Where Comic Books and High Fashion Meet

The New York Times takes note of attendees at Comic Con who really dress up.

From the story...

A fantasy dress code prevailed at this least conventional of conclaves, held at the Javits Convention Center in Midtown. It was an event less evocative of Hollywood than Halloween. Visitors were garbed as their favorite cartoon heroines, an outlandish cast of characters that varied from Wonder Woman to the violet-haired Faye of “Cowboy Bebop,” the Japanese manga and anime series, to pink crinoline-clad Lolitas that were candy-coated variations on the brooding goth originals who strut their style on Tokyo’s streets.

Over the years, elements of such gaudy regalia have been appropriated by the fashion crowd, a sign of the continuing intersection of comic book culture and catwalk style. Cartoon heroines infiltrated fashion as early as the 1970s, when Thierry Mugler paraded a phalanx of intergalactic travelers on his Paris runway. Action-comic superheroes have been teleported to the catwalks many times since, their gaudy personae embraced by designers as disparate as Alexander McQueen and Jean Paul Gaultier, whose bullet bras for Madonna conjured up a number of hyper-voluptuous cartoon Amazons.