Harley Quinn’s Style Evolution From Jester Sidekick To Badass Broad

The pages of comic books may be rife with powerful female characters, although any time it comes to the fictional ladies fans can’t get enough of, Harleen Quinzel reigns supreme. The maniacal former mental nutrition expert right now referred to as Harley Quinn is several things: the Joker's ex-girlfriend, the unhinged leader of her own girl gang, and resident badass of the DC Universe.


Nevertheless she didn't get to the best without a little bit of reinvention. She's lose her Harley "skin" a number of times, from her first appearance in Batman: The Animated Series through her latest starring role in Birds of Prey — and she’s turned into a veritable style icon the process. Case in point, her fashion has evolved just as much as her character.


How has she progressed from a humble harlequin into a totally emancipated antihero? Beautifully, thank you very much — and she didn’t need Mistah J’s help to do it. Let's take a look at Harley's developments from jester sidekick to vibrant star of her own franchise.


Batman: The Animated Series’ classic jester look 


When Harley Quinn first appeared in the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Joker's Favor," she was meant as an one-off role. Originally conceived as a basic henchwoman, she was kept on, becoming a love interest for the Joker.


This launched years’ worth of an incredibly toxic relationship that noticed Harley at Joker’s beck and call. Deeply infatuated with the crazed villain, Harley was very much a brainwashed, submissive victim of the Joker’s unhinged charms. This costume represented some of the most unhealthy moments of their one-sided relationship.


There was little fanfare to her debut, however there did not have to be, as her look was striking enough: a young woman in a jester costume, with crimson and black color blocks and also a black domino mask and white facial makeup. Her teeth, like Joker's, were slightly yellowed, highlighted with black lipstick that gave her a macabre edge. She often relied on a diamond pattern for a number of of her accessories, a “calling card” of sorts, additionally to her harlequin outfit, and that look has remained over the course of her developments as a character — even in the upcoming Birds of Prey.


"The classic diamond and rhombus motif was really crucial for me to preserve and to keep," Birds of Prey costume director Erin Benach told MTV News about Harley’s new look in the film, which took inspiration from the character’s classic harlequin suit as a homage to Quinn’s roots.


"I think it was something so endemic to her character and thus easy to play off of that we wanted to keep that.”


Yet the harlequin outfit was far from Harley’s only look, even while in her original debut. She was seen later on in the episode dressed up as a policewoman carrying a massive, three-tiered cake, and this role revealed her her blue eyes, blonde hair, and red lipstick, all remnants of her previous life as psychiatrist Dr. Harleen Quinzel. These brief glimpses into this version of Harley came few and far between, but they reminded us that she was still human under the clown makeup and bodysuit — nevertheless just barely.


Harley was seen in this iconic look for years to come while in various comic installments, like because the iconic Mad Love origin story that explored her transformation into the clown princess we grew to love today. It’s remained regularly representative of Joker's influence and control over Harley, and each time we visualize Harley donning the suit, she’s very much under his thumb. It’s since carried over into added properties, including the latest DC Universe animated series Harley Quinn, though she only wore it for one episode.


Suicide Squad’s Joker-centric wardrobe


Just because the harlequin bodysuit of Batman: The Animated Series symbolizes Harley's obsession with Joker, nearly every aspect of Harley's wardrobe in Suicide Squad proclaims submission to Joker.


Harley's ditched the jester outfit, nevertheless in its place is a ripped red and white T-shirt that proclaims "Daddy's Lil' Monster" paired with red and blue sequined hot pants as well as a studded black belt. Over the T-shirt, Harley even dons a satin bomber jacket that reads Property of Joker" in cursive script.


Her platinum blonde hair is tied into two loose ponytails with a pale pink-and-blue dip dye. She's clad in pasty white makeup with black eyeliner, red lipstick, plus a black heart tattoo on her right cheek. It isn't her only tattoo; she has a couple of, several of those showing off her love for Joker.


A series of thigh tattoos read "Harley + Puddin," "I'll wait forever" (a reference to Joker's incarceration), and even an inked version of "Daddy's Lil' Monster" on her chest. It’s all about ensuring each person is aware who she’s with — her emotional dependency on Joker is palpable while in the entirety of the film. This body art has transformed dramatically in Birds of Prey, nevertheless not as much as her wardrobe. In that film, she’s free to explore her personality by means of the clothes she wears, which regularly mirror the nature of the world around her.


