What we can learn from Superheroes: The Style And The Attitude

Superheroes are part of our culture, in comic books, games and movies. It’s funny how it’s usually considered that comic book fans are a bunch of geeks, yet there are millions of people around the world who have their favorites.

Superheroes have some traits that are distinctive: they have great powers, a moral code, a secret identity, a costume and a back story.

Even though we feel like superheroes are an invention of the 20th century, when characters like Superman and Batman started to appear, they actually have a long family line. If you take a closer look, you will be able to see that today’s superheroes are the equivalent of ancient Greek or Roman gods. One of them is really strong (see Hercules and Hulk for example), one can control the thunder, one has power of water and so on. They all have a story we all know and feel close to our stories. And, as someone once said, the stories we own become our own stories. It’s interesting how if the Greek gods had equivalents in the Roman spirituality, just like that superheroes have equivalents around the world: there is both a Captain America and a Captain Britain.

We all love heroes because of their kindness, because of their strength, because of their whit and charm, and because they have honor and want to defend ours. What we learn from them is that it’s not the clothes they wear as civilians that make them special, it’s not the costumes or the accessories that make them special, but the attitude and the strength, both physical and moral strength. We are really interested in convincing everyone that it’s not the clothes you wear, it’s being a good man that is most important. We like to call all these things “metafashion”. We would really like to see more and more men being kind, morally integer and interested in others. There is no such thing as a standard that must be reached, each person can do their own part, and be the best they can.

It’s not the clothes that matter, it’s not the house you live in. A great jam is great in a glass jar or in a plastic bowl. Yes, what we learned is that indeed, that clothes don’t make the man. We love superheroes because they rise above their circumstances and keep going. This is the kind of people we want to be and want all men to be! Nobility is not something you are born with, it’s something you build yourself. Some people just have an official title to it.

We love them because of their bravery, strength and also because of their sense of style. Bruce Wayne, who is Batman’s alter-ego (actually it’s the other way around) always wears great suits, drives the best cars, and lives in great homes. Blogger Kajsa  Josephine was saying as a comment on our blog that if she were a superhero, the The Bugatti Veyron Super Sports would be her superhero car. What would your superhero car be?

So, this is the first thing we learn from superheroes: to choose the best and to wear our good stuff now! Don’t wait, every day is a good day for style! A thing we love about superheroes is that they are always in the right attitude.

Another thing we can learn from superheroes when it comes to fashion is related to colors. Superheroes don’t shy away from color, they always have bright outfits and apparently awesome fabrics. If you study the outfits superheroes wear, you will see that they usually wear contrasting colors like blue and red or green and yellow. If you are making your superhero costume, you can learn more about choosing colors from our article “The professional way to choose the colors of your clothes“.

If you look at the way superheroes are dressed, you can notice that each has it’s own individuality. And this is what we want to achieve as well: to make everyone express themselves. If you saw a picture of a superhero, but the picture was not good, you would still be able to figure out who it is, and that’s the thing we want too: to provide everyone the tools to create the right version of the outside of what each person has and is on the inside.

Fashion house Moschino once created a bunch of looks inspired by superheroes and we think they have done a great job. This really goes to show how strongly these fictional (and sometimes real) characters are embedded into our lives. In order to say you like superheroes, you don’t need to dress up in a costume. You can hint to the idea of superhero by using colors, shapes or textures. Here, Moschino wanted to be quite explicit and transformed the Superman sign into the M sign, but you don’t have to do that too. A pair or metallic motives could remind of Iron Man, a nice pendant can say Spider Man.

In conclusion, we can say that superheroes come in all shapes and sizes and for all styles and tastes, just like clothes, so we encourage you to find the superhero in you and ask him/her: what would you wear?

Fraquoh and Franchomme

P.S. What would your superhero car be? What superhero would you like to be? Share your comments in the space below!