Welcome to the first of a four part series on the fashion of Final Fantasy. With this series, I hope to explore the best and worst of fashion in Final Fantasy and discuss everything from the best dressed character, to the worst dressed, and to the very strange outfits that seem so commonplace throughout the worlds of Final Fantasy. It isn't all about the clothes you wear though; in this piece I open up a little about something that has been bugging me ever since I heard rumours of a Final Fantasy perfume – my desire for video games to crossover into cosmetics. I’ll be wrapping the series up in a nice big taffeta bow with a biographical piece on stylish Final Fantasy director and artist, Tetsuya Nomura. Stay tuned for these articles, and I hope you enjoy them!
Cosmetic brand Urban Decay recently released two stunning, limited edition make-up palettes – inspired by the witches Glinda and Theodora from ‘Oz, The Great and Powerful’. Now, pretty much anything that Urban Decay produces, I’m bound to adore, and when they do special palettes… my excitement goes off the charts! My goodness these palettes are gorgeous.
I love it when cosmetics cross over with popular culture. As well as tapping into the movies, cosmetic companies are now seeking celebrities to do more than be the ‘face’ of their brand – they want them to help with creation, to create their own signature piece of make-up. This year, Hayley Williams of Paramore joined Nicki Minaj, Lady GaGa, and Rihanna on the growing list of celebrities who are having their own signature lipstick produced MAC (another cosmetics heavyweight.)
So why exactly is this relevant? Why am I talking about make-up on the front site of a Final Fantasy forum? Well, that would be because there are a number of rumours flying around the internet that Final Fantasy XV (previously Final Fantasy Versus XIII) may have a perfume. I don’t know if any of you have picked up on the fact I know pretty much nothing about graphic specs and hard-drives and… computer things… and all the things that make up a game. People say numbers and words to me and it’s like I don’t hear them, my brain just filters them through into something which is just… sound. Make-up and perfume though? Well, I have plenty to say on that matter!
I think I may be one of the few people whose jaw hit the floor when I heard about the XV perfume. To me, this is some fantastic news. Would I buy a Final Fantasy perfume? OF COURSE! I would be the first in line. This kind of marketing is unheard of in the world of video games – it’s almost completely untapped, and that should mean ‘opportunity’ to video games companies. To tap into the cosmetics industry would be to market video games in such a unique and probably extremely profitable way.
Let me discuss an example - a Lara Croft make-up palette. Now I know what you’re thinking: “what does that have to do with Tomb Raider? Does Lara ever stop and put on her make-up? Does she even wear make-up?” Well, no, the games do not allude to this, but what is wrong with marketing a beautiful palette to girls with a sense of adventure, a love of danger, and an adrenaline junkie side? Or just fans of Tomb Raider? It’s marketing gold. I know as a collector of make-up, I’d spend my hard earned cash on this palette… and I’d buy the Tifa Lockhart palette, and the Shiva and Siren palettes. Do you see where I’m going with this?
To me, Lara Croft and Lightning are just as much icons as Nicki Minaj and Hayley Williams. Sure, they’re fictional characters, but so are Glinda and Theodora. Cosmetics and beauty store Sephora have started a Princess line, which features products inspired by several of the Disney Princesses. There is a perfume called “A Whole New World” as a tribute to Jasmine; the websites description claims that the perfume is: “Empowering and seductive” and that “this tempting fragrance will allow you to be the master of your own destiny”. Take my money Sephora. Take it right now. If you want yet ANOTHER example, China Glaze released a collection of nail polishes inspired by the Hunger Games for the movie’s release – these polishes did incredibly well and in some places were sold out very quickly. Girls want these! I want these!
Make-up is a pretty big deal right now, more than ever before in fact. Girls are buying make-up and falling in love with it. YouTube alone is a haven for girls and their make-up obsessions! Look at how badass Promise Phang looks when she ‘transforms’ herself into Lara Croft with make-up.
So before you call me vapid or vain, take a look at yourself. There has to be something that you adore and are passionate about alongside game too, and wouldn’t you enjoy it all the more if the two could be combined? Personally, I don’t like being given a negative labels because I enjoy wearing make-up, and neither do many other girls. I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve heard men say “I don’t like girls who wear a lot of make-up, I prefer a natural girl!” and also the amount of people who have presumed because of my typically girly dress sense, that I can’t possibly enjoy video games, and I must only like them so that men will pay attention to me. A prime example of this happened some months ago in a games store while I was trying to buy some games, the sales assistant asked me if the games were for my boyfriend.
So now I’m left asking myself, what is it about society that seems to not want to include girls in the video games industry? Games are marketed to men and gaming magazines are marketed to men. I find this so baffling. Why is it still seen as being so obscure that a girl would play a video game? I found this image online which depicts an artists impression of a real gamer, and a slut gamer. Whether or not this is the context in which this image should be taken in, I find myself being quite offended. Not just because the artist dropped the 'S'' word, but because it is just completely backwards in what it is saying.
The image depicts a girl in make-up who is “a slut with a controller” and below it, a girl who looks a little bit messy and doesn’t shower – she is the ‘real’ girl gamer. I take offense to this on many levels. I don’t understand what makes the girl in the first box a ‘slut’ and any less of a gamer than the girl below. I also don’t understand this assumption that a girl who plays games is partaking in a boy’s activity, so therefore she must banish all things girly such as a good hygiene routine, brushing her hair and wearing make-up. Can’t there be a middle ground? But this image can also be read as a highlight of the way in which society judges girls who game. Ever seen a gaming magazine with a half naked lady 'posing' with a controller? I have. Why don't they give that girl her jeans and t-shirt back and sit her down and see how much ass she kicks on Far Cry 3 instead?
