Clothing is part of the system of control that maintains Akio’s world order. Children are dressed in what is taken as gender-appropriate clothing from infancy. Nearly everyone unconsciously picks up on it (even oblivious Utena), and most follow the cues into accepting their assigned roles (though not Utena).
I organize the costumes by character, but it’s not the only possible choice. The costumes fall into categories: Uniforms, which breaks down into student uniforms and the military-esque uniforms of duelists, princess dresses, night clothes, occupational clothes (teachers), and the ever-popular “other” for minor characters and special events.
Bows. Women often include bows in their costumes, sometimes large or numerous bows. Bows are in part female decorations, to make women decorative rather than practical. More importantly, they are knots and represent being tied down—that is, restrained. No train tracks, but they are nonetheless damsels in distress, especially when they don’t realize it. I think the absurd tie of the girls’s uniform is related; it may be a stronger kind of bow. See neckwear.
What I call a bow would in many cases be called “ribbon” in Japanese. They are ribbons tied into a bow. The knot is what ties down.
Clothing colors. I think clothing colors often or always reflect not what the character is, but what the character wants. Dios wears white because he seeks to do good. Akio wears a white prince uniform because he seeks the Power of Dios. The Student Council wears mostly white uniforms because, as part of Akio’s scheme, they follow his goal. Nanami may wear yellow because she is jealous, and because she seeks to arouse jealousy (to make others jealous of her)—both are the case. The boys’ uniform is solid blue-green because the conventional role of boys is to control through manipulative illusions. The girls’ uniform is partly blue-green, and includes white because girls either do, or are supposed to, seek their princes. Akio may wear a red shirt because he is sinful or because he promotes sin; he does both. Anthy in episodes 3 and 39, and Kozue in episode 15, wear white shoes for desire for their respective princes.
Collars. Many of the costumes, including the uniforms and princess dresses, have rigid-seeming cylindrical collars. I don’t know what that’s about. They look uncomfortable. I guess they make the overlong necks look more natural?
Pockets of uniforms and princess dresses (the girls’ uniform has none). A single breast pocket on the left side represents the heart. That’s where the target rose goes in a duel—and of course a black rose is “your new heart.” Boys, Nanami, and princess Utena have black breast pockets; they love the patriarchy. Other princesses have white for love of the prince. Most duelists have red. Ruka is an exception and does not have a breast pocket; he is heartless and does not love. Hip pockets represent the desire for heterosexual sex: They are a woman’s “pocket”. Boy students, Utena, all princesses, Ruka, Saionji, and Touga have hip pockets. Lesbians Juri, Kanae, and Nanami do not, and neither does apparent asexual Miki. Black Rose duelists are motivated by the black rose and do not. For girls, the colors seem to tell who is allowed access to the pocket: Utena’s uniform has white hip pockets for the prince, and her princess dress has black hip pockets for Akio. For boys, colors tell how access is to be achieved: The boys’ uniform has black hip pockets for use of patriarchal power; male duelist uniforms have red, which you can take as sex appeal if you like (I think it is for the temptation of Eve’s apple). Dios has blue breast and hip pockets because he is fictional; he euphemistically “kisses” all girls, but not really because he never existed. His access is illusory.
I note a couple other meanings for pockets as they come up.
Sleeves. All short sleeves and sleeveless tops are for girls. Boys and men always get long sleeves, and so do some women. I gather that arms are supposed to be sexy (or all bare skin is). The female teacher is dressed to be authoritative, not sexy, and wears long sleeves.
Uniforms. They are part of the attempt to impose conformity. Uniforms demonstrate top-down authority with delegation of power—the patriarchy turns its victims into its agents. The special students, leading with Touga, wear military-esque uniforms and act as officers in its army.
All the duelist uniforms have a trim color around the edges. Nanami’s is trimmed with black for Akio, and Ruka’s with blue for illusions, I think because he is dead. All others are trimmed with red. Well, Dios is not a duelist, but he has blue trim on his cuffs.
All Black Rose duelists wear uniforms with white trousers. With two exceptions, all other duelists wear a white jacket. The exceptions are Utena and Nanami. Black Rose duelists are the mirror images of their counterparts, and the mirroring affects their uniforms too. Three duelists wear white jackets and white trousers: Akio, and the Akio-wannabes Touga and Ruka.
The fastenings of uniforms seem to stand for being sealed in by the system of control. Student Council members, including Nanami, wear uniforms that have hook-and-loop closures that don’t show on the outside. We see Saionji’s in episode 8, Juri’s in episode 17, and Touga’s in episode 21. Even Utena has hook-and-loop on her collar in episode 36, though the front of her uniform has buttons. Hook-and-loop closures are male and female. The other duelist uniforms are closed by buttons (well, Kozue has frogging). Many come with a double row of buttons, and Wakaba has a triple row. I think more buttons form a stronger seal. Only Utena and Kanae have a single row of buttons. The buttons are round and must be female. I find only faint evidence in the series, but possibly Utena and Kanae were raised primarily by women (Kanae perhaps by a maid, as hinted by her everyday clothing).
In Utena, everyone is gendermixed to an extent—everyone can play a male or a female role (see an example of Nanami and her minions being male). Hook-and-loop closures stand for playing male or female, depending on which is on the left side, the side of illusion. The examples are a bit complicated, and I’m not 100% on the interpretation, but I have checked it against other cases. In episode 17, Juri’s hooks and loops switch sides repeatedly. When she vigorously throws her locket away, the hooks teleport to her left side: It is a male action. In episode 36, when Utena is girlish throughout, the female loops on her collar are at her left. In fact, the male hooks are not visible at all; boyishness is unavailable to her then. Being purely female is unnatural to her; she feels the illusion of being girlish. [It’s confusing, and I will recheck it more closely to make sure I get it right.]
Akio
Anthy
Chu-Chu
Dios
Juri
Kanae
Kozue
Mamiya
Mikage
Miki
Mitsuru
Mrs. Ohtori
Nanami
Nanami’s minions
Ruka
Saionji
Shiori
students
teachers
Tokiko
Touga
Utena
Wakaba
Apparently Akio is not a big believer in alternate costumes.
Everyday wear. He wears a red shirt trimmed with white and purple, with yellow sleeve garters (Wikipedia) and yellow buttons at the collar and (sometimes) cuffs, and a purple tie. His pants are black, his color, and his belt is, astonishingly, brown for ordinariness. I guess he seeks for his black evil to be upheld (pun intended) as ordinary. Overall, it reads as villain clothing.
Sleeve garters were popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They prevent overlong sleeves from getting in the way—see the loose fabric gathered above the garters... which reminds me of the female puffy sleeves. It’s a problem that can only occur with standardized mass-produced shirts, so I think they refer to the standardized worldview that Akio forces on others. I don’t know about the shirt design, but I suspect it comes from a different era.
Apron. Anthy does not cook, but Akio does, a role reversal that comes about because Anthy is kept—and because Akio uses his cooking skills to impress women. Here he impresses Utena. The apron is pale blue for the illusion he is presenting. See comparisons - teasing for more. Akio freely breaks the rules and roles he sets for others.
The event symbolically foreshadows the First Seduction of the next episode. Akio’s implied sex with Anthy last night (see Anthy’s apron below) extends to Utena; he controls both by the same means, depicted one before the next. Utena associates food with sex (see her babble in particular). Here Akio reaches food through an opening to Utena, and she accepts it. In the hotel, the evening meal may remind her of it (Akio’s actions move toward night). Afterward, he reaches symbolic food though an opening in her body, and she accepts it. See comparisons - feeding and below for related symbolism.
The prince uniform. Akio wears it to play prince. It symbolizes that he seeks the power of the prince. It’s a white double-breasted (is that an intentional pun?) coat with tails, trimmed in red, black, and yellow, with white trousers. He wears a white belt and a blue-green gem. The buttons and buckle are gold, which I take to refer to Dios. The tails are lined inside with black, for his concealed real color of evil. They correspond to Dios’s cape, which is lined inside with red for his concealed real color. Akio wears all white on the outside because he is the one who most strongly seeks the prince; others, except Touga and Ruka, wear colors.