“[Birds of Prey is] order kind of a counter culture world that is just so Harley. It’s big, and she has this over-the-top, zany sensibility to her that she can push everything one notch further, so she does,” Benach mentioned, noting the stylistic leap from Suicide Squad. “There's also order kind of this like inner child to Harley,” she mentioned of Quinn, which you could visualize hinted at through each and every stage of her style developments — especially this “Property of Joker” stage.


While the Suicide Squad look has proven popular with fans in terms of Halloween costumes and copycat style, it ultimately resembles a Harley who’s naively in love with a gentleman who’s done nothing however lavish her with the sort of inappropriate, “mad love” she’s been seeking for years. That’s why Birds of Prey had to go in a different direction, one that put Harley first.


“She’s still in her ‘Harley world,’ nevertheless I think because she's in breakup mode as well as no longer attached to [Joker], she’s connecting with her girl gang, her companions, and other people out in the world for the initial time," Benach added.


Birds of Prey’s emancipated, DIY aesthetic


Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) views Quinn through a much different lens than Suicide Squad, and it’s her first real chance, aside from her comic appearances, at striking out on her own.


Right after a nasty breakup with Joker, Harley finds herself truly alone on the streets of Gotham, dangerously without the sort of protection being Joker's girl can afford her. Yet the solitude and sadness leads to an essential revelation: Following a night of explosive and violent club-hopping, she realizes her worth as more than just "Joker's girlfriend." She takes the initiative to remodel her life in meaningful ways, going for now as to cut her hair and even destroy the Ace Chemicals factory, where she first pledged herself to Joker.


Newly free of her emotional bonds, Harley drastically changes up her look. No longer chained to pleasing Joker, she's decided to dress in ways that she feels better expresses her personalized self — glitter and all.


"Harley has a very DIY sensibility about her, the idea that she sort of makes and crafts things herself,” Benach mentioned. “For example, in her necklace, she's got all these noticed objects like a bottle cap along with because the female and power symbols. There's a tag of her, she has a pet hyena in the movie and his name is Bruce. There really are other noticed objects, and so they all have messaging in some way.”


That crafty aesthetic extends to one of Quinn’s most recognizable garments, which has been teased in Birds of Prey trailers: her “caution tape” jacket. It might very well be one of the coolest things she’s ever donned, and by far one of the most recognizable, right up there with her Suicide Squad fit.


"I had seen this clear plastic jacket with stickers on it and there's something about it that was just so Harley. It discussed to me,” Benach mentioned of the moment the piece came with each other. Paired with star-studded denim shorts plus a pink bralette, it's quintessential to Quinn’s new vibe, appearing as if she made it herself.


"Imagine in the event you wreck something that's piece of the establishment, like a wariness tape piece, somewhere official. In case you wreck it, that's categorize kind of the anti-hero moment. That was why we shredded the wariness tape," mentioned Benach.


The newly-emancipated Quinn also appears in a series of multi-hued, eye-catching numbers, like a gold, sleeveless jumpsuit paired with a hot pink crop top. It features some of the familiar symbols Harley has become synonymous with over the years, which was by design, according to Benach.


That theme is as endemic to Harley as her proclivity to curse. She debuts a white T-shirt adorned with the words “Harley Fucking Quinn” — a far cry from "Daddy's Lil Monster" — as an all-over print, which she wears over the same pink bralette and denim shorts paired with her fringe-tastic jacket.


The most exciting segment of Harley's flashy new wardrobe is that it feels like something anyone should make if they put their mind to it. It was essential to design pieces that felt "relatable" to ladies, Benach emphasized, "whether it's street culture or style overall, things that girls could relate to."


there really are also subtle changes to Harley's look that extend behind her style choices. The thigh tattoos she showed off while in Suicide Squad that read "I ♥ Puddin'" have been scribbled out as if drawn on a sheet of notebook paper. What once declared "Puddin'" usually have been tweaked to mention "pudding cups." There’s no trace left of the Clown Prince’s influence.


If it wasn't already clear, Harley is 100 percent over Mistah J — and from the look of things in Birds of Prey, hopefully things are going to stay that way.