because his head has been shrunk!
• Dennis the Menace: Dinosaur Hunter: Bones, the film's antagonist, wears a variation of the archaeologist version. He wears the hat, vest and boots but shorts instead of the normal long pants. He gives one of these outfits to Dennis too.
• George of the Jungle: At the start of the film Ursula, Lyle, and their guides wear safari outfits while on their trip through the jungle.
• Hot Shots!. Admiral Benson is wearing the traditional airman's jodphurs...while commanding a unit of jet fighter pilots. He explains that it's because his tailor ran short of cloth while halfway up his pants.
• Indiana Jones is easily one of the best examples of this trope, if not the Trope Codifier. Not to mention his many expies.
  • Indiana Jones himself is an Expy of many adventure movie heroes from the early 20th century, though his franchise has swallowed up the genre so effectively that few remember anything about them.
• Roger Moore's James Bond notably wore safari suits in Moonraker and Octopussy.
• Dr Emil Holub was a Czech traveller who widely explored Africa in the 19th century. In the film Jára Cimrman, Lying, Sleeping, he's seen sporting the safari/jungle outfit even when he's at home in Prague. See this short clip (with English subtitles).
• Van Pelt in Jumanji wears the classic Safari Outfit.
  • In Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Bethany's character Professor Shelly Oberon wears a scholar's version of the safari outfit, including a pith helmet.
• Owen Grady◊ in Jurassic World fits this trope to the T.
• King Kong (1976): Fred Wilson wears a safari jacket when he is on Skull Island.
• In Mistress of the Apes, Cory and Thurston both wear versions of the Safari Outfit. Great White Hunter Cory looks a lot better in his than Fat Slob Thurston does.
• Rick O'Connell in The Mummy Trilogy.
• In Prehistoric Women, Colonel Hammond is dressed in a classic safari suit and pith helmet.
• The eponymous Sky Captain in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Aviator, of course.
• Dark Helmet from Spaceballs has a brief costume switch into a safari outfit during the part of the movie that took place on the Tattooine-spoof planet. Complete with huge pith helmet with peep-holes.
• In The Suckers, Egomaniac Hunter Steve Vandemeer dresses in a safari suit and pith helmet while Hunting the Most Dangerous Game.

Literature

• Wesley of Above the Timberline wears a standard airman's outfit (including the leather cap, goggles, and bomber jacket) while exploring the frozen tundra. The first leg of his expedition sees him piloting a glider-like snowmobile to make use of his pilot's training, but he didn't pack anything warmer for the journey into the frozen wastelands. Even after receiving a practical long coat from the Shadow Moon Monastery, he keeps the hat and goggles. His father Galen wears similar garb even after being stranded in the hidden city for half a year.
• Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks. Marks is assigned to reform the SOE code section in Cairo. His horrified parents, aghast at the countless dangers of the tropics, give him a pith helmet and make him swear never to take it off. He obediently carries it everywhere with him, greatly bemusing the Cairo Section personnel who are wearing nothing like it. One asks if he's carrying a secret recorder in there.
• Biggles and his colleagues usually wear the Airman variant (heck, they and their contemporaries were arguably the Trope Codifier) but on occasion, they'll don Safari Outfits for hot climates.
• The frontispiece of The Compleat Discworld Atlas is the crest of the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Trespassers (formerly the Society of Explorers, until Vetinari pointed out there were always people already living in the places they "discovered"). The supporters of the crest are a man in a safari outfit and a woman in the female equivalent (long skirt, light jacket, and broad-brimmed hat tied in place with a ribbon). Howondaland Smith is also shown in a safari suit in the illustration of a Balgrog pelt.
• The Comedic Hero of Scoop, the 1938 satire by Evelyn Waugh, is a country wildlife writer who's accidentally sent overseas as a war correspondent. He's sent to the requisite adventure outfitters who, realising his naivete, sell him a vast mountain of clothing and equipment which he lugs to Africa with him.
• Tails momentarily wears an airman costume in Sonic the Hedgehog in Robotnik's Laboratory before being told by Sonic to take it off.
• Commander Bradshaw wears a safari outfit in the Thursday Next series. His books were adventure stories that fell out of favour and went out of print after the 1920s, but he had to stay in character in the BookWorld.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who
  • "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy": Captain Cook wears a safari outfit.
  • "Gridlock": Brannigan wears an airman outfit, complete with goggles, while being essentially a suburban dad stuck in the universe's worst traffic jam.
• In Season 3 of The Flash (2014), when the team is about to embark on a trip to Gorilla City on Earth-2, Julian dresses up in the classic archaeologist getup. Cisco even asks "Indiana Jones much?" while Julian calls it " the perfect attire".
• Travelling Matt from Fraggle Rock, safari outfit.
• Leverage: Eliot wears one of the Indiana Jones variety when leading the mark through a jungle in "The Boiler Room Job".
• Our Miss Brooks: In "Safari O'Toole", the titular character wears a safari outfit (complete with pith helmet) to Mrs. Davis' birthday party.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation. Q dresses like this in "Qpid" when he steals Picard's adventurer archaeologist love interest.
• Star Trek: Voyager. The outfit of holodeck hero CAPTAIN PROTON!, which is an Airman outfit plus Jet Pack in the style of black-and-white sci-fi adventure serials like Commando Cody. So adventurous, it even works in space.
• Warehouse 13: When investigating Warehouse Two, H.G. Wells dresses like a Lara Croft expy
  • Flashbacks to the 1920s show a former Warehouse agent wearing Indiana Jones clothing in New Mexico.