The collar has four yellow circles. Most of the uniforms have two down-pointing yellow triangles, but the elementary school boys’ uniform has two yellow circles. Does it mean he is twice as childish as a little boy?
Anthy’s everyday wear is the girls’ uniform.
Princess dress. Anthy wears it in the dueling arena, and in Akio’s car in episode 37. It is red for Anthy’s sin of saving Dios from death (a 100% fair evaluation, right?), like Eve giving the red apple to Adam... and for her (inexcusable) followup sins like knowledge and sex. It is trimmed with white for the prince.
The full skirt is held in a bell shape (it may refer to the bells of the dueling arena) by not-too-realistic petticoats. Anthy’s petticoats are pink for Utena, though they are white on the inside when illuminated from the inside by the light of the prince. It seems to point out who she wants under her clothing.
Princess dresses in general. They’re alike except in color. They go with the princess crown and princess earrings. Except for Utena’s, they have white trim for the prince, and white pockets because she desires her prince in her “pocket”. All the pockets are trimmed with yellow for jealousy.
The blue-green parts are the water of manipulative illusions pouring out, because a princess is full of illusions and freely pours them out for others. The illusions are also tears; see Buddhism - illusions. It is the same idea as Anthy watering her roses and the water that pours out when Utena opens the gate to the dueling forest.
The jacket of the princess dress matches the same part of the boys’ uniform for students and of the military-esque uniforms of duelists, including Utena’s prince uniform: It closes in front, there is a stiff cylindrical collar with yellow triangles, there is a breast pocket on the left side and two lower pockets. The princess dress is a uniform for princesses. The girls’ uniform doesn’t have these features, but all the other uniforms are grouped together as similar instruments of control from above.
The darker area in front is a set of pleats. In some views, there is a less distinct set of pleats in the rear. They remind me of the front and rear pleats of traditional hakama (Wikipedia); for another example, see Saionji. But princess pleats are centered, while hakama pleats are deliberately off-center. It ought to have a meaning that relates to all princesses, since all the princess dresses have the pleats, but for Anthy one idea is that it relates the skirt of the red dress to the red hakama of a miko (Wikipedia). The miko tradition originated with ancient shamans, and I have concluded that Anthy practices a similarly ancient form of magic.
The pleats, the front opening with buttons, and other details, along with the symmetrical hair of Anthy, Kozue, and Shiori, divide the princesses into left and right halves. Utena has asymmetrical hair and is not split in half, at least not fully. I can think of a lot of possible meanings for it. There is surely a connection with the widespread mirror imaging of characters. And Utena is the only princess to overturn the role.
Little Anthy’s red dress. She wears it as a little girl in episode 34, and again at the time of the main story in episode 39 when she has outgrown it. It may mean that she has not grown psychologically since then—she is held back and not allowed to. Saving Dios corresponds to Eve giving the apple to Adam. She then learns the knowledge of good and evil. The dress is childish and red and short for the same reason as Utena’s First Seduction date dress. It is meant to be seductive, and that is a sin. It is red for the color of Eve’s apple.
Red is Anthy’s color, and this is why. Her princess dress is the same color.
Smock. Anthy wears a smock over a green tracksuit when cleaning or doing other housework. White is for the prince, whose hidden underlayer of green control over her is what gives her the menial job of cleaning. See the bucket: Cleaning is associated with water, which means illusions and tears. In episode 8 when swapped with Utena, she wears the smock over the girls’ uniform when cooking in class, and later over something white when cooking and hanging laundry to dry.
Unlike others, Anthy does not wear an apron when cooking. She is a kept woman, and she is not allowed to learn cooking, which would make her more independent. Besides shaved ice and festival food and body-swapping curry, the only food she makes is in cooking class.
Apron. When Akio wears an apron, Anthy does too—a much more girlish one, pink and spreading out like a skirt with a scalloped front. (Both aprons are tied with a bow in back.) She has the girls’ uniform on underneath. In this view the pink looks pale, almost glaring with highlights, but we see it again a moment later when Anthy is wiping the table and the color is darker and more even.
Pink is for Utena, but Anthy has just spent the night with Akio. The apron has the unnatural glare while she stands near him. It must be influence from the white of her prince, who at the moment is Akio. The large pockets tell us what they were doing—Akio was in her “pocket”. When she wipes the table, the pockets are out of view. And yet Anthy still wears pink for Utena. I take it that, just as Utena is ambivalent in the First Seduction of the next episode, Anthy is ambivalent until the same event separates her from Utena. That is when they stop holding hands at night.
The pink with white shoulders is strikingly similar to Utena’s episode 3 party dress, from Touga. The apron must be from Akio.
The dance party dress from Nanami. It’s green for the control Nanami exercises, or attempts to exercise, over Anthy. Or maybe for the control Anthy seeks in her life—she believes in Akio and thinks it right that he can order her around.
The outfit, like Utena’s, includes white gloves. The gloves disappear by the time Anthy and Utena take hands and dance, so I don’t see them as foreshadowing the dance together. We see Anthy from above with her dress dissolving away, wearing the gloves, then before Utena takes the tablecloth we see her bare fingers around her arm. I haven’t figured out the gloves.
The outfit includes green hair bows. The bows remain when Utena puts her in the tablecloth dress—Anthy is then tied down by prince Utena.
Tablecloth dress. Utena miraculously replaces the trick dress from Nanami with her own trick dress. It sparkles. The miraculous tablecloth dress is of course white for the prince. But the shadows are blue-green and green, and Anthy continues to wear the green hair ribbons from Nanami. To rescue Anthy is nicer than to attack her, and the green tinge for control is slight, but see the smock above. The rose is a girlish decorative element; Utena is keeping Anthy in her role.
Folding the rose in one movement is particularly miraculous. The dress reminds me of Brutus’s toga from the sculptures in episode 31. Does the rose correspond to the toga fastening that Brutus has on the opposite shoulder? Anthy is a murderer like Brutus.
Night clothing. Anthy’s pajamas are usually blue-green, though they look blue in the second picture here where she misunderstands Utena’s doubt of Akio. The gown is girlish, with ruffles at the neck, wrists, and bottom hem. The parts with ruffles are light purple for corruption, not white.
The gown seems to have no fastenings, and must be put on over the head. Like children’s clothing, it cannot signal sex. It may mean that Anthy has not been brought up and is still a child, unready to hatch from the egg. Compare Anthy on the steps in her child’s red dress, above.
Leaving the Academy. Anthy walks away wearing the colors of what she seeks, pink for Utena and white for the prince. It’s a jacket over a dress over a white undershirt. The jacket design is similar to little Utena’s jacket at her parents’ funeral. The buttons are unfastened because it is no longer cold but warm, which stands for emotional warmth. And, as unfastened clothing, it can be her sexual desire. And it can stand for Anthy’s freedom: She is no longer fastened in. In the last reading, the jacket is Akio’s system of control, and it is pink because Anthy’s belief in Utena as prince is what remains of it. The cap is not distinguishable from a beret, which has associations with France, with the military, and with artists, all fitting for Utena. The white cap is a white hat because she has joined the side of good. And it is an allusion to Castor and Pollux. In a version of the myth, they hatched together from an egg, and wore the remains of the eggshell as white hats. Anthy leaving the Academy is hatching from the egg of the world to return to her twin. The evil desires she learned from Akio are now dissociated onto Chu-Chu.
It’s girlish, in keeping with Anthy’s view of herself, but compared to the girls’ uniform and Utena’s date dress it is not provocative. The sleeves are mid-length, the neckline is covered in white (only prince Utena is allowed there), and the skirt is somewhat longer. The shoulders are squared for determination, not puffy. It’s relatively practical, not as simple as it could be but without frivolous decorative elements.
Chu-Chu’s costumes are gags. Chu-Chu normally wears only the gold earring and the girls’ uniform tie.
The prince uniform. The left picture is from the gallery at Empty Movement, a panning shot no doubt pieced together into one image by Giovanni, who deserves the credit.
