The Incredible Costume Detail You Missed In Wonder Woman 1984

Contains spoilers for Wonder Woman 1984

Ask the creators of any comic book character — superhero, anti-hero, antagonist, or sidekick — and they'll confirm that costume design is of great importance. Settling on a stellar super-suit to either aid in fighting crime or make committing it easier is just as crucial as figuring out what powers and capabilities a character will have in the first place. Remember the costume-creating montage from Sam Raimi's original Spider-Man movie? Recall all the high-tech gadgetry that Tony Stark folded into his Iron Man armor? You get the point. 

When it comes to Wonder Woman, the Themysciran hero who immerses herself in the world of man to be its protector, the costume she rocks when battling baddies is sleek: a sleeveless chest-plate, a semi-skirt that offers free range of motion, some badass boots, her bullet-deflecting Bracelets of Submission, a tiara that can handily be used as a boomerang-like weapon, and a Lasso of Truth to wrangle up her opponents and get them to stop lying. That's all undeniably awesome — but Diana Prince's coolness doesn't start and stop with her Wonder Woman costume. Outside of her hero attire, Diana has pretty impeccable fashion taste, as further evidenced by the outfits she sports in the newly released Wonder Woman 1984.

Set in the '80s, Wonder Woman 1984 finds Diana no longer a fish out of water among everyday humans, now living life as if she was one of them. She more than looks the part too — at one point wearing a flawlessly retro outfit consisting of a wide-collared button-down shirt, a navy pinstriped vest, a grey blazer, a brown belt worn at the smallest part of her waist, light grey trousers, and sensible heels. It's fitting for the era — and is fabulous to boot — but there's actually more to this Diana Prince outfit than you might think.

Warning: Spoilers ahead!

Yes, Diana is embodying some big fashion trends from decades past and living out our collective "dark academic aesthetic wardrobe" dreams with this 'fit, but more than anything, the ensemble is a clever callback to the Wonder Woman television series that ran from 1975 to 1979. 

One of the outfits actress Lynda Carter wears in her role as Diana Prince is strikingly similar to the one Gal Gadot wears in the sequel movie: a white button-down shirt with a prominent collar, worn loose and open with the lapels pressed against her grey blazer, accented by a dark vest. Both actresses even wear their hair up off their face, pulled back in a stylish ponytail. Though there are a few small differences — Gadot's Diana keeps a button on her vest undone while Carter's Diana has them all fastened, Carter's Diana goes sans-belt and her vest is black with a white grid-check pattern rather than navy with a white pinstripe pattern — the ensembles are essentially cut from the same cloth (excuse the pun).

The Carter-starring series is set in the 1940s for its first season and then jumps to the 1970s for its second and third seasons. The outfit in question is from those later seasons, which do indeed take place a few years before the events of Wonder Woman 1984. That said, in the 1970s, real-life women began wearing clothing inspired by menswear, and that trend continued through the 1980s; according to RetroWaste, in 1984, "women's fashion was dominated by [...] menswear." The look is accurate to both eras in which the respective projects are set — and, more importantly, it connects the world's current Wonder Woman Gal Gadot to the former Wonder Woman Lynda Carter in a subtle but sweet way.