Robin's original costume...

[byrd156]

I was going to say something, but I really can't say it better than this. Leave the bare legs and pixie boots in the 30s and 40s please.

So it can come back from the 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s?

[Aahz]

They tried allready in the 70s to get rid of the classic costume, because he thought it was Outdated and embarrassing.

https://www.cbr.com/batman-robin-jus...ume-neal-adams

But their new costume was also not that great.

[Restingvoice]

They tried allready in the 70s to get rid of the classic costume, because he thought it was Outdated and embarrassing.

https://www.cbr.com/batman-robin-jus...ume-neal-adams

But their new costume was also not that great.

The cape's awful and the yellow pants are garish, but the rest is not bad.

Oh... I see Alan Scott is wearing the red shirt green pants combo so they can't do that.

[Xero Kaiser]

While the nostalgic part of me, that grew up in the 80's with the OG Robin, loves the costume...it would never work today.

As someone that grew up in the same time period...it didn't work back then either. "Classic" or not, it always looked awful.

[byrd156]

The cape's awful and the yellow pants are garish, but the rest is not bad.

Oh... I see Alan Scott is wearing the red shirt green pants combo so they can't do that.

It looks very much like the Earth-2 design which I really like. Not as the main Robin suit but it looked great in Batman Brave and the Bold. It's only missing the stripes down the chest and it would be awesome.

[Aahz]

I don't like the colour of the pants and the sleeves.

The yellow pants just don't look good and the vest is for me the iconic part of the Robin costume, which means the sleeves must have a different colour (thats why I'm alsi not a fan of the OYL costume and the original Red Robin suit).

[Jim Kelly]

In the Justice League story, the Robin of Earth-Two said that Neal Adams had designed the costume for him--which means there was a Neal Adams on Earth-Two. Later on, Earth-Two's Richard Grayson started to wear that costume. Which has the weird effect of making him look younger than he had looked in his other grown-up costume. Just how old he was supposed to be is one of those confusing elements of Earth-Two.

We never did see Neal Adams draw the costume (as far as I know, if there is an example where Adams did this design I'd like to see it). The way that Dick Dillin and others drew it made it look not so good. The design takes away all the novel elements of the original Robin outfit and offers a rather generic look. Plus the yellow leggings don't work. I think bare legs actually look better than yellow legs. Especially because, in the classic comics, colours were not rendered in a realistic way--so "skin" colour was just another hue on the colour wheel.

As a little kid I wasn't so literal minded about colours. And, with Batman and Robin, it seemed to be multiple choice. Because in publicity images, bubble gum cards, the Sunday strip, the comics and games, the colours changed. Our TV was a black and white, so that didn't help. I started to think that the artists themselves didn't know for sure what the colours were and they were just guessing. I mean, look at these bubble gum cards--is Batman baring it all?

[Vakanai]

So it can come back from the 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s?

As long as it don't come back today, tomorrow, or ever again, that's all I ask.

[Restingvoice]

It looks very much like the Earth-2 design which I really like. Not as the main Robin suit but it looked great in Batman Brave and the Bold. It's only missing the stripes down the chest and it would be awesome.

They change the cape to be more reasonable but still don't like that yellow pants. Should be green alongside the trunk. Then it'll be a good young adult Robin costume.

[byrd156]

They change the cape to be more reasonable but still don't like that yellow pants. Should be green alongside the trunk. Then it'll be a good young adult Robin costume.

The color balance is perfect. This is the only way I can see yellow pants working.

[Güicho]

Costume was fine for it's time, all it needed was an slight upgrade moving forward.
With all the reworking Batman costume has gotten over the ages while he stays the same age, it amazes me how fans can't grasp how normal it would have been to just update Dick Grayson's Robin costume, (instead of aging him).
All it ever needed was elements from the Neal Addams update (leggings, black boots & cape ext).
That a dozen derivative reinventions are all trying to recapture this^, speaks to it's strength.
The colorful dare-devil-may-care , swashbuckling Robin Hood roots of the character, and embraces the red breast Bird aspect. All there. It's pretty simple, been there from the start.

[byrd156]

As long as it don't come back today, tomorrow, or ever again, that's all I ask.

It'll come back at some point.

[Vakanai]

It'll come back at some point.

I know, because fans have a weird nostalgia boner. Doesn't make it a good thing.

[byrd156]

I know, because fans have a weird nostalgia boner. Doesn't make it a good thing.

I think it's a great thing, I wish it was back. Dick's new Robin costume is just dreadful.

[Jim Kelly]

If bare legs for young super-heroes come back into style will that be nostalgia? Well, is the cycle of fashion always nostalgia for the past? Obviously, fashion does look at past trends and tries to incorporate those into the new style. But it also looks to popular culture for direction.

Sometimes, in these discussions about male costumes, I detect an undercurrent of gender conformity. Especially if the boots are called "pixie boots"--is that code for "these are too female?"

And what if the culture shifts, as it has shifted many times in the past, and we don't expect young people to conform to certain gender stereotypes? Could we get back to the unisex trend of the 1970s? Well, let's hope the nostalgia for old-fashioned ideals of masculinity will eventually pass.