Now I'm not someone who has been educated in Women's History and I'm not fully schooled on my feminism, but I know this is wrong, and I know I'd like it to change. I’m not ashamed to stand up and say that I want some Final Fantasy lipsticks to go with my perfumes and eye shadows, and that I want Tomb Raider inspired nail polish because they’d be pretty and would look awesome alongside the rest of my nail polish collection. I want gaming to get a little bit girl-ified, to level the playing field. I want some video game merchandise that is aimed directly at girls! At the girls who wear and love make-up, shock horror! There are plenty of us out there and we are tired of being ignored!
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for the next article. Hope to see some comments below. If you don't want gaming related make-up, what would you like to see? What would be your dream marketing product for video games? I'm hoping to go through some of these issues again at the end of my series, so don't feel too disappointed if they go missing for a while!
07-05-2013, 10:46 AM
Jiro
I get the idea of empowering that "gamer girl" image who isn't a model biting on a controller, but at the same time, it does leave out those who do like to wear dresses andmakeup and aren't "one of the boys" or a "tomboy" or whatever. It takes all sorts. Male gamers aren't all neckbeards and nor are they whiny smurfing 12 year olds on CoD, so I think celebrating our diversity is important!
07-05-2013, 10:54 AM
Night Fury
Exactly, I think that a lot of the time there's just an image of something that people think of.
All gamers are nerds living in their parents basement, wearing glasses and braces etc etc. When that's completely outdated - and was it ever true in the first place. Too many little 'groups' of people get left out. I did some research into game tv spots, and a LOT of the adverts that featured women were for DS games. IE Beyonce playing Rhythm Paradise, Girls Aloud playing Mario Kart.
I think it's changing now, but it is a very slow change.
07-05-2013, 11:17 AM
Jiro
Nintendo has been super progressive with its ad campaigns, at least from what I've seen in Australia. I mean, it's the same ethnically diverse group that are perfect for ad campaigns, but we also saw some families, and the "star-endorsed" ads (see: Olivia Newton-John) showed that the Wii/DS wasn't just for kids or teenagers.
I think part of the problem is that a lot of girls get unwanted attention from men for being that idea of a "sexy gamer chick." It might be an attractive trait or whatever, but at the end of the day we are all people trying to enjoy a hobby ffs so let's not creep each other out (looking at you, EoFF :p)
07-05-2013, 11:50 AM
Night Fury
Yeah when I was in school I hung around a lot with the people who had the same interests as me, and most of them were guys. I've always been very girly, and I do remember quite vividly another girl who also loved video games who really didn't like me at all and she would say things like "but you don't like games, stop lying"
So in some ways I think girls can enable it. Some like to take pride in the fact that they don't wear make up and wear dresses but they also think it makes them better? So I think a lot of girls need to stop enabling it too. There's fault on both sides, definitely.
07-05-2013, 05:23 PM
Pumpkin
I think it might stem from insecurity. I mean I play games, and I don't wear make-up and although I shower daily and brush my hair, it always still manages to look like a tornado went through it. I think there's a lot of guys who are into girls who are into games and can still be feminine (and a lot of guys who aren't :P) but it could very well be that they feel insecure next to someone else who plays games and has gorgeous hair and nice makeup and a great body. I know I would but I don't go insulting them or calling them liars. Also, I'm not trying to impress anyone with my gaming, I just like to game.
I think it might come down to a lot of women feeling insecure. You see women in movies, in porn, on TV, in music that have beautiful hair and makeup and bodies and now I guess they feel like it might be going into gaming now. Like here's hot gamer chick with her makeup and hair and giant bust and they feel like that's what men will start expecting gamer girls to look like and it makes them feel insecure. So they go around saying "no, HERE is what gamer girls look like" and take it to the opposite extreme. Not saying this is right, or defending it, that's just my opinion on maybe why it happens.
But nobody should be insulting the way anyone chooses to present themselves while they play video games. That's silly.
07-06-2013, 07:20 PM
Loony BoB
I won't pretend to be keen on fashion and makeup so I thought it would be a struggle for me to read through all of this article, yet I was pleasantly surprised with how much I picked up interest in it... I particularly agree with the end part about gamer girls. I've seen loads of very attractive gamer girls who are happy to look good while they game purely because they like makeup. My opinion on gamer girls is: They could look like anyone you see at any time of the day. They could look like your mum, your sister, your friends, a person you pass on the street or any of those characters from a random soap opera. That's what gamer girls look like. Because any girl can be a gamer!
I remember when I was in school for video game design, and one guy that sat beside me goes, "Woah. You're like.. Legit the hottest girl in here" - there was only like 2 other girls in my class (the same group of us took the same classes together).. One of them -really- didn't look like she showered, nor did she wear makeup or had any sense of style. That sounds pretty harsh and judgmental, but I'm just stating the truth. and the other was a ... Tomboy Gay girl. Nothing wrong with that. And I by no means think I'm the prettiest girl ever, at all. I just like to look nice if I'm gonna be around other people. Actually.. us 3 girls -were- the only 3 in the entire program for that year. haha.
EDIT 2:
They've also come out with Lightning, Cloud & Sephiroth colognes/perfume.. I'll be damned.
