Glamour is a work of art. I wouldn’t necessarily compare it to the likes of Picasso or Da Vinci or any other great artist, but one cannot deny that our avatars are canvases and the outfits we wear are what take us from a blank slate to a virtual Mona Lisa. That being said, there are some items I think that even the sly-smiling gal would struggle to make look good.
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For every item we see used a million times on Eorzea Collection, there’s always another that makes us question what in the actual crap the SE design team was thinking when they created it. It’s the loot that drops and we couldn’t hit the pass button fast enough after trying it on. It’s the raid item we have to glamour immediately before we even think about attempting to do another pull. But, what is one person’s neon colored fanny pack is someone else’s Gucci belt bag. It’s all about perspective and just how far you’re willing to go to create innovative glamours.

Why don’t we go ahead and take a look at some of those notoriously mocked items that originally made us raise our eyebrows in disbelief and disgust, and build glamours around them.

There are many laughably bad looking items circling around. For the first installment of this monthly piece, I picked an item close to my own heart. As a matter of fact, I’m almost certain I said “What the heckfire is this?” when I first laid eyes on this buried treasure of a headpiece.

Ladies and gentleman- for your viewing pleasure I present you with the Genta/Genji Eboshi of Healing! I think the only people who can look at this item and NOT think of The Coneheads are those who were born long after the Saturday Night Live skit and movie were created. Please visit Youtube for educational purposes then come back and look at the helm so you can see it just as appropriately as the rest of us do. It’s disproportionately elongated structure is enough to drive anyone away from it, but the fact that it is also undyeable (unless you run savage content) is enough to be that final nail in the coffin for most.

Put on your rose-colored glasses, folks; here are a few ways to make this monstrosity of a hat into something a bit more pleasing to the eye.

Our first glamour really showcases that sharp trim along the border of the hat by bringing that same detail into the chestpiece and hemline of the skirt. First instinct may tell you that such a bold hat should mean that the rest of the outfit needs to be more subdued. Not necessarily. Big and bold is not the same as loud and busy.

As far as detailing goes, the hat (though obnoxiously large) is very subtle when it comes to its detailing. That allows us to pair bolder pieces that really amplify that look of the jagged trim. What better pieces to do this with than the Royal Vest with its sharply angled gold work and the steep, scalloped hem of this skirt? Mimicking those types of details across the outfit makes the helm very cohesive with the rest of the look as opposed to looking like someone randomly put a traffic cone on top of their head. CAUTION! Slow your roll! More pointy glamours aHEAD! (See what I did there? aHEAD. Because the pointy hat is on your head. /popoto-giggle)

Give me your quilted fabrics or give me death! Just kidding, don’t kill me; I’m delicate. This Scholar glamour is just oozing with different fabric textures and it’s sending my heart aflutter. One of the endearing qualities about this helm is how well they designed that thicker fabric look, similar to stiff felt. From the front you may look like you’re wearing the tapered end of a banana, but in the back they took care in adding slight bends and creases that implies the hat is starting to break in.

Mixing different “fabrics” well in glamours can be tricky, but never let that deter you! The diamond quilted pattern of the tunic isn’t overly busy and still a nice contrast from the vertical seam lines happening in the helm.

Maybe I’m just really salty that Yoshi-P never gave us access to those stupidly adorable cone hats with the star design and tassel that all those astrologers from the Observatorium have (I’m not bitter or anything). But while they’re roaming around looking cute as all get out with their tassels waving in the snowy air, here we are looking like a peg from a ring toss game. Well not anymore! Quit flexing your throwing arm at everyone and look in awe as we put those tiny, cone hats to shame. In this moment, maybe bigger can really mean better.

Here we focused a little more on those subtle metallic details of the hat. We see a lot of gold and silver in quite a few glamour pieces, but it’s slightly less common to see those brassy and copper colors. Much like we did with the first glamour previewed, we carried those same metallic notes all across the ensemble- from the chains and belt of the chest piece, to the small clasps on the pants. Even the globe was dyed a rich russet brown in order to give that warmer-toned shade of metal. When the entire look melds together like that, the strangeness of the hat’s structure isn’t so jarring to the eye.

Sure, it’s cheesy- but beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. It may require a lot of squinting and alcohol to eventually see it, but you can get there. Even over the course of writing this and designing these looks, I found myself hating this hat far less than I did when I first began. Because of that, I find myself wondering what other glamours I have been missing out on or am able to create if I just take the time to let my eyes adjust to the weird, and openly embrace the challenge. I encourage you to do the same! Take those presumably bad and ugly items and see if you can make something good out of them. Or at least something that teeters the line and becomes questionably bad.
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I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? After all- my fall back for this item was the garden gnome glamour we all knew at the start of the article was destined to happen.