Supergirl costume evolution

Six and a half decades of redrawing the same teenage Kryptonian. From the 1959 blue blouse and red pleated skirt, through the hot-pants 1970s and the headband 1980s, into the New 52 reboot’s controversial unitard and the Rebirth era’s careful restoration. Plus the live-action and animated costume interpretations.

1959 — the original

Al Plastino designed the original costume that ran in Action Comics #252 in May 1959 and that has remained the design DNA every subsequent version has either honoured or deliberately departed from. The components are:

• A long-sleeved blue blouse with a yellow-and-red S-shield on the chest, matching Superman’s
• A red pleated mini-skirt
• A red cape attached at the shoulders, sometimes with a yellow inner lining
• Red ankle boots, sometimes laced and sometimes pull-on
• Bare or briefly bare arms below the sleeves; no gloves in most depictions

The design choices made in 1959 were doing several things at once. The blue-and-red palette and the shared S-shield read instantly as part of the Superman family, anchoring the character to existing brand recognition. The pleated skirt and ankle boots fitted the 1959 expectation of how a teenage girl would dress in school, which mattered because Kara’s secret identity was schoolgirl Linda Lee. The cape — kept identical to Superman’s — said I am a flying hero in a visual language readers already understood.

What the 1959 costume did not do was attempt to differentiate Kara from Superman with any element of distinctively-female superhero design. There is no sash, no tiara, no distinguishing emblem. She is, visually, Superman in a skirt — which was the point. The character was launched as Superman’s girl cousin, and the costume’s resemblance to his was a statement about her place in the family.

The 1970s — hot pants and reinvention

By the start of the 1970s, DC had begun redesigning its heroines in line with the broader trends of comics fashion. Wonder Woman went through her famous “white pantsuit” depowered phase in 1968. Black Canary, the Huntress, and others were redrawn in more contemporary styles. Supergirl’s redesigns in this period were less structurally radical than Wonder Woman’s, but the visual changes were substantial.

The most-remembered 1970s look — sometimes called the “hot pants” costume — replaced the pleated skirt with red shorts and a half-cropped blue blouse that exposed the midriff. This version ran in various forms across her Adventure Comics and Superman Family appearances through the early-to-mid 1970s. Several other intermediate variations appeared in the same period: a stars-and-stripes red leotard with a blue shoulder-piece, a high-waisted red skirt with a slightly different blouse cut, a plain red unitard with a cape. Some of these designs lasted only an issue or two; others ran for substantial runs.

The pattern of the era was experimentation rather than consolidation. There is no single definitive 1970s Supergirl costume, because there were too many redesigns running concurrently for any one to settle as canonical. By the time of Kara’s 1980s ongoing series, most of the 1970s experiments had been abandoned in favour of returns to versions of the classic look.

The 1980s — the headband, the puffy sleeves, the run-up to Crisis

The early 1980s brought a redesign that has aged into a distinctive period look without ever quite becoming a fan favourite: short-sleeved or cuffed-sleeved blouse, a thin red headband worn across the forehead, and a slightly more structured red skirt. The look was strongly associated with the 1982 Daring New Adventures of Supergirl ongoing series, and it was the version of the costume in use when the original Kara was killed in Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985.

The 1984 Helen Slater film, released the year before Crisis, adapted a more conservative version of the classic 1959 silhouette: a longer pleated red skirt, a less-cropped blouse, and a fuller cape. The film’s costume was effectively a Hollywood translation of the comic look rather than an adaptation of the contemporary 1980s redesigns, which is why the film image of Supergirl looks more “classic” than what was actually in the comics at the time.

The Matrix and Linda Danvers years — 1988–2003

Following Kara’s death in Crisis, the post-1988 Matrix Supergirl wore a costume that broadly mirrored Kara’s classic look — the editorial decision was to maintain visual continuity even when the in-story continuity had been wiped. The Matrix design, generally drawn with longer hair and a slightly more streamlined cut, ran across her appearances in Action Comics and various team books through the late 1980s and most of the 1990s.

The Linda Danvers era under Peter David in the late 1990s took the visual identity in stranger directions. Peter David’s run was unusual for a DC mainstream title — it incorporated heavy religious and mystical imagery, and Linda’s “Earth Angel” form featured a white-and-gold variant with feathered wings that had no precedent in the character’s history. The classic blue-and-red skirt-and-cape costume continued to appear in parallel, but the run’s visual signature was the angel form, which gave Supergirl one of the few sustained alternate-design eras she has ever had.

Cir-El, in 2003, wore a more militant and Kryptonian-styled costume during her brief year in the role, with a darker palette and a different chest emblem. The look did not survive her replacement.

2004 onwards — Kara returns

Jeph Loeb and Michael Turner brought Kara Zor-El back in 2004, and Turner’s redesign of the costume — preserved in subsequent runs by Joe Kelly, Sterling Gates, and others — established the look that has been broadly canonical ever since. The Turner design is the classic silhouette with refinements: a slightly longer cropped blouse, a structured pleated skirt, a more dynamically-drawn cape, and Turner’s signature elongated proportions throughout. The overall effect was modern without being a departure — visibly Kara, recognisably 2004.

