CLAMP Costume Critique #2

CLAMP or クランプ  is a Japanese group of manga (comic books) artists that have created celebrated works such as Sakura Card Captors, Magic Knight Rayearth and XXX Holic. The group is comprised of 4 women whose names are, Nanase Ohkawa,  Mokona, Tsubaki Nekoi and Satsuki Igarashi. One of the group's trademarks is the attention and lavishness they incorporate into their work when designing costumes for their characters. In many anime series we normally see very little changes to the clothes that the characters wear, but this is certainly not the case with CLAMP. Even though, the characters usually still have some iconic outfits, we can expect to see them in different clothes sometimes every single episode.


Sakura Card Captors

This series in a main representative of the Magical Girl genre in Japanese Animation. Sakura being the main character is a young girl entrusted with the magical task to fight mystical forces and stop them from creating disasters. Every battle always showcases a new costume for her to fight in. The costumes present a lot of different clothing elements pieced together, shorts, blouses, hats, skirts, dresses, gloves, shoes and socks are brought together every time to really create something that not only embodies a magical girl , but also goes along with Sakura's childish and playful personality. 
Two of my favorite outfits from the series are shown here. These blue outfits are very beautiful in my opinion and really create an ensemble that not only looks magical, but even elegant. I especially like the way the fabric for the skirt moves on the costume that is on the right.



XXX Holic

Although this series deals with magic in a much more adult and serious nature, we can see CLAMP's distinct attention to detail. Also the costumes in this series show a world wide influence. The series takes place in a modern Japan, but the clothes range from Victorian England to Gothic Lolitas styles. The caharacters in this series are much older than Sakura, and this is also shown in the clothes they draw for them. In my opinion, the clothes designed for this series are fashion at its finest, showing real innovation and beauty that compliments the body structure of the characters. However, I am sure everyone will notice that the body construction in this series is very much exaggerated, giving us arms and legs that go on for days. It surely would be interesting to see if these clothes would still look as impressive in a real model.

The clothes in CLAMP's works are certain to be eye catching and they certainly create an intense differentiation between major and minor characters. 
The only real concern that I have is the wear ability of the clothes. It sometimes can be difficult to really imagine someone wearing certain outfits for an extended period of time.