Manhwa

• Tower of God: After the Time Skip, Khun sports one of these and reminds everybody of a boy scout.

Music

• In the music video for Aqua's song Doctor Jones, all the band spend most of the video wearing the "Safari Outfit" version, Lene's outfit being used particularly for Fanservice.
• In the video for Madness' song "Night Boat to Cairo" from One Step Beyond Album, the band are all wearing safari-style outfits.
• In "Roar", Katy Perry and a handsome Bold Explorer start off wearing the safari version. Subverted when the hero quickly gets eaten by a tiger and Perry's character discards the outfit as she changes from Damsel in Distress to a scantily-clad Jungle Princess.
• Professor Elemental's usual attire.

Tabletop Games

• For reasons unknown, the "Airman" look has become standard fashion for Techno-Wizards in Rifts.
• In Rocket Age flying leathers, dusters and so on count as armour and can grant social bonuses for having the 'right look'.
• Plenty of illustrations in Space 1889 feature similar outfits. Since the game is set in 1889 and wilderness treks and exploring are important themes, this is perfectly justified.

Theatre

• Two plays of Jára Cimrman's Theatre make use of the safari outfit:
  • Cimrman in the Music Domain, with a sub-title "Educational evening with a one-act opera The Success of the Czech Engineer in India" . This outfit is worn by a British governor colonel.
  • In Africa, or Czechs among Cannibals, the leader of the expedition, Dr. Emil Žába, wears this outfit throughout the play. (Emil Žába means Emil 'Frog', which might allude to a real Czech traveller Emil Holub – Holub means 'pigeon'.)

Theme Parks

• Universal Studios:
  • In Skull Island: Reign of Kong at Universal's Islands of Adventure, most of the characters wear 30's-style Archaeologist uniforms, with leather jackets, long pants, and large boots.
  • Concept art for the Universal's New House of Horrors haunted house from Halloween Horror Nights 1996 has a man dressed in a brown fedora with matching jacket and a white skirt disturbing the Mummy's tomb.

Toys

• The G.I. Joe Adventure Team in the 1970s had a few desert-themed sets featuring explorer outfits in differing amounts.
• LEGO's Indiana Jones knockoff LEGO Adventurers featured all their main characters in variations of these.

Video Games

• Agarest Senki has Noa, an elf girl who's living her life finding treasures, spots a Safari type with little pants.
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons lets you put together your own outfit like this with the explorer's hat, explorer shirt, and explorer shorts clothing items.
• Sir Hammerlock of Borderlands 2 wears a rather anachronistic safari outfit, though rather than a monocle he simply has one of the lenses of his glasses cracked.
• Of all the Castlevania heroes, Julius Belmont looks the closest to an Indiana-adventurer style for the way he dresses - a brown cape and a red scarf. John Morris is fairly close behind him, as well as Wind from Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin.
• An Archeologist-style outfit is one of the unlockables in Dig to China. According to the description, it "does nothing, looks slick".
• You can get just such a costume in Fable II.
• Ezreal in League of Legends does a steampunk-esque version of the Adventure Archaeologist type — leather jacket, goggles, Too Many Belts, and heavy boots. In one of his skins, he wears the goggles properly and adds a hard hat, a coil of rope, and a flashlight strapped to one thigh.
• A safari outfit (complete with mustache) is one of Winston's skins in Overwatch.
  • Ashe and B.O.B. would later get this treatment as well with their "Jungle" and "Safari" skins.
• Adventurer Archaeologist Edward Falcon from the Power Stone series doesn't wear an Archaeologist-style outfit. Unlike Indy, he actually flies his own plane, so he wears an all-red variation on the Aviator outfit.
• Razputin Aquato from Psychonauts wears variations of the airman outfit throughout the games: flight helmet, goggles, a bomber jacket, a turtleneck sweater, leather gloves, and light boots. His new outfit in the second game swaps the bomber jacket for a trench coat.
• Red from Solatorobo: Red the Hunter wears a variant of the Airman outfit, with gloves, a parka-esque hat, Goggles That Do Nothing, and a furry shoulder-cape replacing the bomber jacket and scarf.
• The Seeker's outfit in Soul Void resembles the Adventure Archaeologist version of this, with his Badass Longcoat and Fedora of Asskicking.
• Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy has a dog-man dressed like this, including the pith helmet, in Ancient Egypt. It probably doesn't bear thinking about.
• In Super Mario Odyssey:
  • Two of the outfits Mario can purchase are a safari based Explorer outfit and cap in the Wooded Kingdom, and an Aviator outfit and cap in the Lost Kingdom. The first outfit is required to get a Power Moon.
  • Princess Peach wears a safari outfit in some of the kingdoms she explores.
• Captain Ash in the TimeSplitters games.
• Lara Croft from Tomb Raider puts a "feminine" touch to the Adventurer Archaeologist.
  • Concept art for the original game show that Lara's iconic aquamarine top isn't a shirt but a one-piece bathing suit. Considering all the swimming she does in the game, pretty practical.
  • The 2013 reboot features the "Aviatrix" DLC, which unlocks a classic adventurer outfit as gear for Lara.
• Uncharted has Drake in archaeologist gear.

