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A Very Brief Modern History of the Chain Mail Bikini
If you’re a modern gamer of any sort, and definitely if you are a gamer of the fantasy sort, you’ve seen the memes and complaints about armor designs for female characters. Namely, the complaint rests around how little the armor actually covers.
The images are common, although modern sensibilities and the increasing popularity of gaming among women has decreased the appearance of such outfits somewhat. The criticisms revolve around the idea that such outfits are made just to tantalize as such armor is of course impractical. These were common enough that Blizzard, which held a weekly WoW comic contest, nixed comics mocking male vs. female armor. Apparently, it got to be too common a theme. However, the familiar “chainmail bikini” look didn’t start that way.
“My massive pecs will protect me from the venomous serpent!” (Art by Frank Frazetta)
Really, we can go back to the sword-and-sorcery tales from the days of pulp fiction. Much of this early fantasy, of which Robert E. Howard’s Conan is a prime example. These sorts of stories have worlds where men are real men, women are real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri are real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. The John Carter of Mars series from Edgar Rice Burroughs, though more of a space opera, has similar themes. The Martians wear next to nothing – stuff that would be beyond scandalous on Earth but is perfectly fine on Barsoom, and such fashion choices are common in either gender.
“Bloodstone” by Frank Frazetta
Artists later tried to recreate the primal worlds of Barsoom or Conan’s primordial Earth. Frank Frazetta is one of the best known of this time (though, of course, there were plenty more). If we note, we can easily find women in scanty armor if that, but there are plenty of men in minimal clothes as well; sometimes Frazetta’s heroes are protected with naught but a codpiece, helmet, and layer after layer of rippling muscles. Such art is a theme of his. Today it would still offend modern sensibilities in that the men are the primal brutes saving the beautiful and sensuous women but, make no mistake, the state of little armor was a common theme.
“This is my codpiece!” (Art by Boris Vallejo)
Boris Vallejo followed this tradition, though he has more women with the role of the killer or hunter. Vallejo’s women range from the Frazetta look to the well-muscled body-built look. They are not scantily-clad damsels in distress, but warriors, sorceresses, and assassins. There’s still the theme of the well-built, well-endowed humans full of brutal power and virility. This continued to contemporaries and protégés of Vallejo, including Julie Bell who favors body-builders in her fantasy art, showing the power of the male and female form.
“Look at my horse; my horse is amazing …” (Art by Boris Vallejo)
Much of this continues well into the ’80s with comic books keeping the look. Conan had two comic book titles: one where he was still a barbarian wearing as little as possible, another where he was a king. Apparently, being royal means putting on a dadgum pair of paints. Other titles had a similar look, such as Warlord, where the title character wore a winged helm and a leopard-print loincloth. That’s all he needed to kick evil’s derriere. Of course, another of these popular titles was Red Sonja.
Pictured: Potential guest on “What Not to Wear”
Red Sonja was a spin-off of Conan and she had what is the iconic chainmail bikini. Sonja swore an oath to never lie with a man who could not defeat her in combat and, at the time, none could match her. Since she was within the Conan world, she maintained the Conan look, that is, fight wearing as little as absolutely necessary. One’s skill as a swordsman or swordswoman was the best defense against incoming blows, definitely not a full suit of heavy armor.
David Sim would later poke fun at this look in his Cerebus series with the character Red Sophia. The title aardvark character defeats Red Sophia who has made a similar oath. She disrobes in front of him and asks what he thinks of this. He looks at her bared torso and comments that the scars will heal once she ditches the chainmail bikini and goes back to regular clothes. It’s a little mockery of the popular image, noting the pitfalls of such attire.
Thus, the armor-kini remained a popular image to use for some time, and since the game industry, for some time, was dominated by geeky adolescent males, it was guaranteed popularity, that’s for sure. And, most likely, it’s a calculated choice for a company to go the scantily clad woman in armor as it’ll attract that large audience.
This has less to do with the history of such warrior women and more to do with the marketing maxim of “sex sells.” Unfortunately for us, the use of such marketing ignored why the original authors and artists sought such portrayals – to demonstrate the raw power and allure of the human form in all sexes, not just the female. We have sacrificed one aspect of art for something lesser. Except not for less clothes, we demand more nowadays.
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The people who do wear it regularly and train in it report that one gets used to the weight quite quickly and I am inclined to believe them. All I’ve ever worn for more than a few minutes has been chain and in after an hour or so you already barely notice it anymore. I have been more weighed down (and slowed down) by modern hiking packs. I think that the distribution of the weight plays a role.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/a6749/medieval-knights-on-a-treadmill-put-historical-myths-to-the-test/
I don’t believe this claim was made. The claim is that it is not hard to move in full plate. This is true -articulated plate armor gives you much more range of motion than a chain hauberk did, because chain doesn’t stretch the way fabric does. There’s basically no limitation to your movement. Nor does anyone march 10 miles in armor -either chain or plate -if they can avoid it. Knights would only put their armor on before battles. The commoners didn’t wear that much armor to begin with.
Larry’s comment was about the weight of the armor. If the reply didn’t pertain to weight, that isn’t my fault.
I love a good argument, but this post began with light prurience and has devolved to leaden (or steel) physics.
More bewbs, please.
Hard to overestimate the contributions of Professor Lynn White on the subject of the stirrup as it relates to the rise of feudalism in Europe and the impact it had on the mounted and armored warriors of the time (there’s lots of other good stuff in this book; it’s not just about the stirrup).
Still, the “Great Stirrup Controversy” continues on the boil to this day in the ivy-covered halls of academe, and I can’t help thinking that’s a very good thing. Folks keeping each other busy arguing about this sort of stuff have far less time to worry about the social justice of chocolate, or feminist glaciology, it seems to me.
I don’t really care what conclusion they come to, as long as they keep at it. (It’s been about 45 years since I first learned of it, so chances are good it will go on a while longer. Fingers crossed.)
Hey now! We shouldn’t stirrup too much controversy!
Sorry, all out of chain mail. How is this?
Crewl?
Okay, something to make up for it. How about a little Ruth Gordon?
Wait, no. No chain mail there…
It’s sort of armorish.
This is my favorite Wow character’s outfit. She usually gets disgust if people bother noticing her gear at all. I think it’s funny on a cow.
But a few weeks ago, the raid leader’s six yr old daughter noticed this outfit and was expressing genuine concern that my character would not be able to survive.
My brother told me one day that the reason he plays a female character in Guild Wars is that he doesn’t want to be staring at guy’s butt the whole time he plays the game.
I think he plays games differently than I do.
I had a druid bear tank, so I ended up with a lot of fuzzy butt in my face.
I apply this axiom to pencil-and-paper RPGs as well.
Even 60 pounds as used in this experiment is quite a bit of weight. Most women would not be able to haul it around very easily.
In my typically pedantic fashion, I will point out that the revered artist Barry Windsor Smith provided the first Red Sonja visualization for Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian series almost 50 years ago (you kids get off my lawn!!!) and his first take was not as silly as bikini mail, though that top tunic is chain mail.
The issue with the later bikini design that I never saw addressed was that, even on male physique, a sturdy silk undergarment or approximation of same was important to prevent the horrors of pinching. There is nothing specific to the female anatomy that makes this less desirable.
Jokes on you; I’m secretly a leg man.
Fun Fact: flat-chested warrior women stuff their chain-mail bikini tops with aluminum foil rather than tissues.
I got similar advice when I started playing WoW.
In related news, I had no idea that the female Tauren had such well-defined abs.
Why didn’t you say so, brother?
How ya gonna get what you want, if you don’t say what ya want?