Iconic Sequel Outfit

Ladies love a well-dressed Lombax. ^note From left to right: Top: Ratchet & Clank 1, Tools of Destruction Bottom: Comics, ModNation Racers, All 4 One, Film, PlayStation All-Stars, PlayStation Move Heroes, and PS4

Many times, a character will modify or change their Iconic Outfit. Whether it's because of the natural passing of time, they need a specific type of clothing for a specific environment, or because the creators just wanted to try something different. This trope is for when a character's outfit in a sequel ends up overshadowing the original in popular culture.

Now while clothing is the most common form of this trope (as you could probably guess by the name) it is by no means exclusive to clothes. Changes in hairstyles and overall color schemes can also come with a change in outfit, the latter of which being especially prominent if the character in question isn't human.

A Sub-Trope of Costume Evolution and Significant Wardrobe Shift. See also Iconic Outfit and Beta Outfit.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Dragon Ball:
  • The first outfit worn by Goku was a blue gi with a belt tied into a bow. It had a transitional singlet version when Goku trains with Roshi, but once Goku received his iconic red/orange Turtle School gi he wears it for the remainder of the series.^note This is only in the anime, which derives his starting colours from the first title pages. Akira Toriyama never settled on a proper colour in the manga for a good while, and the red comes from how it looks in the limited ink chapters. The anime splits the difference and used the existing story to narratively justify the switch. Even his weighted clothes with the blue shirt and boots don't even appear until the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, which was about four years into the manga's run, and the anime didn't switch from red-and-black to orange-and-blue until the Z rebranding.
  • These days, Vegeta is recognized for his simplistic Bulma-designed Saiyan armor that consists of the the blue bodysuit with a single torso piece that was introduced in the Android arc. This attire is more iconic than his original outfit with the red scouter, pointed shoulder pads, and cuirass' around the waist, especially once modern Dragon Ball material put him exclusively in the Android Arc outfit.
• Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children: Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart, and Yuffie Kisaragi's outfits in the film are just as popular as their original outfits from the original game. In crossover appearances, they're normally their alternate outfits. At times they're even the default outfits.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • While what outfit fans associate Ash and Brock with tends to vary on when each person began watching that’s not the case for Gary. In spite of being Demoted to Extra after Johto more people are likely to associate Gary with the Black Jacket from Gen III onwards than the Purple shirt he wore in the original series.
  • In Pokémon the Series: XY, Serena started off her journey looking similar to her game counterpart's default design, namely having long hair and muted colored clothings. But halfway into the series, she cut her hair short and completely overhauled her outfit, going for a more vivid red and pink outfit with a blue ribbon she got from Ash. This second design is more well-known than her first design, to the point that it became the shorthand way to distinguish anime Serena from game Serena. Even when she gets a third outfit in Pokémon Journeys: The Series, her hair still remains short, making it her permanent iconic look of the anime.
• When Symphogear moved into its second season Symphogear G, the biggest change (besides the show's general visual overhaul) was the addition of a massive Scarf of Asskicking to Hibiki's Gear costume, apparently at Aoi Yūki's suggestion. Between symbolizing her growth into The Hero quite nicely and just looking really cool in general, the scarf quickly grew to be the most iconic part of her look, to the point that nearly every Gear design she would get in the future (both in later seasons, and spinoffs like the XD Unlimited Mobile Phone Game) incorporated it in one way or another.