Dios wears white for goodness, which he embodies. That’s why white stands for the prince. But notice the purple tint in the second image: His goodness is corrupted. If Dios’s uniform is the original, then the duelist uniforms and boys’ uniform follow its design. Dios is a part of the system of control, a fiction created to propagate the patriarchy. The uniforms stand for control. A small number of special people get special uniforms, but all follow the same pattern because the patriarchy enforces control over them—it makes people alike.
Juri normally wears her Student Council/duelist uniform. In flashbacks we see her in the girls’ uniform.
Uniform. Juri’s duelist uniform is white, trimmed with red, pink, and yellow. The trousers are pink. The pink should have the same basic meaning as Utena’s hair color—an allusion to homosexuality—though it is ordinary pink rather than hot pink.
Fencing gear. The picture shows how the fencing gear colors match the girls’ uniform. This image is from a flashback, but we see Juri wearing the fencing gear in the time of the main story, too.
Night clothing. The gown must be a nightgown. It is light blue, similar in color to other night clothing. It has ruffles around the throat area, which to my eye gives it an old-fashioned courtly air. The ruffles are girlish and mark Juri as high-class. Here she wears a shawl as well. I take the shawl’s pattern to be a European royal pattern—but the shawl is darker blue for deeper illusion.
The nightgown is Juri’s only purely girlish outfit. Her other costumes have trousers and are at least partly boyish. She shows male power to the world, but at night she is herself and accepts her appointed sex role—and/or Akio’s power is greater at night. She wears the nightgown in episode 7 when she meets Utena by the water, and in episode 28 when she sees Ruka and Shiori together. She wears the shawl in both cases—both are outside. After seeing Ruka and Shiori, she goes inside and sits without the shawl. The shawl can point to the emotional coldness she feels in the outside world.
Party outfit. Juri dresses up for Nanami’s showing-off party (where Nanami later receives the cowbell) and upstages Nanami. Juri walks in showing off her own elegance and the beauty of her expensive necklace, which she humblebrags about. She wears pale purple above and dark purple below for her corruption by pride.
Juri does not wear a bow—ever—but the necklace seems to mean that she is tied down by pride.
Everyday clothing. No girls’ uniform, maybe because her family runs the Academy. Kanae wears an orange dress for her one-sided love of Anthy, and a white scarf that hangs down her back. White is for the prince. I’m guessing that she believes Akio is her prince, because she does not know she loves Anthy; the system of control made it invisible to her. Akio hangs around her neck—the patriarchy hangs around her neck—and ties her down behind so that she cannot move forward.
Her dress has puffy sleeves and decorative buttons on the sleeves and back (which are rose emblems—we get glimpses in episode 14). It must be difficult to put on without help. She’s an only child, so I think it signals that her family is so wealthy that she has a maid to help her dress. She’s not only decorative, she’s dependent. No ruffles, though.
The shade varies between light orange and darker red-orange. For example, it is reddish when she sits beside Akio and when she talks with Anthy. The pink roses and the dress’s lack of pockets are hints that Kanae is a lesbian.
Uniform. In the arena, Kanae wears purple for corruption. She proclaims she wants to kill Anthy, who she doesn’t realize she loves, so... yeah. A black shirt is under the purple jacket, and there are small black, red, and yellow elements. The trousers are white. All the colors except yellow seem to point to Akio.
How much was Kanae corrupted by her family, which seems to have been corrupt from the beginning, and how much by Akio?
Kozue usually wears the girls’ uniform.
Little Kozue wears a variety of costumes. All include white for her prince Miki. Most or all have a fancy bowtie. The hair bow seems to make her a pirate; see hair bows. She and Miki are too old for small children’s clothing.
Swimsuit. I don’t think standard Japanese school swimsuits show this much back. Certainly the pictures I looked up don’t. The Academy finds a way to increase objectification further, from the already high base for girls in swimsuits. We don’t see it on Kozue, but the two girls with her have red spots on their hips, which must be rose emblems. The suits, like the student uniforms, are made to the school’s design.
Duelist uniform. A blue jacket, with a tinge of green, and red and black trim. The black is very dark blue. The fastenings are frogging (Wikipedia), which I had never heard of before I looked it up. The trousers are white.
Her frogging has side-to-side cords. Her epaulets are front-to-back straps, which represent her sibling relationship with Miki. So I think the frogging cords do too. They tie two halves together.
Sports outfit. Kozue saving the bird nest wears the same uniform as Wakaba running in episode 20. The regular uniform skirt would not have been appropriate; see modesty panel. Kozue is heroically saving nestlings, which compares her to Utena; the red aligns with Utena’s red shorts. Unlike Utena she does not defy the system and wears the approved clothing for what she’s doing.
Princess dress. Kozue’s princess dress looks identical to Anthy’s except for the color. Well, and there is yellow on the pockets—she seeks Miki’s jealousy over those allowed into her “pocket”. All the princess dresses have yellow there.
Uniform. Mamiya wears a purple uniform. He seeks to corrupt Mikage, on the one hand, and on the other lies that he is the real Mamiya. It’s not trimmed around the edges like most, but with red at the collar and wrists. He is even more deceptive than Anthy who plays him; blue-green illusions leak out at his wrists as well as his shoulders. The illusions that leak out are also tears; in Buddhism, illusions and suffering are intertwined. The two breast pockets with buttons seem to depict Anthy’s breasts (the usual single breast pocket represents the heart, but Anthy considers herself heartless). Alternately, Mamiya mirrors Anthy and has two hearts, one for each. There are no hip pockets, which I take to mean that he neither has nor seeks a woman’s “pocket”.
At home. Even when out of bed, Mamiya must spend a lot of time around the house. He wears a purple robe with black borders over a blue-green shirt. The picture doesn’t show it, but his pants are green. His casual clothing is not so different in meaning from his uniform.
Here he is in a greenhouse with a watering can for the flowers, speaking mildly. Even on a first viewing, you can at a minimum say that he is compared to Anthy. Here and above, he is on a white background, contrasting with Mikage’s black background for death. It must mean that he is Mikage’s prince—which is an illusion, of course.
It’s a flashback, and this Mamiya must be a distorted memory. Mikage met the real Mamiya, but remembers the false one played by Anthy.
Uniform, when dead. Blue with red and white trim. The collar with red and white coordinates with Mamiya’s collar of red and black. Like other Black Rose duelists, Mikage wears white pants. In the left picture, as Mamiya dresses, Mikage’s hip pockets are missing, though we can see where they should be. It’s an additional hint of what he was doing with Mamiya—as if there were any doubt. In the right picture, and other pictures, he has red hip pockets like most male duelists.
Mikage does not wear blue glasses in the present. Either his vision is clearer now... or else his illusions are so engrained that he no longer needs an artificial aid to see them. Maybe his memory is so distorted that his vision does not need to be.
In flashback, when alive. This is Mikage’s usual costume when we see him in the past: A purple jacket with too many buttons, a blue name tag, and long dark pants. He wears blue glasses, so he must see illusions everywhere.
Mikage wears his uniform, above, after the fire that he started. Before then, he was alive; after the fire he is dead. When alive, he was often called Professor Nemuro. The blue uniform above must refer to the illusion that he is alive. In the picture, he is working for Akio. Of course it’s corrupt work.
Visiting Tokiko. He dresses up to visit Tokiko’s house. That’s a very dark blue vest, nearly black, over a blue-green shirt, with a gem at the throat. The vest has hip pockets, which must refer to Tokiko, but no breast pocket—he has no heart, or at least not one that he shows. He desires Tokiko but hides his feelings. His pants are very dark green.
The blue glasses say that Mikage was alive at the time. Tokiko called him to her house not long after she showed up and introduced herself. And yet he meets Mamiya there, and Mamiya resembles Anthy. Anthy plays Mamiya after Mamiya dies, but Mamiya is alive at this point. It seems to mean that Mikage’s memory of the real Mamiya was overwritten by the false Mamiya.
Miki normally wears his Student Council/duelist uniform. He also wears fencing gear, not much different from Juri’s fencing gear.
Little Miki. In the flashback to when Kozue gave up playing piano, younger Miki wears two outfits, a suit when playing piano, and night clothes when sick and when seeing Kozue afterward. We don’t see the clothing colors, only the colors of memory: Sepia at left for faded memory, blue at right for the illusion that leads Miki to blame himself for getting sick.