This Turner-influenced look ran across the second Supergirl ongoing series (2005–11) with art by Ian Churchill, Renato Guedes, Jamal Igle, and others. Each artist brought small modifications — Igle in particular was vocal about restoring more material to the skirt’s underside in his 2008 onwards run, after years of skirt-flip artwork that had become a flashpoint in fan discussions about the character’s depiction. The “Igle skirt” has been referenced periodically in subsequent runs.

New 52 — 2011

The 2011 New 52 reboot, which restarted DC’s continuity with renumbered first issues across the line, redesigned almost every character. Supergirl’s new costume, drawn by Mahmud Asrar under writers Michael Green and Mike Johnson, was the most radical departure from the classic look in the character’s publication history.

The New 52 design replaced the skirt entirely with a tight navy-and-red unitard, kept the cape but reattached it to a high collar rather than to the shoulders, and emphasised the boots and gloves in a way that read more combat-armour than schoolgirl. The S-shield was preserved on the chest. There was no skirt at all. The intent, articulated by the creative team in interviews, was to present Supergirl as a teenage warrior who had recently arrived on Earth and was hostile to it — a colder, more isolated version of the character than the welcoming-of-Earth versions that had preceded her — and to give her a costume that fitted that more aggressive characterisation.

The redesign was divisive. Some readers welcomed the more functional silhouette and its departure from the schoolgirl-coded original; others felt it stripped the character of visual identity that made her recognisable. Sales on the New 52 Supergirl series were respectable but not standout, and by the end of the run the costume had been gradually modified back toward classical elements.

Rebirth and the modern era — 2016 onwards

The 2016 Rebirth relaunch substantially restored the classic silhouette. The Rebirth Supergirl costume returned the pleated red skirt, retained the high-collared cape attachment as a holdover from the New 52 redesign, and reintroduced a more conservative blouse with full sleeves. The unitard underneath the skirt — sometimes drawn as red shorts, sometimes as full leggings — became the standard solution to the long-running practical question of what to draw under a flying superhero’s skirt.

The Tom King and Bilquis Evely Woman of Tomorrow series in 2021–22 took the costume in another direction visually, with Evely drawing Kara in a more retro, almost 1960s-inflected style — slightly fuller skirt, simpler boot design, an overall cleaner line that fitted the comic’s contemplative cosmic-Western tone. The Evely look has not become the standard mainline design but has substantial influence: its imagery is widely referenced in cosplay and is reportedly informing the costume design for the 2026 film.

The current mainline costume, across the Action Comics appearances and in the most recent solo appearances, is a synthesis: classic skirt-and-cape silhouette, refined collar treatment, modern textile rendering, with the New 52 era functioning as a contained chapter rather than a permanent shift.

On-screen costume history

Each major live-action Supergirl has worked from the classic silhouette while making period-specific adaptations:

Helen Slater (1984) wore a Hollywood-traditional take with a longer pleated red skirt, modest blouse, and full cape. The look was effectively a 1959 design in 1984 production materials, ignoring the contemporary 1980s comic redesigns entirely.

Laura Vandervoort (Smallville, 2007–11) appeared in costume rarely; the show’s stylistic preference was to depict its Kryptonian characters in modernised civilian clothing and Kryptonian-styled tactical gear rather than traditional capes. When Kara did appear in costume, it was in modified, often cape-less variations that fitted Smallville’s general visual approach.

Melissa Benoist (The CW, 2015–21) wore a costume that was iteratively refined across six seasons but stayed within the classical envelope: blue blouse, red skirt, full cape attached at the shoulders. The costume’s specifics — neckline, sleeve length, skirt length — moved in small increments across seasons, generally settling into a slightly more practical and combat-credible cut by the later seasons. Benoist’s costume is, for many viewers, the definitive modern live-action design.

Sasha Calle (The Flash, 2023) wore a more austere unitard-style costume with full leggings, no skirt, and a darker palette overall. The costume reflected the character’s more traumatised, militant characterisation in the film and signalled a deliberate visual departure from the classical design language.

Milly Alcock (Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, 2026) — costume not fully revealed at the time of writing. Early production stills and behind-the-scenes imagery suggest the design draws substantially on Bilquis Evely’s interpretation in the comic the film adapts: a more retro silhouette and slightly understated palette compared to the Benoist version, in keeping with the film’s contemplative cosmic-Western tone.

Animation

The animated Supergirl costume has stayed remarkably consistent: classic blue-and-red skirt-and-cape with minor variation across series. Nicholle Tom’s Supergirl in Superman: The Animated Series and the Justice League shows wore a simple short-sleeved variant with bare midriff in some appearances and a fuller blouse in others. Legion of Super Heroes (2006) used a more streamlined version. DC Super Hero Girls in both its iterations has stuck close to the classical silhouette while adjusting proportions for the more stylised art. The animated material has effectively been Supergirl’s most stable visual platform for the past three decades — more consistent than either the comic or live-action lines.

Related entries

• Supergirl — main entry — the canonical hub on the character
• Supergirl on screen — 1984 to today — every live-action and animated appearance in detail
• The best independent Supergirl fan films — the costume in cosplay and independent production