Comic Books

• Marvel Universe:
  • The Avengers: Tigra originally wore a yellow and blue costume in her alias as The Cat. Following her transformation into a tiger humanoid, she started wearing a black bikini. Her original costume is now known for being worn by Hellcat.
  • Captain Marvel: Carol Danvers' first outfit was a red and black bodysuit that showed her legs and was basically a femme version of Captain Mar-Vell's costume. In Issue #20 of Ms. Marvel (1977), Dave Cockrum gave her the black Leotard of Power, gloves, and boots that the character was identified with for decades. These days, Carol is more well known for the red, blue, and yellow costume she wears as Captain Marvel.
  • Hawkeye: Kate Bishop is more famous for the lavender bodysuit she wears starting in Hawkeye (2012), keeping it as her default for all subsequent appearances, than the dark purple two-piece outfit she originally wore at her debut in volume 1 of Young Avengers.
  • Iron Man: The first two suits were grey and gold, respectively, but by the 9th issue, Tony Stark had settled on the red and gold color scheme he still uses today.
  • Runaways: Nico Minoru's famed Elegant Gothic Lolita costumes didn't appear until the second series.
  • X-Men: For some members of the X-Men, like Cyclops, Storm, Rogue, and Wolverine, their blue and yellow 90s outfits are the most recognizable. This is actually a subversion in Wolverine's case since the blue and yellow costume is his original one- he'd changed to a brown costume in the 80s before switching back.
• DC Comics:
  • Batman: While the overall look of the Batsuit has remained mostly the same since its first appearance in 1939, there were a few familiar elements that took a while to come into fruition. The long gloves with the three blades on the sides didn't appear until 1940 and the yellow oval around the Bat Symbol didn't appear until 1964.
  • Captain Atom: Captain Atom's Post-Crisis silver/white containment suit with red gloves and blue boots is more well known than the red and yellow number he wore in his original Charlton Comics series.
  • Catwoman: Before settling on the black Spy Catsuit that she is well known for today, Catwoman had a variety of outfits from the Golden to Bronze Ages. The most memorable of these was a purple dress, purple mask, and green cape ensemble.
  • Nightwing: Nightwing's classic black tights with a bluebird emblem with a domino mask was his third costume and is his most popular costume.
  • Wonder Woman: Wonder Woman originally wore a pair of culottes in the Golden Age with her red and yellow bustier. Later the culottes were ditched and she began to wear the iconic Leotard of Power inspired by the American flag. Since the release of Wonder Woman (2017), Diana is more known to modern audiences for wearing an Ancient Greek-style skirt/kilt with her top.