He is old enough to have clothing that fastens in front, not small children’s clothing. But the suit is fancy; the family is wealthy. I don’t know whether the bowtie is to emphasize the fanciness, or to align with the bowtie of the elementary school girls’ uniform, or to go with Kozue’s bows. Maybe all of them.
Uniform. Student Council uniforms are white because the members have joined Akio in seeking the prince. I don’t know what the red trim means in Miki’s case. There is blue on the arms, and he wears blue trousers, the family color for the family’s naive illusions. His aiguillette is fastened to the left shoulder, not the right shoulder like others. I don’t know what aiguillettes mean, but left is the direction of illusions.
It’s a plain and simple costume.
Party outfit. Many dress up for Nanami’s party. She must have advertised it as a fancy affair, so that she could show herself off as fancier. Miki goes with a blue-green jacket, with dark blue lapels that are nearly black, over a white shirt and... a white tie? Really? It’s not a bow tie, and this is not at all the standard ultra-formal “white tie” thing, so I dunno. The tie is on a red band. I still don’t know what the red means for Miki in particular. I take the blue-green as the illusions about social status that are being foisted on him.
It looks good enough, though. Miki and Juri out-fancy most of the attendees.
His everyday wear is the elementary school boys’ uniform.
Younger Mitsuru wears yellow, green, and blue, with a red badge. The yellow matches Nanami and points to his envy of Touga. As a small boy, he wears shorts and a pull-over-the-head shirt that cannot signal sex. He wears something white under the loose green outer shirt, which must be for his kindergarten. The badge is a kindergarten nametag, and identifies what class he is in. The shape tells us: He is in the Tulip class. Each group will be named after a different flower. The kindergarten is a small version of the Academy, and cultivates its small students.
The dictionary tells me something I didn’t know: There is a plant called the tulip tree, after the shape of its flowers, and its Japanese name means lily tree (yuri tree). I wonder if that figured in?
Raincoat. It looks a bit short on Mitsuru; maybe he has had it for a while. Orange is for miracles and one-sided love. Mitsuru feels rejected this episode. The edge of the hood looks green in the left image, and blue in the right. The backpack seems to be a standard elementary school backpack. The middle schoolers carry briefcases to show maturity, and I don’t recall the high schoolers carrying any school stuff around at all.
The rain means illusions. Does the raincoat protect Mitsuru and let him see part of the truth? Or is it the opposite, it goes with the rain and means the same thing? I think it aligns with Akio’s storm in the prince story, and means Akio is exercising power.
The duelist uniform is green, like the kindergarten overshirt, with red trim and white shorts. Then he tried to achieve adulthood by saving; here he tries by attacking. Green control works for both. He’s marked as childish by the shorts and the yellow circle on his collar.
The uniform jacket seems to fasten down the middle, but there are rows of buttons to the sides. I don’t see any sign of overlapping material, so I guess the buttons are decorative? What’s that about?
She only appears once.
Visiting Akio. Mrs. Ohtori wears black because she seeks Akio. The white spinning rose in the corner means the same thing: Akio is her prince. So does the low neckline (more a chestline). Akio’s color is black, but Mrs. Ohtori sees him as the prince’s white; she has bought into the fiction of Dios.
The wrap over her shoulders is yellow in the left image. She must feel jealous of Kanae, or jealous that Akio is surrounded by young girls. On the right, it is blue-green for the illusion of Dios that she was tricked into.
See jewelry catalog - Mrs. Ohtori for her jewelry.
Nanami has many costumes, but her usual wear is the girl’s uniform, until the duel of episode 10, when she switches to her yellow and black duelist uniform. By episode 37 she has switched back to the girls’ uniform. Juri says she hasn’t seen Nanami in that uniform in a long time, so she only just switched back.
I left out a few childhood costumes that appear only in photos.
Little Nanami has different costumes. In episode 6, when Mitsuru sees her chased by a bull, she wears the elementary school girls’ uniform. In episode 10, she wears a purple dress at Touga’s 12th birthday party. The image is a stitched panning shot from the gallery at Empty Movement, credit to Giovanna. I don’t know what her corruption is, but where did she find the kitten? Afterward, developing jealousy of the kitten, she wears yellow. The purple dress is similar to what she wears when she digs in the sandbox in episode 27, Nanami’s Egg, but the colors of the dream are faded and we can’t tell what color it is. Both dresses show up in photos in episode 31, and the purple one is pink there.
Uniform. Nanami’s uniform is black and yellow because she is the queen bee. Well, maybe. It’s yellow for the jealousy and black for the evil she seeks, which amounts to being like Akio. The colors and their pattern carry over when she turns into a cow.
The breast pocket for the dueling rose is marked with black and white, and instead of the usual yellow triangles on the collar she has white triangles. The white is presumably for her prince Touga, but there is surprisingly little of it. Touga is not truly her main concern. Unlike Utena, Anthy, Touga, and Saionji, Nanami has only the one pocket, with no hip pockets. It means that she doesn’t want any man in her “pocket”. Not that that stops Akio in episode 32.
Night clothing. Her nightgown is purple and ruffly. It’s somewhat similar to Anthy’s, but with the ruffles all in front. It looks to be modeled after a costume worn by Rei in Onii-sama e; see Rei’s ruffles for the meaning I see in it.
Dance party dress. Nanami chooses yellow and purple, with a purple bow in front and a huge black bow behind her back, like butterfly wings. There may be a connection with the butterflies of the Black Rose. The smaller front bow has a purple jewel at its center. The bows tie her to her plot against Anthy, but likely have specific meanings too. The black bow may point to Akio being ultimately behind it all.
I don’t know what the rear purple piece is called. But it’s extravagant. Overall, it’s an outrageous villain outfit. Compared to the choices of her minions, it is more elegant and at least as strange.
Episode 10 party dress. At Touga’s birthday party, Nanami wears yellow and black, prefiguring the uniform she first puts on later in the episode. The yellow is pale, not vivid like the uniform’s yellow—except for the yellow bows. She has bows at throat and each wrist, and a big bow behind. It’s not huge, though.
Nanami is speaking to Anthy, “I won’t hand you to Touga!” The crowd and Utena herself react as though Nanami were speaking to Utena. To be fair, it’s hard to tell; they’re together on the floor. Utena reacts that way because Touga is on her mind and she won’t admit it, even to herself. The crowd does because Anthy is low-status, not good enough for admired Touga.
Cowbell party. Nanami wears dark blue-green with her yellow. She is tricked into the illusion of the cowbell out of envy of Juri, which emotional genius Anthy must have taken into account in her plot. Nanami chose a deep V-neck which echoes Keiko’s bare back.
The ruffles are typical Nanami style, but this time she is not wearing a bow. Going bow-free is a little unusual and probably has a meaning in itself.
Sports outfits. Nanami is powered up by the cowbell and excels at tennis, though she runs slowly. Compare Wakaba’s sports outfits, from the parallel sequence where Wakaba is powered up by Saionji. Both are illusions and align with Utena’s miracles.
Tennis. Wakaba’s tennis outfit is standard (others wear the same outfit), while Nanami’s is special to her, in her yellow color and with short sleeves and a differently placed rose emblem. And look at that tentacular hair! Running. Again, Nanami’s is special. She even has cloth “horns”. She is seemingly already becoming a cow, and moves slowly like a cow. Though as a cow she becomes yellow and black, not white and black, with a different meaning.
In the rain. Nanami, walking in the rain with her umbrella, catches sight of Keiko and Touga under Keiko’s umbrella. That will not do.
The umbrellas are symbols of love. The shared umbrella is for shared love... and Nanami’s is not shared. In this case the sharing is Keiko’s hope. The light purple umbrella presumably means that Nanami’s perceived love of Touga is only mildly corrupt. The dress is darker because her goal of keeping them apart is more corrupt. She is tied to it by a yellow bow for jealousy.
The rain is water. It is from Akio and means illusions: Akio is raining illusions to bring out perceived love in the shape of umbrellas. Cute.