Webcomics

• Lord Moonbark of Girl Genius, who's been "skulking about collecting the notes of dead sparks" for Her Undying Majesty but has still found the time for some adventure, no doubt likely because he's a spark himself is introduced wearing a pith helmet, and a herringbone suit with leather elbow patches.

Web Animation

• Aree the Safari Droid from Star Wars: Galaxy of Creatures is designed in a way to emulate a stereotypical explorer, with a tannish color scheme, a backpack, and a head that looks like a pith helmet.

Web Original

• How to Hero recommends donning one of these if you're going to explore caves and ancient temples in search of magical artifacts.
• Rachel Maksy has done an entire video in which she curates ten adventurer outfits in this vein titled 10 Outfits To Pretend You're a Vintage-y Explorer. Each one tied to a different adventurer characher achetype from gunslinger to treasure hunter to traveling linguist. The costumes tend to include brown jodhpurs or a skirt in various tans along with a white blouse and some kind headgear for sun protection.
• World's Greatest Adventures's R. H. Talltales has an off-kilter variation on the Archaeologist, with the wide-brimmed Fedora of Asskicking and the satchel, but a goofy short-sleeved striped shirt instead of a jacket and long unruly hair and beard instead of Heroic Stubble.
• World War II: Featured as part of the set dressing, a safari hat and brown coat can be seen draped over the Chair of Infinite Knowledge in the background behind host Indy Neidell in Episode 42 - "Britain Votes to Leave".

Western Animation

• Archer:
  • Cyril is kitted out in a Safari outfit in "El Contador," when sent on his first field mission to the jungle - as opposed to Archer and Lana's more practical black tactical gear. Teddy Roosevelt jokes ensue.
  • In Season 3, Ace Pilot Rip Riley sports a more rugged version of this outfit. Archer is not impressed.
    "...that ridiculous image you're trying to cultivate... Sky Captain of yesteryear!"
• Simon Belmont in Captain N: The Game Master wore a pilot's outfit, with goggles and a backpack. The only problem is the Simon Belmont from the Castlevania franchise that this Simon is supposed to be based off is a Vampire Hunter and doesn't dress anything like this.
• Chip on Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, archaeologist (but with the bomber jacket from the aviator selection).
  • Monterrey Jack, aviator outfit.
• Donald Duck sometimes wears a pith helmet in the few times he goes adventuring in the jungle. In the opening of Donald in Mathmagic Land he wears the full safari outfit (sans pants).
• Launchpad McQuack from DuckTales (1987) and Darkwing Duck, aviator outfit.
• The heroes of Filmation's Ghostbusters sported this look. Jake was the safariman; Eddie, the airman (with a Badass Longcoat for good measure); and Tracy, the archaeologist. Old-fashioned adventurers sometimes wore their cameras around their necks, a look which the Ghostbusters mirrored with their neck-worn Comm Links.
• Colonel Rimfire, who chased after late sixties Looney Tunes character Cool Cat wears the classic safari outfit.
• Olivia Ostrich in Journey Through the Jungle of Words.
• Jack Yaeger from The Mercury Men wears the standard Raygun Gothic version of this.
• Adventurer Archaeologist and Indy expy Daring Do from the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Read it and Weep" sports a safari shirt and pith helmet.
• Invoked in an episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, in which they're making a movie and Christopher Robin gives Pooh an airman style scarf to show that he's The Hero.
• The Simpsons: Mr. Burns wears one in "The Burns and the Bees" when he shoots a basketball team mascot he thought was a real gorilla.
• The Super Adventure Club from South Park spoofs this.
• In TaleSpin, Rebecca dresses like this in a few episodes, as does Adventurer Archaeologist Myra from "In Search of Ancient Blunders".
  • Baloo's regular outfit is an aviator outfit. Appropriate, considering his line of work.
• The Ventures dress like this in the jungle episode of The Venture Bros..
• Nigel Thornberry of The Wild Thornberrys wears the safari outfit. Averted by his wife Marianne, whose outfit is the sort of thing that modern wilderness trekkers actually wear.
• Major Minor, nemesis of Snagglepuss on Yogi Bear, safari outfit.

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