4. Alicia Silverstone's Boob-Bat
Alicia SIlverstone received a lot of very unfair criticism in the aftermath of the terrible Batman & Robin for being fat. Allow me to go on the record in saying she is certainly not fat. Neither, however, is she a 9-foot-tall supermodel. At the insistence costume designer Bob Ringwood, however, the initial costume design for the character was drawn as though she is. Here is what the artist Miles Teves had to say about the process:
Bob Ringwood, the costume designer, always asked me to draw my figures to be about 9 heads tall like they do in the fashion world. He didnt seem to mind that what would work as a concept on someone with those impossible proportions, would not work on a person with real-world human measurements. However, it did make for more heroic and sexy drawings that could sell a design to a fussy director or nervous studio head. I regret that my idea of the cut-out Bat symbol window on the chest, showing a little skin and cleavage, didnt survive into the final suit. I thought it was kind of clever, and added just the right amount of wholesome flirtiness to the character.
I'm not sure how "wholesome" the cut-out is, but I am intrigued by the presence of a full cowl in each of the below images, rather than the mask we saw in the movie. Kevin Smith said in a recent podcast (I have not been able to confirm this) that putting on the cowl was apparently an issue because it would make Alicia Silverstone look chubbier. Whether or not that is true, the designs look much better with the cowl.