They regularly wear the girls’ uniform, but there are exceptions.
At the dance party. Red, orange, and blue. We don’t have enough information to guess the reasons behind the colors. Yuuko’s twisted cloth looks awkward. She has two pink roses. Aiko’s bow and unlikely oversized sleeves are—actually in the normal range for this party. The fabric over Keiko’s shoulder is... a sideways bow? That’s the weirdest feature. To me, all the dresses look clumsy and somewhat crude. Compare Nanami’s over-fancy but sharp clothing.
According to the episode’s shadow play, the girls are hunting boys, and presumably vice versa. That’s certainly how Touga treats Utena at the dance, and how Utena treats Anthy. In any case, the curious dresses must be their ideas of what will be attractive.
At the episode 10 party for Touga’s birthday. Wow, they went dowdy. Again, Nanami’s dress is much more elegant. Aiko has changed from the orange of one-sided love to the yellow of jealousy, presumably jealousy of Nanami over Touga. Keiko is wearing purple, and Yuuko is magenta—red shaded toward blue. It suggests that they are participating in the plot: Touga and Anthy are cooperating to manipulate Nanami into a duel, and Touga continues to play prince for Utena. Touga giving Nanami the ring reminds Utena of when she received her own ring.
In the picture, the minions are watching Nanami slap Utena. Keiko and Aiko look like they expected it (it’s a “you deserved that” expression), and their arms are defensively in front. I’d say they are showing guilt. But Yuuko looks surprised, and her arms are at her sides. As usual, the minions are not quite in sync.
At the cowbell party. These dresses have a somewhat Jetson’s look to my eyes, retro-futuristic. It’s quite a contrast with the earlier parties. Yuuko’s shoulder-swash things, whatever they’re called, and pink color remind me strongly of Utena’s dance party dress chosen by Touga. Touga is not at this party, but perhaps Yuuko hoped he would be? Alternately, she wants to be like Utena, who was praised for the dress. The color is closer to Utena’s hot pink than Utena’s dress was. Aiko has somewhat similar swashes. Are the swash features stylized bows? Keiko’s pick is more classical ”wholesome girl”, and she looks disgusted by the cowbell as a wholesome girl should. On the other hand, the rear view shows that Keiko’s back is bare—the dress is not as conservative as it looks from the front. And she has a bow in back.
The colors are similar to episode 3’s, but Aiko and Keiko have swapped colors. Yuuko has worn reddish colors for three parties running.
At the party for Touga. This time green and purple. There is still not enough information to tell the reasons for the colors, but Aiko has a white collar and Yuuko a black one. The designs are more sedate and conventional this time. I think they know Nanami and are avoiding Nanami’s suspicion by wearing nothing too frilly and “feminine”. Do the colors mean they are working together against Keiko?
By now, the minions have showcased most of Utena’s standard colors. Anthy and Utena are complementary, which means that a woman can be anything. But they are seen as special. The minions are ordinary girls, but they also cover the range of possibilities. Ordinary girls can be anything too, I read it as saying. Though a more direct reading is that an ordinary girl can be messed up in any possible way.
Keiko at the party for Touga. Keiko is excited to prepare the party. But her costume choice is basically a clown suit. It’s a big contrast with the other two, with ruffles to the point of silliness, and sure enough, she is ostracized after Nanami detects her interest in Touga.
Keiko in the rain. The picture is Keiko shortly before she sees Touga walking without an umbrella. Sharing an umbrella is a standard symbol of love. Nanami wears yellow for jealousy. This is the first time one of Nanami’s minions has worn yellow. She also wears pink, with a little black and a little white. She’s out walking by herself, with no particular goal that we know of, so this is her casual wear. The umbrella is orange for her one-sided love, yellow is for her jealousy of Nanami, and the pink is perhaps softened red for her (according to Nanami) sinful temptation of Touga. I’m not so sure about the pink.
Keiko’s duelist uniform is brown for ordinariness, trimmed with black and red. It’s a reddish brown, richer than her brown hair. The black is actually very dark blue-green. The minions wear blue and green separately, but this is the first time we’ve seen one wear blue-green. (Her eyes in contrast are dark green.) The trousers are white for her prince Touga.
As with Mitsuru, the buttons seem unrelated to the center fastening of the uniform jacket. Her collar is decorated with forward-pointing black triangles. Since I don’t know what the regular downward-pointing yellow triangles mean, I can’t interpret them.
Ruka normally wears his uniform. We also see him in fencing gear, which is standard so I don’t break it out. Juri in fencing gear includes a picture with Ruka.
Uniform. It is all white, above and below, like Akio and Touga and unlike anyone else. Akio wears white because he wants to be like the prince, and Touga wears white because he wants to be like Akio. I think Ruka is the previous Touga and wears white for the same reason. Ruka’s jacket is double-breasted and resembles Akio’s more closely than Touga’s does.
It’s unique in being trimmed with blue for illusion. Even Miki’s uniform has the usual red trim. I think his illusion is the illusion of existing—he is dead. Compare the blue trim on Dios’s cuffs. I can think of other possibilities. His trim color matches his hair color, though I expect it’s a coincidence.
It’s hard to tell in this image, but he has red hip pockets like other male duelists. Ruka does not have a breast pocket; he is heartless and seeks sex but not love. In his episode 28 duel, his blue rose sticks to his uniform on its own.
Saionji usually wears his Student Council/duelist uniform.
Uniform. It’s the usual white with red trim. Saionji’s color is green, and he gets some green bits, including green trousers.
Kendou outfit. Utena and Miki are looking out the window at Nanami exploiting Mitsuru. Saionji shows up and starts discoursing on love, contradicting himself by announcing his “hidden love” for Anthy. It’s so well hidden that we can’t detect it even when you advertise it.
He’s dressed for kendou practice in gi and hakama. The colors are black for Akio and purple for corruption, another color closely associated with Akio. He’s being particularly evil. The gi is open in front as part of the gag; see cool stuff - peeking for the related case of Saionji taking out the exchange diary in the gym storage shed.
Young Saionji. In Saionji’s memory of meeting little Utena, he wears a purple shirt and blue jeans shorts (shorts for immaturity). Saionji’s purple corruption may be that he does not care about others. When the funeral comes up, he vaguely wonders who died, but is not concerned. When the church officials ask about a missing girl, he makes a joke. Not until Touga leaves little Utena in the coffin does he show any concern. But all that seems natural at his age. More likely, his corruption may be that he blames Touga, without reason, for an action Touga did not take that would have been in no way wrong. That fits with his purple eyes, which mean that he sees the world in a corrupted way. The blue of the jeans then stands for the illusion behind his blame.
The design on his back pockets is a three-point motif. It may have meaning beyond that. I expect that back pockets stand for anal sex.
Current Saionji’s hair is free, but young Saionji ties his long hair into a tail that goes over his shoulder and hangs in front. It should be a comparison with Akio’s spherical hair tie. I don’t know what it means.
Photo. Later in the episode, we see a photo on Saionji’s desk. Younger Touga and Saionji wear white gi and blue hakama for kendou. The gi are open at the chest for the open shirts symbolism, Touga’s hand is on Saionji’s shoulder, and they carry phallic symbols in their hands. It foretells their future relationship (though it also separates them with a shadow—which falls mostly on Touga).
Denim. When leaving the Academy, Saionji wears a blue jeans jacket with blue jeans. Blue is for illusions. The pants are blue in other views, but look black when he’s talking with Touga. The black suggests that he has an underhanded reason to hand the exchange diary to Touga—I think he is already intending to seek the support of some fangirl (not necessarily Wakaba), and doesn’t want her to find it. To me the denim reads as a 1970s outfit, not in line with Utena’s usual fashion oddness. I suspect there is a specific meaning or reference behind it.
Saionji wears the same outfit in episode 20 with Wakaba, and we see a black shirt under the jeans jacket. Sometimes he seems to have taken the jacket off and wears only the black shirt.
Apron. Saionji’s apron is frilly and has little hearts. He is the girl of Saionji and Touga. The yellow is for his envy of Touga.
Shiori almost always wears the girls’ uniform, but there are three exceptions.