Film

• The Dark Knight Trilogy: In Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne makes his first batsuit by basically cobbling a custom mask and his ninja gauntlets with an armored Nomex bodysuit. In The Dark Knight, he requests a new suit made of a mix of Kevlar and titanium armor plating in order to increase his agility. While the batsuit in the first movie is more comic-accurate, the second batsuit is so synonymous with Christian Bale's incarnation to the point that the original suit never once appeared in The Dark Knight Rises.
• DC Extended Universe: In both versions of Justice League, Aquaman wears a suit of green armor with bronze accents and wields a silvery quindent. A major plot point in Aquaman (his second film appearance) is Arthur earning his classic golden/green royal Atlantean outfit that's closer to his orange/green suit from the comics as well as his golden trident.
• Friday the 13th:
  • While Jason is the Trope Codifier for Hockey Mask and Chainsaw, he didn't even have his hockey mask until the third film, where he takes the mask after killing Shelly, and it has been a mainstay ever since. In his first appearance, he wore a potato sack over his face instead. He also obtains his green work shirt and grey slacks in this film that he would wear until they were seemingly destroyed at the end of part 8. In part 9, Jason's wearing a new wardrobe for the first time since this movie. Additionally, the machete didn't become Jason's weapon of choice until about the sixth film, as he used a variety of weapons (axes, knives, picks, spear guns, and anything else that could be turned into an Improvised Weapon) more frequently prior to that film.
  • Jason's dark pants, black shirt, and heavy jacket worn in Freddy vs. Jason has served as the basis for his design in most following Friday the 13th media, including the remake, Mortal Kombat X, and Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle.
• John Wick: Sort of. John always wears a nice suit when conducting business, and ties his hair back in the first film but it inevitably gets messy and falls in his face due to all the hand-to-hand combat he gets into. He completely forgoes tying back his hair in the sequels even when he has more than ample time to do so, which has become the trademark look of John (and Keanu Reeves).
• A Nightmare on Elm Street: While Freddy Krueger has always worn his iconic red and green striped sweater, it wouldn't be until the second movie that the stripes would extend to his sleeves, a feature that has remained consistent ever since.
• Spider-Man:
  • Spider-Man Trilogy: While the two versions of the red and blue suit that Spidey wears are nearly identical, the suit in the second and third movies has a darker shade of blue, a thicker, more prominent black spider on the chest, and a larger red spider on the back with more spindly legs compared to the suit in the first movie. The second red/blue suit was the version added to Spider-Man (PS4) after much fan demand.
  • The Amazing Spider-Man Series: The suit in the first movie has its fans, but was criticized for the many creative liberties taken with the design, especially the small yellow eyes. In response, the suit was redesigned in the sequel with large, white eyes for what is arguably the most comic-accurate Spider-Man suit to date, to much warmer reception.
• Star Trek:
  • After how the main cast hated the Starfleet uniforms from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan introduced a new, more militaristic-looking uniform with red jackets and different-colored turtlenecks indicating officers' divisions, which would stay in use through the rest of the TOS movie era, and Star Trek: The Next Generation would show that these uniforms were still in use in some form up until around 2350, almost 10 years before the beginning of TNG and around 70 years after the events of Star Trek II (Picard is seen wearing it as an ensign in 2327 in "Tapestry", and "Cause And Effect" established that these uniforms were introduced as early as 2278, 7 years before Star Trek II), making these the longest-lasting Starfleet uniforms in-universe.
  • While Star Trek: Generations retained the uniforms used on Star Trek: The Next Generation, mixed with the uniforms used on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and soon to be used on Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: First Contact introduced a new Starfleet uniform which were a Palette Swap of the uniforms seen on Deep Space Nine and Voyager. The cast of DS9 would adopt these uniforms soon afterwards and Voyager episodes featuring Earth had these uniforms show up there, too.
• Star Wars:
  • Luke Skywalker dons a black outfit (complete with black boots) in Return of the Jedi after completing his Jedi training. That outfit has been featured in numerous installments (comics, video games and whatnot) of both the original canon and the rebooted Expanded Universe (post-Return of the Jedi in both cases). It's also featured during Luke's appearance at the end of Season 2 of The Mandalorian.
  • Some would say Leia's Go-Go Enslavement outfit in the Jabba the Hutt arc of Return of the Jedi counts as well.
  • Padmé Amidala's most iconic outfit (not counting the red gown she wore as Queen of Naboo) would be the white outfit she wore during the Battle of Geonosis in Attack of the Clones, especially after the top is torn by the Nexu's claws, revealing her midriff.
• The Terminator steals a street punk's clothes shortly after he arrives in the past to terminate Sarah Connor, an outfit consisting of a grey jacket, black cargo pants and boots. When a more benevolent T-800 arrives in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, he obtains the biker leathers that are more associated with the character.
• Played with by Megatron in the Transformers Film Series, in that it's his actual body rather than an outfit. Megatron has a new alternate mode in each film he appears in: in Transformers (2007), he transforms into a Cybertronian jet with massive cannons on either side of the nose cone; a winged tank in Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen; a beat up tanker truck in Transformers: Dark of the Moon; and a more traditional yet still alien jet in Transformers: The Last Knight. Hasbro itself seems to enjoy using the tank-based body design from Revenge of the Fallen, while fans have latched onto his design in The Last Knight for its more humanoid appearance, G1-aesthetics, and general badassery (being voiced by original Megs actor Frank Welker instead of Hugo Weaving certainly helps).

Live-Action TV

• In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Wanda Maximoff wore various crimson leather Badass Longcoats since Avengers: Age of Ultron. By the end of WandaVision, she's officially become the Scarlet Witch, and wears an outfit much closer to the comics. Said outfit gets a bit more elaborate by the time of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Professional Wrestling

• Randy Savage is most associated with his long tights, tassel-covered jackets and cowboy hats, which he wouldn't start wearing until 1990 and would abandon the look in 1997. He wore trunks, headbands and sparkly ponchos during his prime in the 1980s.
• Sting's "Crow" look made its debut in late-1996 and it took until mid-1997 for him to perfect the look. He's kept the look ever since, apart from minor alterations during his "Wolfpac" and "Insane Icon" gimmicks, and even they still contained elements of the Crow appearance.

