#with the glowing clothes thing perhaps it could be mainly incorporated into capes

[bookwyrminspiration]

How would you change elvin fashion/or how do you think elvin fashion should be?

First order of business: leggings are OUT! yes this entirely personal, but they (or at least the girls) wear leggings with EVERYTHING and I simply could not and will not. And it's also incredibly plain and boring, and they can do better.

The main thing is just that practically none of what we hear described makes an impression. The only thing they do is some undescribed embroidery and added jewels (usually described as "jewel encrusted" or simialr, no further detail), and Sophie keeps saying it looks super fancy and wealthy, but I'm unconvinced. I will grant that the capes are more distinctly elven and memorable, but I think they can be improved upon as well

What, exactly, the distinct thing "should" be depends on preference. And it's difficult to make it universal since elves are around the world, and a group's clothing tends to reflect their environment. One option is since they're a light-based society, to have a lot of skin showing to better absorb the sunlight--yes, this is also partially personal because that's what I like, but since not all elves are in a warm environment this doesn't work great for all areas. Another route is to incorporate a lot of gold--thread and jewelry--into their dress to reflect that sunlight, though we do run the risk of overlapping to heavily with goblins.

We could also bring back the trick with Jolie's lumenite dress, expanding that more broadly to making glowing garments. Perhaps with other glowing materials as well, though I'm not sure what specifically. That might be the best option actually, as it can be incorporated into a variety of fabrics and styles for the various weather conditions.

Another idea would be, instead of the clothes specifically, to focus on the culture surrounding clothes. They have an overabundance of clothes, what if they frequently switched outfits throughout the day? Something for a brisk morning, then they switch to something else when it warms up, and back into something else for the evening then night, etc. We could get more specific for positions of power--e.g. what if the councillors, who are supposed to be the best of the best, change clothes to reflect the colors of the sun/sky throughout the day? To reflect their enlightenment and atonement to the world?

Like I said, a variety of ways to go about it even beyond this, but the main thing is right now they feel like human clothes with the words "embroidery" and "jewel" stuck on. We can improve upon this :)

(also would love to see clothing not tied to gender. more ubiquitous styles and choices across all sexes and genders. why hold on to human socially constructed separation?)