Dripping In Squid Ink - The Fashion References of Splatoon
A lot of you reading this are probably familiar with Nintendo's mega-hit franchise, the Splatoon series.
The innovative, color-popping game is one of the company's best-sellers, with millions of fans worldwide. While the game itself is incredibly fun & unique, today we focus on an aspect rather overseen.
Ever looked at your character's clothing, or "gear", and thought to yourself "that looks familiar"? That's because you've most likely owned a piece that an item in Splatoon was based on.
Even in-game, Splatoon has brands; Annaki, Firefin, Squiforce, and so on. Each one of these brands has a line-up of pieces, ranging from headgear, clothing, shoes, to weapons. What you may not know though, is that many of these brands & items actually have taken inspiration from a wide range of iconic existing brands & items. Some are more obvious, like the "Punk Nights" deriving from a pair of Doc Martens boots, the "Dakroniks" being adidas Superstars, or the "Norimaki 750", which clearly from the name, come from the YEEZY 750s. But if you look closely, you can find pieces that might make fashion heads even happier. The "Parashooter", from the brand "Annaki" [anarchy], pays obvious homage to the iconic Seditionaries parachute shirt, the "Dark Bomber Jacket" can be spotted with a small Cav Empt-like patch on the arm, and the "Kensa Coat" is a clear salute to the CDG airline logo coach jacket. If you want to dive in even deeper, you'll find that even some logos are sampled throughout garments & banners in-game.
What we've just mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg of fashion references in the Splatoon world. Go play a match yourself, buy some clothes, and see what other references you can find.
And let's end on a weird fun fact: Splatoon was originally designed with blocks that look like tofu in mind, rather than squid. Let's be glad the developers made that switch.