Uniform. Shiori’s duelist uniform matches the purple hue of her hair, but it is darker. The red, yellow, and black trim is entirely standard for a duelist uniform. Some of the uniforms have unlikely buttons, but Shiori’s buttons make good physical sense.
Princess dress. It’s a standard princess dress. The yellow trim of the pockets (which all princess dresses have) presumably points to her envy of Juri.
Shiori does not wear lipstick, even as a princess. She is the only princess who does not. She does not seek to create sexual attraction; she doesn’t have the self-confidence for it.
Casual clothing. In episode 28, after Ruka dumps Shiori, she is depressed and (like Utena in episode 12) doesn’t dress for school or leave her room. Juri visits to try to help, and it backfires (compare Utena, who let Wakaba in and was helped). We don’t get a good look, but it seems to be a loose comfy yellow top for her envy of Juri and a blue skirt for her illusion that Juri has come to gloat.
The standard student uniforms are chosen by the Academy and tell us what the Academy wants the students to seek. The Academy’s control seems to be mostly effective; most students usually do seek what they are supposed to. Utena’s refusal to wear the standard uniform is a refusal of the Academy’s control. She does wear the girls’ uniform in the body swap episode 8—when she ignores it—and in episode 12 after becoming girlish—when she temporarily accedes to being controlled and feels miserable about it. Acceding to control is a choice, and the choice is independent of surface appearance or the symbols attached to it.
The girls’ uniform is a sailor suit design, in white because girls are to seek their princes, and blue-green for their role under the system of control of propagating manipulative illusions. The tie is red to go with Eve’s apple; it claims they seek sin—or offer sin—and are in need of “guidance” (control)—or exploitation. The tie may act as a symbolic leash and tie them down. The tie is shaped like a pointy sword (male sexual power) and lies over the heart (equated with her heartfelt beliefs and with her vagina). I suppose the tie looks silly because the patriarchy is silly.
The V-neck and short skirt are for male enjoyment and suggest unfastened clothing. The puffy sleeves and the tie, and in fact the whole design, are decorative and impractical; women are decorative and are not to undertake vigorous physical action like Utena does in the picture.
Modesty panel. The classroom desks go with the girls’ uniform. The closed-off front of the desk is called a “modesty panel” (Wikipedia). It is a product of the system of control, and so is its English name. The system gave the girls short skirts to create temptation, and at the same time forbids others to look up the skirts—easy when a girl is sitting—due to “modesty”. See immodest Utena in the picture. The system acts as the Christian God and/or Devil, while the girls are to be Eve and tempt the boys with Eve’s apple.
(A curious unrelated point is that the chairs have wheels.)
The boys’ uniform is solid blue-green with black trim. They are to seek control over women via illusions, and they shouldn’t at all mind being more like Akio, whose color is black.
The design is straightforward and practical, with no puffy sleeves or silly ties. The boys are to grow up into men who take effective physical action—the play sword fighting is practice for it—and they need straightforward and practical clothing.
The boys get yellow triangles on the collar. It appears on some other uniforms too, and the girls get no similar emblem. I’m guessing it is a symbol of male power... or something like that.
Elementary schoolers wear similar uniforms. The girls get bows instead of ties, and the boys wear shorts instead of long pants. Short pants are a symbol of boyhood (see Utena). The boys have yellow circles rather than yellow triangles on the collar. The boys sometimes wear purple stockings (presumably when it’s cold out, so it’s a sign of emotional coldness). Younger Touga wears the purple stockings too.
Another teacher appears at a distance in episode 12 when Utena is absent, a woman who wears pink.
Female teacher. She wears a white blouse because she seeks her prince, and a black or dark gray skirt because her prince is Akio (she gushes admiration for him in episode 30, and wears the red shoes). Her blouse has puffy sleeves and ruffles at the wrists and neck. Her skirt is long, with ruffles at the hem.
The puffy sleeves and ruffles are similar in idea to the girls’ uniform; they make her decorative. But the girls are supposed to invite sex, and the teacher is not. They must wear V-necks and short skirts, and she buttons up to the neck and wears a long skirt. The skirt does not appear to be slit to allow free movement—she can’t run in it, or even walk fast. Compare Tokiko. By the symbolism of feet, it means that she does not have much freedom even in her position of relative power.
Assistant principal, or vice principal in the Nozomi translation. He wears a blue suit with a dark red tie in episode 7 (for his illusion that he could abuse his power over Juri), and a black suit with a black tie in episode 30 (for Akio), both over a white shirt. As an administrator rather than a classroom teacher, he is dressed in business style.
His colors in episode 30 match the female teacher’s, and I conclude that his motivations match. He sweats with nervousness when talking with Akio in episode 30, and his glasses shine orange for one-sided desire. His white shirt is hidden under the suit because his desire must be kept hidden (that works for episode 7 too).
Other teachers. The gym teacher is a stereotype, but at least a somewhat realistic one. The ball is of course female. The science teacher with lab coat and sloppy clothing is over the top. With his round glasses, is he a reference to some character I don’t recognize? It would not surprise me. But he might be nothing more than a standard mad scientist.
Both wear clothing with blue and white. Is the white because they individually seek their princes, or because (like the Student Council members) they were roped into Akio’s goals?
Music teacher. We see him from Kozue’s point of view, as he sexually harasses Miki who (like Utena sexually assaulted by Akio) does not notice it. He wears purple with slightly pink pants, and rings on three fingers of his left hand. Purple is for corruption, pink is for homosexuality (compare Juri’s pants), and the rings are ostentation—the guy is showing off. (He also has dark red hair for his sexual sin.)
You could say that naive Miki does not understand what the music teacher is doing, while experienced Kozue does. It’s plausible; it fits with the abusive Academy. But Kozue shares the family color of blue for naive illusion. The three rings for fairy tales are on the hand of illusions, and it’s ambiguous who the illusions are affecting. I think Kozue is not seeing the truth. But I could be wrong.
Tokiko’s usual outfit is pink and black, with white underneath. The colors match Utena’s colors, and details of her character design strengthen the parallel. Mikage sees Tokiko in Utena. But Tokiko chooses a tight skirt and conventionally feminine clothing, though it’s a little severe. Tokiko and Utena are mirror images, somewhat like Anthy and Utena.
Some examples of pink point to homosexuality. But pink is also Mikage’s color. On the face of it, Tokiko’s pink means that she seeks Mikage.
Tokiko wears this when in Mikage’s building, except when leaving at the end of the arc. She wears it when kissing Akio and when running to the fire.
Tokiko at home. When Mikage visits Tokiko at home, she wears not pink and black but purple and black. Tokiko is corrupt in at least two ways: She controls Mamiya, and she is having a secret affair with Akio (she lies to Mikage to conceal it). I haven’t figured out enough of Tokiko’s and Mikage’s motivations during the visit, but somehow she is messing him up. The Akio-Tokiko kiss is not until the next episode, but I think the red roses we see in episode 15—the ones that reappear withered and discarded in episode 23—mean that Akio has had his hand on Tokiko the whole time. Then he discards her like the roses; compare the pink rose for Utena that Akio discards in the recap episode 13.
Utena as Tokiko. When Utena comes to his building, Mikage at first sees her as Tokiko, and calls her Tokiko. I place the outfit under Tokiko because Utena is not wearing it; it is Mikage’s illusion.
Those are Utena’s blue eyes turned darker, not Tokiko’s bicolor black-blue eyes, which are slightly greenish. Utena’s hair is a bit more extreme than Tokiko’s too, though they are similar. Mikage’s illusion is not perfect; as we find out in the duel, his memory is flawed. He has forgotten the mole next to Tokiko’s mouth. He sees her as wearing the outfit that Tokiko wore when he visited her at home, complete with the flower-like emblem, but dressed in Utena’s pink rather than Tokiko’s purple. The two colors are the same hue; Utena’s pink is light purple.