Video Games

• Assassin's Creed: Ezio Auditore takes his father's Assassin robes at the beginning of Assassin's Creed II and wears them throughout the game until he canonically claims the Armor of Altaïr shortly before the Bonfire of the Vanities. However, he loses both his father's robes and the Armor at the beginning of Brotherhood, before being given a new set of robes◊ upon his arrival in Rome. Between looking closer to Altaïr's outfit in the original game and being the first robes that uniquely belonged to Ezio, this new outfit has proven popular enough to be used in most promotional material involving Ezio, and is the only Legacy Outfit that has appeared in every single main game since III. That outfit is also worn by Ezio in his Guest Fighter turn in Soulcalibur V.
• Batman: Arkham Series:
  • The series has two examples for Batman himself:
    • The design of the batsuit in the first two games were well-received for being a realistic take on the batsuit design from the DCAU. However, one aspect of the prequel Batman: Arkham Origins that met near-unanimous praise is the canonically first batsuit, which, while bulky and heavier, effectively hybridized the second suit from The Dark Knight Trilogy with the visual style Rocksteady Studios established in the first two games.
    • Rocksteady took the opportunity to go full-out with the batsuit in Batman: Arkham Knight. Designed to look like the Batmobile in wearable form (without being too bulky, too slim, or over-designed), the final batsuit has become synonymous with the video game series to the point that it is the only one of the five batsuit designs to receive a Lego minifigure.
  • Bane's design in Arkham Origins, a militaristic hybrid of his classic comic and The Dark Knight Rises designs has been much better received than his grotesquely oversized and barefooted look in the first two games.
  • Harley Quinn's biker leathers in Arkham City was possibly her most iconic non-classic design until Suicide Squad (2016) was released.
• Donkey Kong:
  • DK himself used to be completely bare and didn't get his red, DK-emblazoned necktie until Donkey Kong '94. Its design in this game was different as well, only being red with white letters. While Rare redesigned him for Donkey Kong Country, the tie was merely red in the first game, though the red and yellow "DK" initials were present on DK Barrels and the title, which used a similar font. Diddy's Kong Quest is the first game to show the tie with the appearance it's known for now: red, with "DK" on it in large yellow letters.
  • Diddy Kong, in his debut in the first Donkey Kong Country, wore a red tank top and red cap, but in both the game and the official renders, they were simply a flat red with nothing on them. Diddy's Kong Quest introduced the icons on Diddy's clothing that would become his signature elements: a pair of asymmetric yellow stars on his shirt, and the Nintendo logo on the front of his cap.
  • Funky Kong went through various outfits over the years before settling on one. In the first DKC, his build was primarily a Head Swap of Donkey Kong, though his fur was a lighter color and he wore sandals, a gold medallion, a red bandanna with white spots, and a pair of black sunglasses. Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! laid the foundation for his now-signature looks; in it, he wears a white tank top, blue shorts ripped at the legs, black boots, and a toolbelt, in addition to keeping his bandanna and now-purple sunglasses. Donkey Kong 64 gave him another new outfit to fit his role as a weapon shop owner, wearing pants, a shirt, and a hat all patterned with navy blue camouflage, in addition to black boots and red goggles. Funky's appearances after 64, such as in Donkey Kong Barrel Blast, Mario Kart Wii, and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, went back to the Double Trouble! outfit, but had him ditch the toolbelt and boots.
• Duke Nukem has gone through quite a few looks in his early games. Duke Nukem had him in a white t-shirt, purple vest and blue jeans. Duke Nukem II had him in a red tank-top blue jeans and two metal clamps on his biceps. But starting with Duke Nukem 3D, his trademark look debuted, with him wearing sunglasses, red tank top, bandoliers, blue jeans, a belt with a nuke buckle and size-13 steel-toed boots. With the exception of a few modifications over the years, this has become the quintessential Duke look he's carried over throughout his later appearances, permanently overshadowing his earlier appearances.
• Rikku in Final Fantasy X-2 has a much more recognisable design than in Final Fantasy X, with 80+% of search results, crossovers, and fanart using her sequel design, due to just how much Fanservice her clothes provide.
• Jak and Daxter:
  • Depending on who you ask either of Jak's outfits from II or 3 could fit the bill, however his outfit from 3 where he sports shorter hair, a blue shirt with the sleeves ripped off, and the armor of Mar is arguably the more well-known of the two due to it being the outfit Jak wears in most of his guest appearances in other games.
  • Daxter only gets his pair of pants at the very end of Jak 3 and wears them in exactly two games afterwards^note three if you count his pre-order bonus costume for Play Station Move Heroes, yet despite this it's still the look that fans associate with him the most due in large part to the fact that it fulfills the series-long running gag of Daxter lamenting his inability to wear pants as an Ottsel.
• Most merch of Estelle Bright in The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky features her orange outfit with thigh high socks from the second game instead of the red outfit with Modesty Shorts she wore in the first game.
  • Her successor, Rean Schwarzer from The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel is more remembered for his Cold Steel II outfit which has him wear a red jacket, black vest with a white shirt underneath, blue pants, and brown boots that it's a DLC costume for his appearance in Cold Steel III, and his instructor outfit in said game where he wears a white Badass Longcoat with black pants and a black vest with a white shirt underneath and a different pair of brown boots. Contrast to his appearance in Cold Steel I which is essentially just a red version of the school's uniform.
• The Legend of Zelda: While Link's iconic outfit was always the green tunic and cap (though relegated to an unlockable in Breath of the Wild), Princess Zelda's outfit went through radical changes until Ocarina of Time. In most subsequent games, her dress is based on the OoT one, with comparatively-minor variations (until Breath of the Wild which gave her two unique outfits).
• In Mass Effect, most of the squadmates from Mass Effect didn't get their iconic outfits until the second or third games, since while the original game usually had something resembling their iconic look, it would be switched out early on for armor with better stats (the sequels would jettison this idea in favour of skins).
  • In the first game, Shepard's N7 armor was just a standard suit of Onyx armor with a stripe on one arm and the N7 logo on the chest, but was hardly worth keeping because nearly anything else had far better stats. However it was the only set of armor that had a story link to Shepard, and the player was guaranteed to start the game with it, so the second entry turned it into a truly unique armor set that became synonymous with the character (and franchise as a whole, given that Shepard can have their face customized).
  • The blue armor Kaidan wears in the third game is far more recognized than the generic dark grey Onyx armor he wore in the first two games. The Legendary Edition makes an interesting subversion, however: Kaidan's casual Alliance clothes changed the blue accents to black on an already very black uniform, alluding to the original Onyx armor.
  • Tali's environmental suit was redesigned in the second game to be more symmetrical, with a more purple tint and replacing the veil with a hood, and adding gold accents, all to allude to her family being better off than most quarian families and to make her more distinctive next to other female quarians.
  • Liara's white and blue combat suit introduced in Lair of the Shadow Broker completely eclipsed her generic scientist outfit aboard the Normandy. It could be retroactively subverted however if you give her Explorer Armor in the first game, which shares the same colour palette as her Shadow Broker look.
• Metroid: Samus Aran's Varia Suit was redesigned in Metroid II: Return of Samus with an orange color scheme and massive Shoulders of Doom so it would still be distinguishable from the Power Suit without color. It has since become the most iconic and recognizable design for Samus, far eclipsing the standard Power Suit (a yellow/gold power suit with much smaller shoulders) from the original Metroid. It also eclipses the late-game Gravity Suit (purple), and thus Samus is often seen in her Varia suit at the start of games before Bag of Spilling applies.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • When he made his debut in Mortal Kombat II, Jax had a very standard look, with white-and-red pants and boots. His return in Mortal Kombat 3 debuted his metal arms, which became the trademark of the character.
  • When Mortal Kombat I first came out, Liu Kang was something of a Bruce Lee Expy, with his black, baggy pants. Then come Mortal Kombat II, where Kang started wearing red and black kung-fu pants, slippers, a red bandana and spike gauntlets, a look that still defines him to this day.
