Who makes the Joker's suits?

[TheNewFiftyForum]

I don't think it's implausible for Joker to send henchmen out with specific instructions to buy certain clothes or order them from tailors or online. He's usually dressed quite "loudly", but generally not in stuff that no one would conceivably wear. Just google "purple suit" and there are tons of options. I'd say the real question is where Two-Face gets his split suits?

[K. Jones]

If you think about it, back when the Joker first appeared, his suit wouldn't have looked unusual to readers of the day. The purple colour was used a lot in comics, because it was easier to use that than trying to do real grey. So when you see purple think grey, when you see blue think black, when you see orange think brown. And besides being often easier for the printing presses, these more vibrant colours made comic books attractive to the consumer.

The cut of Joker's suit is out of date, but not that much out of date. It's maybe twenty years out of date, so the kind of suit you would see a lot of poor people wearing--because they got it at a thrift shop, where the wealthier people would deposit their old wardrobe--or else elderly people who are out of fashion in any generation. The same thing happens nowadays, where we see a lot of old clothes being worn by the poor and the elderly--or just people that want to challenge convention.

The original Toyman from the Superman comics is similar. He's typical of an older person who hasn't caught up with the times. He has long hair, because long hair used be common, before military service for the younger generations made short hair popular. He wears old-timey clothes and the reader would immediately recognize that he's from another generation. Which would indicate certain aspects of his character, without ever having to write this into the story.

Both Joker and Toyman make me think of the German Expressionist movies from the 1920s and 1930s. The artists may have wanted to bring that flavour into the stories--since those films do a good job of showing malevolent characters. THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920) is one of the most influential in that regard. Remember, to someone in 1940, a movie like that would be akin to AMERICAN PIE (1999) for us today--not so far out of date that it isn't known and seen by many people still.

Joker's got a lot of Max Ernst in him.

I always figured, we don't get to know Joker's backstory but we can deduce a lot about him. He's a master of disguise and a solid actor. His mastery of building death-traps and treatment of it like performance art indicate some kind of background in stage-craft, set design and stage building. It's only logical then that covering those bases in that theater/performance world, he'd be an expert costume designer as well. His ability to cheat death and know ever little hiding hole and back alley in Gotham indicates that unlike Bruce, he's from downtown, and his anarchic tendencies belie a probably meager background, but his vanity, pride and the way he carries himself do indicate probably a family history that goes back a ways in Gotham and is aware of the local history - and probably worked with some of the less savory criminal elements. Less certain is where the mastery of obtuse chemistry comes into the picture - obviously there's the Ace Chemicals connection, whether he was working there like in the Moore story or learned Chemistry (and these days, Biochemistry) somewhere else. But I mean hey, Bruce is a polymath at detection, martial arts, yadda yadda.

So anyway long story short, being an expert at costumery, I assume he proudly tailors his own suits.

[Jim Kelly]

When Julius Schwartz was both the editor of the Flash and Batman (plus several other super-heroes), I assumed that Paul Gambi was the tailor for all of gangland's costumed clientele.

[adrikito]

There's a fan comic that deals with this question https://imgur.com/gallery/3tSsr

Thanks for the link. I liked that Fan comic.