Leaving. Tokiko wears dark purple for deep corruption when she leaves Mikage and heads for a life in the world outside the Academy. It will be an ordinary life—her hair has turned brown. What is her corruption? She carries a white purse for the prince. It must align with Utena’s red purse in the First Seduction, which before sex stands for Utena’s virginity—but does not disappear after sex. Then it stands for Utena’s sexual experience. Tokiko’s purse when leaving must be parallel to Utena’s purse when returning home in the car. I conclude that it stands for Tokiko’s sexual experience with her prince, who can only be Akio. Her hair used to be dark purple; she was deeply corrupt from the start.
Her large suitcase is magenta. It is similar to the color of Utena’s sweater in the Routine Date. I expect Tokiko has had some routine dates too. I don’t understand much of Tokiko’s parallel with Utena, but clearly Tokiko’s increasing corruption is part of it. Akio lures them in with intent to discard them (see Akio plans to kill Utena). Utena is more resistant; her hair never turns brown.
Returning. When older Tokiko comes back, seemingly no time has passed at the changeless Academy. The patriarchy does not change. She wears purple so dark it’s barely distinguishable from black. Her skirt is black for Akio. Marriage has corrupted her yet further. She still carries white, including a larger white purse and a big white hat. And she has adopted dark glasses, like Mikage often wears, to protect herself from seeing the world as it is (compare Anthy’s glasses).
The larger white purse suggests that this is not her first visit back; she has returned to cheat on her husband and sleep with Akio more than once. She’s lying that her reason was to visit Mamiya’s grave; that was secondary at most. What she’s wearing and carrying says so. When Tokiko left Mikage, she gave Mikage’s eternal youth as a reason, but here she is with Akio who is in stasis too.
Does Akio have an age limit? Will he still be doing this when she’s 80? I think so!
Besides these, in episode 31 we see photos of Touga as a child wearing several costumes. By the time of the main story, Touga wants to be like Akio and seems to share Akio’s disinterest in alternate costumes.
Uniform. Touga’s Student Council/duelist uniform is his everyday wear. It is all white with red and yellow trim. Touga wants to be like Akio. Ruka and Akio are the only other characters with both white jacket and white trousers. As the Student Council member closest to Akio, it’s ironic that he becomes the last risk to Akio’s plot and has to be shunted aside before Akio can complete his control over Utena.
In the church. Younger Touga wears blue-green and white, with short pants because he is still a child. His purple stockings are part of Academy’s elementary school boys’ uniform, presumably to be worn in cold weather. Cold in Utena means emotional coldness.
What prince is Touga seeking (with his pants)? I’m guessing he doesn’t know yet. But he already claims to be an ally of girls, a typical lie of the patriarchy. He is seeking Dios/Akio as a role model, just as little Utena soon comes to.
Twelfth birthday party. The party shows him off to adults. I take it as conferring on him his share of the family’s power, and making sure that everybody knows it. That is why his adoptive parents defer to him when he accepts the kitten from Nanami despite them. To go with that, he wears long pants (not childish short pants) and a tie. I see the sweater pattern as not entirely adult. He is not the family patriarch yet, but he is being prepared for the position. And he looks forward to it. We see it in his self-confidence in this scene, and in his later desire to be like Akio.
That’s a lavender shirt, a bluish-red tie, a blue-green sweater, and yellow pants. The blue-green is for the illusion impelling him to become a patriarch, the yellow for his envy of the current family patriarch, and the inner purple and red for what he will do with his power.
Night clothing. Touga’s robe is purple for corruption and open at the chest. He is prepared to entertain his fangirls at night, singly or in groups, and we know from listening in on his phone calls that he freely lies to them.
Utena’s red shorts, the First Seduction date dress, the Routine Date outfit, and the way she holds Anthy when they are physically close, how the camera looks at her, even the way her pajamas are partly unfastened in episode 25, all say that she locates her sexual interest and sexual desirability below the waist. Her clothing de-emphasizes her breasts. It is part of Utena’s male marking. It is consistent even when Utena is girlish, as in the Routine Date. It may have been something that Akio tricked her into when she was small, but now it is a fundamental and stable part of her nature.
Utena seems to keep clothing that we don’t see her wear. See Utena’s wardrobe. She has a lot of costumes. She never heard Thoreau’s “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.”
In the coffin. In Saionji’s memory, little Utena in the coffin wears black and white, similar to her dark blue and white below. Except in our last view of her, when (as lightning strikes) she has switched to all white. Lightning is Zeus’s weapon and means Akio.
Maybe it foretells her future as a prince. But often, clothing colors say what the character seeks. She seeks black death in the coffin which Akio put her in, but holds a hope of white rescue by a prince. After Touga and Saionji leave, though she remains girlishly passive, she hopes for rescue (by Akio too).
Little Utena wears dark blue, like a late evening sky, for the illusion that Akio the fake prince has forced on her. It’s similar to the black uniform jacket with blue highlights that she wears when a student. As a night sky color, it means she seeks Akio. The white collar means that she seeks to meet her prince again—the same person. The white rose is a female symbol and should stand for the prince she is to become. It has green leaves for control, to say that she was manipulated into it. An adult holds her hand, to make sure she doesn’t disappear again. That’s control too.
Little Utena’s jacket at the earliest time in the story is similar to Anthy’s pink jacket as she leaves the Academy to seek Utena, at the latest time. But Utena’s is fastened at the neck. Anthy when she leaves is free; Utena now is not.
Prince story Utena. Little Utena in the prince story sees herself as a princess and wears a fancy yellow dress for envy of the prince. The blue-green parts (seen under blue-green light) are for the illusion that Akio is tricking her into believing. The red trim is presumably for her hope or expectation of someday marrying the prince. As a prince, she joins and reinforces the patriarchy even as she fights against some aspects.
It’s fancier than an Utena princess dress, but shares the bell-shaped skirt. The sleeves are puffy. She joins her hands in front, like Anthy. The villain-like hood thing behind her head presumably means that she is not looking back. Capes are associated with heroes, though not exclusively. They can stand for dynamic forward movement. The cape is lined with blue-green, the opposite of Dios’s cape, lined with red. The three-pointed tails refer to fairy tales.
Little prince Utena. Little Utena, who sees herself as a princess, seems to have some trouble imagining herself as a prince. On first viewing it looks convincing, but later we learn that the crown is a princess crown, and that the puffy sleeves are like those of the girls’ uniform (and other puffy women’s sleeves such as Kanae’s). The round shapes are symbolically female, including the curved crown.
The prince’s wind of power blows her hair. The outfit is white for seeking to become a prince and blue because that is an illusion. The black arms and legs are because her person is in silhouette (though her outfit is not), but it’s also possible to read her legs as wearing black stockings to match those of Utena’s Routine Date outfit, which say that she seeks Akio, who is the prince. Akio is darkness, and shadows stand for him. The background is yellow for her envy of the prince.
The student uniform has a black jacket (sometimes it looks blue) with red shorts, and usually red socks (sometimes her socks are white). The black means she seeks Akio—because Akio played the prince in the prince story, though she doesn’t know that. The red trim, red socks, and especially the red shorts point to her vulnerability to sexual temptation. The white with red on the pockets means that the prince is allowed in her “pocket”. The splits in the jacket align with the splits in the girls’ uniform top and make the jacket somewhat skirt-like. The shorts align with the shorts of the elementary school boys’ uniform and make her a boy and a child, but at the same time say that she is female and sexual. She is gendermixed and maturity-mixed.
It’s closely similar to the jacket of a princess dress. It is kin to the Student Council uniforms. But the Student Council members always wear their epaulets and other regalia, while Utena only sometimes does.
Overall, it reads as antihero clothing. Being a prince leads her to resist some points of the system of control, but princehood is fundamentally patriarchal, and she only breaks from it in the final episode.
The prince uniform. The prince version adds epaulets, princess gem, and that rope thing called an aiguillette (why did I have to learn that word?). Apparently it’s common to have a whole sheaf of aiguillettes if any, but I can imagine why they didn’t want to animate that. Anthy’s princess gem and aiguillette match Utena’s.
The prince uniform and Utena’s hair length both purport to tell us whether she is being a prince, but they do not always agree with each other. Her hair length seems to be the more timely indicator. In the dueling arena, she wears the prince uniform (except in episode 1 when she is not yet a prince), even when she is being an ordinary girl. For example, in episode 36, the Second Seduction leaves her girlish for the rest of the episode, and she wears the uniform in the arena while girlish.