• The first-party characters' designs in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale are mostly taken from the most successful game in their series rather than their first or most-recent appearances. For example, Ratchet's design is from Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, while Nathan Drake's is from Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.
• Ratchet & Clank:
  • Technically Ratchet has had three of these, but seeing as they're all variants of the same general outfit most refer to them collectively as a singular outfit — Initially, Ratchet was given a new starting look in almost every game between the first game and A Crack in Time. However the look of his that truly stuck was the Pilot Suit he sported in 2007's Tools of Destruction where it initially consisted of a brown shirt, green pants, green accents, and brown boots. Insomniac cemented the outfit as his default attire in All 4 One (where it was given a slight redesign and was colored almost entirely orange with blue highlights to fit with the game's Color-Coded Multiplayer), and then the look of the suit still used to this day debuted in Full Frontal Assault (where it was given a more vibrant orange shirt and blue pants while keeping the blue highlights).
  • While Dr. Nefarious' overall design has not changed too drastically between games, his look in◊ A Crack in Time is easily the one he's most known for (especially once Ratchet gives him the crack in his head). Whether or not the purple color scheme given to him in All 4 One onwards also falls under this is up for debate.
    • On that note, the design for Nefarious' organic form in the 2016 reimagining (where he wears an outfit and headgear that closely resemble his robotic form in addition to having green skin and more pointed ears) far eclipses the notoriety of his original organic design he was given in Up Your Arsenal (where he wore a more generic spacesuit and had beige skin and more rounded ears). The reimagined look getting significanly more screentime than the original certainly helped it in that regard.
• In a more subtle example, in the jump from Rayman 2: The Great Escape to Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc the titular hero received a redesign. While the most notable changes are with his head, his red bandana was also changed into a red hood thereby turning his torso into a hoodie, and the white accents on his shoes were replaced with an orange spiral design on the foot and small red does on the ankle. And in an even more subtle example, Rayman Origins would ditch the pattern and dots on his shoes and instead give him white toe caps to make them look more sneaker-y. These two shoe designs appear to be on equal footing in terms of popularity so which one is truly the more iconic look is subject to debate.
• Richman series has this for many characters, as their appearance at their debut are usually very different from those from sequel, which is mostly the same with little changes. For example, Miss Money had black hair and red dress in 2, while her appearance after 4 is purple hair and purple dress, Salonbus wears a brown outfit in 3 and a white one since 4, Candy wears blue dress in 4 but a sailer's uniform since 6, Wumela wears roller blades and doesn't wear a headband in 6 but wears orange shoes and a pink headband with flower patterns since 7, and so on.
• Soul Series:
  • Siegfried debuted in Soul Edge with short, combed-back hair. After being corrupted by the demon sword Soul Edge, his hair grew out over the next few years, until he finally purged himself of the sword. Since then, Siegfried has kept the long hair in every incarnation since.
  • Mitsurugi debuted wearing a modest blue samurai jacket with baggy pants. His alternate costume instead wore traditional samurai armor, complete with breastplate and shoulder pads. In later games, the alternate was upgraded into his default outfit (with the exception of Soulcalibur V).
• Street Fighter:
  • Cammy debuted in Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers with her iconic green Leotard of Power, red beret, and combat boots. In the prequel Street Fighter Alpha 3, she is still brainwashed by Shadaloo and instead wore a blue, long-sleeved leotard with a side cap and brown jackboots. Since Capcom would later reuse the Alpha assets in other series, such as the Capcom vs. games, that outfit also became an iconic part of her design and usually appears at least as an alternative in other games.
  • Chun-Li's traditional Chinese qipao with nylon leggings is her most iconic outfit by far, but in the Alpha series, she was given a tight one-piece. Due to some of the staff members preferring that outfit, while others prefer the classic, Chun-Li has usually kept the onesie at least as a secondary outfit — this included 2D installments that required an entirely new sprite set, to give you an idea of just how popular her classic outfit still is.
