What is 616!Peter’s dressing sense like? Like he’s not into fashion, of course, but is he hopeless? Or average? Well dressed?
This is an interesting question I think in part because I feel like Marvel artists have, as of late, not considered the most important thing you can consider when thinking of Peter Parker in civvies: Does this outfit cover the spider-suit?
I threw this together ages ago, and it's a small sampling of my favorites, but this is a pretty classic Peter look -- a black turtleneck and jacket and boots. It's a good style choice because it's flattering, and you can mix up things like patterns on the turtleneck or the jacket, it's pretty timeless as styles go, and more importantly it covers the entire spider-suit, from the high neck down to the boots and long pants covering any potential little ankle flashes.
Like, I think it's pretty clear that Peter as a character doesn't -- and shouldn't -- particularly care about clothes. This isn't to say he dresses like a total slob, or that he doesn't know how to dress for a situation, just that fashion on its own doesn't interest him, which is pretty funny considering he dates clotheshorses almost exclusively. (MJ the fashion model, Felicia the high society thief, and Gwen has a Definite Look in the '60s.) So what's going to be important to him are, I think, two things -- the durability of his clothes (because he's not going to be buying new ones every few months) and the function of them (can he wear the suit under them). He also wore a lot of suits and collared shirts in the '60s and '70s, which I think is partly indicative of the time period -- it's hard to talk about fashion in comics without breaking things down by publishing decade -- but also of how the character at that point in time is literally more buttoned up. Later, as time goes on, he kind of relaxes into more athleisure wear -- there's some cute panels of him and MJ in matching workout clothes.
(Web of Spider-Man #67) But I think that's really more of an at-home look for the character, and again clearly not something he can wear the suit under. It always annoys me when there's redraws of older panels and Peter's wearing short sleeves in them! You saw this a little bit in Ottley's art for Spencer's run where there were a couple key '70s scenes redrawn.
(ASM #105/ASM v5 #30) Taking the yellow turtleneck and changing it into a blue short sleeve button down is just SUCH a boring choice. Also there's some big expression problems here, but that's another post -- taking Peter and Flash from genuinely happy and bemused respectively to kind of lukewarm scowling at each other is also just boring from a characterization standpoint.
(ASM #121/ASM v5 #31) At least the sleeves are longer here, but the crew neck and ditching the jacket doesn't really work for me in terms of style updates. (Not to mention all the personality has been completely drained out of Peter's face, totally changing the tone of this confrontation with Norman.) I think for Peter it's fine to kind of keep him, stylewise, in a previous decade, to kind of visually indicate that the character was raised by older people and to kind of set him apart from his contemporaries. He should be a little weird and offbeat, and at the same time he should be timeless -- this is a character who has held public attention for sixty years, and I think attempts to update or modernize him in either personality or appearance make him lose that magic.
So I would personally say he's average, mostly because he doesn't especially care about fashion especially in comparison to function, but that he has a classic look, and he can look good and style forward when his supermodel girlfriend/wife/best friend is dressing him up.
(ASM #311) Granted, style is in the eye of the beholder.
I guess the only other thing I would add is that the man LOVES a bathrobe.
(Web of Spider-Man #93) I'm not kidding when I say over the years he's been drawn in at least 30 distinct different bathrobes. Stop buying so many bathrobes.
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