Silco and Victor Frankenstein - A Fashion Comparison
When I watched Frankenstein, I was immediately struck by how its costumes communicate psychology. And when I discovered Kate Hawley designed them, it all made sense. Guillermo del Toro plays with image storytelling. Every colour, every seam, every texture is symbolic.
And which show does that remind us of?
Exactly: Arcane.
I had already gone deep into Arcane’s costume language, so the moment Frankenstein started, I instantly recognized a silhouette, a colour logic, a philosophy I knew well.
The strongest parallel?
Victor Frankenstein and Silco.
Two men who dress like they’re building something larger than themselves and ultimately being devoured by it.
So with no further ado let’s dive in.
They both dress like creators, not citizens.
Victor dresses like a god designing life.
Silco dresses like a man designing a nation.
Victor’s sharp, almost divine lines echo the precision of creation.
Silco’s asymmetrical tailoring echoes the political blueprint of Zaun.
Both communicate: I am building something new.
Both Victor and Silco are visually defined by the colour red, but the meaning diverges in revealing ways.
For Victor, red appears most vividly in his gloves - a symbolic reminder of the literal and metaphorical blood on his hands. The colour becomes an externalisation of guilt he refuses to acknowledge, a mark of responsibility he repeatedly avoids.
Silco’s use of red, however, is not rooted in denial but in ownership. His red gloves and accents do not hide guilt; they signal a conscious acceptance of the violence required to build something new. Where Victor recoils from consequence, Silco incorporates it into his identity.
This is how red operates as a shared colour code, but the emotional logic behind it exposes their differences in accountability.
Victor’s red gloves show the blood he refuses to acknowledge.
Silco’s red gloves show the blood he has already accepted
Their clothes are worn, beautiful, and deliberately imperfect.
Although their wardrobes originate from different worlds, both men wear clothes that are intentionally imperfect.
Victor’s garments carry the remnants of aristocracy: fine materials worn down, frayed, or carelessly thrown together. His dishevelment reads like the byproduct of obsession, the aesthetic of a man whose brilliance corrodes structure.
Silco’s clothing begins similarly rough but evolves into refined, deliberate asymmetry. Instead of aristocratic decay, his imperfections signal rebellion and reinvention. His wardrobe becomes sharper as his political vision crystallises.
In both cases, worn edges and irregular construction reflect inner turmoil but Victor dissolves under the weight of his ambition, while Silco hardens.
Both men communicate a similar message:
I come from disorder, I move through ambition, I am transforming myself into an idea.
Victor embraces flamboyance, theatricality, and the aesthetics of the dandy. His vanity is not superficial; it is philosophical. The dandy uses artifice to declare independence from convention, and Victor’s styling communicates exactly that: genius elevated above morality, creation elevated above responsibility.
Silco, by contrast, wields artifice as discipline. His slicked hair, makeup, and immaculate grooming create a façade of control. In a world that scars him, he responds by mastering every visible detail. His appearance is political, a tool to command, persuade, and intimidate.
Both men understand that identity is constructed, but Victor constructs performance, while Silco constructs power.
Their silhouettes break their worlds’ rules.
Victor’s silhouette is deliberately anachronistic and slightly ahead of its time, slightly out of step with its era. The effect positions him as a figure who refuses temporal limits, which mirrors the mythic impossibility of containing his creation.
Silco’s silhouette breaks Piltover’s rules through asymmetry. His diagonal waistcoat interrupts the clean verticals and mirrored tailoring of the upper city, asserting Zaunite identity within Piltover’s visual language.
Each man’s silhouette challenges the aesthetic norms of his environment, marking him as an outsider who insists on reshaping the world rather than conforming to it.
In both narratives, clothing becomes prophecy.
Victor’s sharp, rigid structures mask a profound emotional instability. His garments attempt to impose control where none truly exists, hinting at the collapse that follows.
Silco’s controlled asymmetry and militaristic precision reveal a man holding himself together through sheer force of will. His clothes foreshadow the tension between his vision and the chaos he relies upon to achieve it.
Though their styles differ, both wardrobes prefigure the same tragedy: creators inevitably undone by their creations.
Frankenstein ends with one truth:
Creation without conscience consumes its maker first.
Victor and Silco dress as architects of new worlds, but their garments reveal the same tragedy:
that the things we build, no matter if nations, inventions, weapons, children or monsters, are stitched together from pieces of ourselves.
And those pieces don’t always stay obedient.
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