When playing basketball, Utena takes off the uniform jacket and wears only the sports bra underneath. She is being boyish then and her breasts are drawn smaller than usual, but only something that functions as a sports bra will be OK to wear in such an active game. Her discarded clothing for the Routine Date shows that it is very stretchy, reinforcing the conclusion. The dark gray color is close to black and should have about the same meaning as the black of her uniform jacket.
When jumping as Anthy, Utena wears a white sports bra instead of black, with her standard red shorts. The jump aligns with her basketball jumps, which are miraculously high. Though nobody else is around except Anthy, she gets an admiring panning shot that seems to go with her crowd of admiring fangirls from episode 1. One point is that Utena is admired and Anthy is not (she is despised). Another is that behavior draws admiration or contempt, not appearance (not always a realistic claim). As Utena points out, it is Anthy admiring her own body. Anthy can do what Utena does, though she chooses not to—I take it as an early sign that she is able to escape the Academy. (Though I expect that the swap is an illusion and Utena remains in her own body.)
Dios and Akio are very similar, and in Utena white and black are very similar. Changing from black to white has meaning, but I think it’s mainly for visual contrast.
The dance party dress from Touga. It is pink for Utena, the same color as her princess dress. Touga chose a frilly dress, and Utena does not like it. Compare the horizontal layers to the layers of little Utena’s yellow dress in the prince story.
The white collar with rose matches the blue outfit of little Utena at her parents’ funeral. It may be a stylized bow. Touga wants to be her prince, and gives her white to say (correctly) that she seeks her prince, with a red rose to say (falsely) that he is the prince Utena seeks. Despite disliking the dress, Utena may like the bare shoulders, or may see them as attractive, because she chooses bare shoulders in the Routine Date outfit. I am reminded of her one bare shoulder that we see a sliver of in the First Seduction sex scene.
Baseball outfit. It is largely blue-green, which seems to be the school color. The belt is dark blue-green, and the shorts are light blue-green. But the cap and undershirt are red. It does look baseball-like. I don’t know what specific connection there may be with the events of the episode.
See down catalog - Nanami meets baseball for another view.
Soccer outfit. The blue-green comes with pale yellow this time. I don’t know why Utena gets a pastel shade of Nanami’s deep jealousy. Does she envy Nanami’s sexual success in laying an egg? I guess she’s being marked as similar to Nanami in some way. The added red is in the form of diagonal stripes because only diagonals can express the dynamism of soccer. I looked up number 10 in soccer, and learned that it is associated with the greatest players.
The baseball and soccer events are parallel. See down catalog - Nanami meets soccer ball for a little analysis.
Night clothing. Utena’s pajamas are boyish and light blue-green in color—with more blue than green. The trim is medium gray in the light, and slightly bluish or purplish in shadow. The buttons are roses, comparing Utena to Kanae, whose orange dress has rose buttons. Utena wears the pajamas prominently in Anthy’s suicide attempt.
Akio is the dark night, so night clothing should be related to Akio. I think Utena’s mean that she seeks her dreams—meaning her aspirations—and since it is Akio’s corrupt night, Akio has corrupted them.
The First Seduction date dress. It is mostly white for her childish desire to meet her prince, with red for her sexual temptation. The dress is simple and childish. Its shortness, and the way Utena moves while wearing it, signal sexual vulnerability.
The yukata is provided by the hotel. Utena changes into it after her shower. The water of the shower and the blue of the yukata seem to refer to the illusion of caring that Akio shows her during the othello game—the point when he leans toward her, probably smiling.
The Routine Date outfit. A long magenta sweater with a girlish scalloped edge, with black stockings. It’s more red than the First Seduction dress because Utena now seeks sex strongly, and purple for her corruption. And of course black for seeking Akio and his dark night.
Utena now sees herself as a sexually sophisticated adult, and chooses adult-like sexy clothing. It signals sexual desire. Compare the climbing roses of the Routine Date.
Princess dress of the final showdown is pink for Utena, but shaded toward blue so that it is just as much light purple. The voluminous skirt of the dress is supported by white petticoats for the prince—the prince helps make her a princess. When we see the dress, the light from the background is always blue; we can read it as the blue light making the pink dress look purple. Though note: In the elevator, Utena’s hair remains pink (even white at the edges though ordinary girl length), unaffected by the blue light as she rejects Akio’s arguments. Other princess dresses have white trim and white pockets for the prince, but Utena’s has black for Akio. She knows that he is evil and accepts him anyway.
Like the prince uniform, the princess dress suggests but does not prove that Utena is a princess. She continues to wear the princess dress for a short time after she steals her sword back from Akio, which a princess cannot do.
Wakaba’s everyday wear is the girls’ uniform. She normally ties her hair with a red ribbon. It’s part of her S-shaped hairdo, so it must refer to her Class S relationship with Utena. But the red of Eve’s apple does not go with Class S; it suggests that Wakaba keeps her relationship with Utena playful because social pressure prevents her from taking it seriously, or does not allow her to see it as serious. The hair ribbon is a kind of bow, and I think it ties her to Utena—not in the sense of having a connection, in the sense that she directs her actions in relation to Utena.
As a princess, she has a blue-green ribbon instead. As a duelist in the Black Rose, a black ribbon.
As a little girl, her clothing is remarkably similar to the girls’ uniform. It has the puffy short sleeves and the short skirt. The shadow on the front even looks like the tie. I guess it is supposed to be the shadow of her head, which is bent forward. But it does not have the V-neck, and it has no visible fastenings. Like other children’s clothing in Utena, it is put on over the head and cannot be opened to signal sex.
The blouse is white for the prince; she is with her onion prince. We don’t see the other clothing colors. The memory has faded and the colors are lost.
Princess Wakaba. It is not a standard princess dress. It is yellow for envy of the prince, like little Utena’s princess dress, though it is less fancy (I suppose because Wakaba is more mature). The sleeves are puffy. I take it that Wakaba and little Utena imagine themselves princesses, but are not actual princesses in Utena’s sense (Wakaba wears no princess crown, though Utena does). Wakaba has a white collar compared to little Utena’s red trim, but the yellow and blue-green colors match. Her hair ribbon is blue-green.
The image is similar to Utena with her prince in the first ending sequence. It shows Wakaba embraced rather than dancing. Wakaba seeks to be loved.
Wakaba takes her prince to be Saionji. But then why does she imagine a mysterious faceless prince? In her heart, she knows better. In the epilog, Wakaba’s prince must become the nearly-forgotten Utena; see Wakaba afterstory.
One more point: Wakaba does not place her hand on the imaginary prince’s chest to indicate desire. It’s on his side. Compare the examples of women’s hands on chests in the page about Utena breaking up with Akio in the final showdown, and how Anthy commonly places her hand on the center of Utena’s chest, and this image of Anthy placing her hand on Touga’s side to show lack of desire after Touga defeats Utena in episode 11. Wakaba’s hand is higher than Anthy’s on Touga, but is not on the prince’s chest. Wakaba shows no desire, or limited desire. It reminds me of how she exclaims that Utena is the only one for her, but doesn’t take it seriously.
This note is not about costumes, so I’ll move it to Wakaba’s character arc, or some other appropriate place, when I get that far.
Sports outfits. In each picture, everyone is wearing the same thing, so they are uniforms. It’s curious that the different sports have different uniforms. They are adapted for physical activity, but otherwise have goals similar to the girls’ uniform.
There are boys in the background of the tennis shot. The boys’ tennis uniform is almost the same as the girls’.
The duelist uniform is dark green for control. Wakaba is trying to control Utena. It is trimmed with red, yellow, and black, and that is an ample supply of yellow buttons. She envies Utena’s specialness—she all but says so. The trousers are white for her supposed prince Saionji, whose sword she uses—the black rose has encouraged her to turn specialness against specialness. It’s just as easy to argue that the trousers are white for prince Utena. Her hair ribbon has turned black; she is under the influence of the black rose.
Jay Scott <jay@satirist.org>
first posted 3 September 2023
updated 19 October 2024