  • Cody Travers, one of the protagonists of Final Fight, debuted wearing a white muscle shirt and blue jeans. In Alpha 3, Cody is revealed to have been sentenced to prison due to his addiction to fighting and given a pinstripe prison uniform, which he then kept in other appearances. In Street Fighter V, Cody is revealed to have been released and his record expunged, allowing him to be elected the new Mayor of Metro City. He thus wears a professional suit, but the prison outfit is still an alternate.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • In Mario Bros., Mario was usually depicted wearing a blue cap and overalls and a red shirt, while Luigi wore a green cap and overalls and a brown shirt. Starting with the first Super Mario Bros., official artwork usually depicted Mario in a red cap and overalls and a blue shirt. Ingame, however, Mario wore a red hat and overalls with a brown shirt, and Luigi (who was not featured in any artwork) wore a white hat and overalls with a green shirt, the outfit now associated with Fire Luigi. Mario and Luigi settled into their series-standard "Blue overalls, red/green shirt and cap" outfits in Super Mario Bros. 2 ingame (artwork took a bit longer to catch up).
  • Wario used to wear long sleeves like the Mario Bros., and wouldn't get short sleeves until Wario Land II. His other iconic outfit, the WarioWare biker gear, wouldn't debut until the series itself did in 2003.
• Tekken: Jin Kazama debuted in Tekken 3 wearing a shirtless karate uniform with a red flame pattern. In Tekken 4, Jin underwent a radical redesign; after rejecting his corrupt family, he donned a matching hoodie and pants. He has kept this outfit in every game since (although it was briefly downgraded to an alternate after Jin's Face–Heel Turn in Tekken 6).
• Lara Croft in Tomb Raider I had a sleeveless teal shirt, brown shorts, boots, and a backpack. Due to limitations, her ponytail couldn't be rendered. By the next game, Lara's ponytail was able to be rendered and her shirt was given a low cut look, giving her the iconic look many fans would remember her for.
• Touhou Project: Zigzagged depending if you consider Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil (the first game of the "Windows era"), or the five previous PC-98 games as the beginning of the saga. If you consider the later, Reimu and Marisa had a very different look than they had afterwards. Reimu had a white kimono and a red hakama, as well as purple hair. Marisa had a purple dress with white or yellow ribbons, as well as red hair in her very first appearance, but blonde afterwards. Marisa got her iconic black and white dress in Mystic Square, the last game of the "PC-98 era". Reimu got her red and white dress with detached sleeves at the beginning of the "Windows era" (as well as black hair), albeit slighty less detailed than her later outfits.
  • Regarding secoundary characters we have Yukari Yakumo, who debuted in Perfect Cherry Blossom with a dark purple western style dress, but whose most known outfit (a purple and orange tabard with tigrams over a light pink western dress) is the one she wears from Imperishable Night and Immaterial and Missing Power onwards. She did appear with her first outfit in several printed works though.
• Uncharted: The main protagonist Nathan Drake typically wears the same basic attire in every outing: A button-collar t-shirt, a gun harness, and beige cargo pants. However, the two variants of this outfit that you are most likely to see nowadays are his look from A Thief's End (where he sports a blue shirt) and the desert attire from Drake's Deception (where he sports a white shirt plus a blue scarf and bandolier).

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Many fans often associate Zuko with either the clothing that he wore when he was hiding from the Fire Nation in Book 2 or a red and black tunic that he wears in Book 3 more than his Fire Nation soldier uniform he wore in Book 1. In addition, many fans now remember him with a head of hair when he had a Bald of Evil in Book 1.
• Scarecrow's first outfit in Batman: The Animated Series made him resemble a spindly scarecrow and wasn't nearly as menacing as his hulking, skull-faced, noose-tied, self in The New Batman Adventures.
• While all of Ben Tennyson's various redesigns are recognizable and arguably iconic to some extent, fans from all ends of the franchise associate him most with his design from Alien Force and Ultimate Alien where he wears a black shirt, a green jacket with a "10" insignia, blue jeans, and black trainers.
• Steven Universe: More than the other Gems, Pearl is most commonly depicted in her second outfit, with the large ribbon around her waist and short yellow tights, replacing her original ballerina-esque look. She was the first Gem to get a new outfit, regenerating only a handful of episodes into Season 1, and kept it until the end of Season 5. It didn't stop her from appearing in her original outfit for the entire first season's intro, though.

---