| >>you're bruisin' the
leather!: Spike's appearance
Note: Just when I thought this essay was here to stay, something shocking happened
this season. Spike changed his clothes! His discarded
his traditional black for colors as radical as gray and dark brown.
Who would have thought? Therefore, this essay is currently undergoing
rewriting. The new version should be up soon.
| I
catch his line of vision and immediately I can feel the howl rise in my
chest. ``NO! NOT MY SHOES! YOU CANNOT HAVE MY DOCS!`` I know I`m geting
really loud. I can see the mortals staring. Good! Give me wide berth. Fear
me! I am the Big Bad! I will not be forced into getting...
``Spike,``
he says in that infinitely patient tone, ``you cannot wear Doc Martens
with a tuxedo.``
-Donna and others, "Days
of Our Unlives".
There's something
I find inherently annoying about fic in which Spike changes his clothes.
You're sick
of seeing him in the same thing every Tuesday for the last four years,
fine. You think he'd look better in something else, I get that.
Hell, I even agree. Problem is, you can't justify a clothes change
very easily, since he seems rather attached to his uniform of black t-shirt,
black jeans, black leather duster, and black boots (popular opinion has
it that they're Doc Martens, although they don't really look like them;
Anastasia says they're motorcycle boots).
Changing clothes
is not
something that Spike takes lightly, so tread lightly if you
choose to do so in your fic. He would either have an ulterior motive
(such as the canon ones listed below) or do so under duress (a popular
theme in Spike/Angel fic).
>>a brief history
of spike's clothing
Spike has changed
out of his basic outfit exactly four times in the last four years:
>>He was forced
to wear Xander's clothes when he shrunk his own in the wash (what the hell
was Spike doing washing his clothes? Do we honestly think he washes
them when he's living in the crypt?)
>>He had to
put on "evil olive" gear twice to infiltrate the Initiative during Season
4.
>>He wore
a suspiciously Rileyesque outfit for the first half of "Crush" (Donna and
I commented on this to James Marsters when we met him at the Posting Board
Party and he seemed rather surprised that anyone had picked up on that.
"And it just doesn't work, does it?" he said).
Spikeclothes
of days gone by:
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>William preferred
immaculate tweeds and strangling collars- kind of a retro-Wesley.
Wire-rim glasses, wavy hair.
>>Spike's
clothing gets progressively more lower-class the longer he's a vampire.
By the time he gets to China, he's the only one of their motley crew that
doesn't dress in ornate, expensive clothing.
>>In the seventies,
Spike dresses in full punkrock gear- spikey hair, safety pins, eyebrow
piercing. No matter what the era, he seems to favor outfits that
make him look rebellious and intimidating- keep that in mind if you wish
to flashback to a time never shown on the show.
Dreamclothes:
>>He wore a
miserably Watcheresque tweed suit in Giles' dream in "Restless."
>>He sported
a swanky black velvet buttonup during his dream in "Out of My Mind."
Variations
on the theme:
>>The ever-present
red shirt with black stripes disappeared sometime during Season 4, only
to be briefly replaced by a black paisley.
>>He's traded
the short sleeves for long twice: in "Harsh Light of Day" and "A New Man."
In the latter he also sported a long-sleeved white undershirt.
>>Donna swears
he's had two pairs of shoes. I'm not sure, but I'll give her the
benefit of the doubt, 'cause if I go back and watch all my Spike eps again
I'm sure as hell not going to be staring at his feet.
Details
and accessories:
>>For someone
who mocks Angel's use of hairgel, Spike's hair seems pretty damn well plastered
to his head (my friend Julie calls it "Ken Doll hair"). Granted,
I think it looks better in the spikey style that James Marsters favors,
but it doesn't look like Spike has any more interest in changing his hair
than he does in changing his clothes.
>>He wears
black nail polish, which mysteriously always manages to be chipped (the
exception being when he was seen painting his nails in "Blood Ties").
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