Kingofwinter

Don't know why you feel this strongly about it, but as it happens, you are wrong, we know pletora of ways Tolkien's elves dressed.

Tolkien himself drew a picture of Beleg Strongbow from the first age, and from it we can see that the Elves of Doriath dressed in pointed shoes with what seems to be long white socks, knee length pants, and what looks like a black doublet.

In other words, the male Elves of Doriath dressed in a style clearly inspired by Tudor england, only a bit toned down, and seemingly withouth it's more outlandish/silly features(Codpieces and those frilly necks for example).

We also know that elves seems to have prefered shoes over boots, though some elves(The ones of rivendell at the very least) used boots, though wheter it was the prefered footwear even then is another question.

Many elves also were clearly described as "Robed" in the sense of wearing actual robes, though what sort of robes and how fanciful they might be is not specified.

Famously they are also known to use enchanted cloaks, which we can presume looked pretty similar to the movie version.

Overall though, Tolkien made it clear that all of his various people dressed in a variety of styles, depending on their climate and their ancestral heritage. An elf from Doriath would probably not much resemble an elf from Mirkwood for example.

As for war, there would be a bit more overlap(though some differences as i'll go over below), as all elves dressed the same way for war, given Plate armor is not a thing in the book legendarium.

Namely iron/steel hauberks of interlocked metal rings, aka Mail/Chainmail.

All elves wore these though there is some question wheter they wore a surcoat above it as well.

It is possible that the elves did wear coats of arms above their mail shirts, but there is nothing in text as far as i can tell that auggests this, and all description of family crests and symbols suggests they carried such on their shields, not their armor.

As for their helmets, we dont know the exact style, but from what i can tell, there doesnt seem to have been any mentions of a full helmets amongst them, so there seems to have been a tradition of helmets with open faces, with fully closed off helmets being more of a dwarf thing.

Finally, there is one bit of Armor speciffically noted to be unique to Earendil, so there is a question wheter this was from his elven side, or his Human heritage, so this style would either have been the style of Gondolin, or the house of hador.

That of course being what Bilbo describes as "Panoply of ancient kings".

Now a Panoply has several meanings, as it can be used to describe "a full suit of armor", but this is a later meaning, speciffically refering to a suit of full plate armor. The older meaning, and far and away the more obvious one when you take into consideration thst Earendil's son would found numenor, which was inspired by ancienct Greece and Rome, is the the breast armor worn back during antiquity.

Now, as Tolkien made clear there was never any true plate armor in the legendarium, this rules out the early breastplates from the bronze age and the greek golden age, and instead means that Earendil either wore a greek suit of scale armor around his chest(and some form of band armor over his shoulder, be it scales, or boiled leather), or Linothorax, the kind of paper armor that Alexander the great used to conquer the known world.

While the latter is possible, there is no mention of such kind of armor anywhere in the legendarium, but plenty of references to scale armor, so i find the first much more likely.

Which means that the Elves of Gondolin(or if we're being completely literal, only it's kings) may or may not have had breast armor similar to the kind of scale armor sometimes used by the hoplites of ancienct greece.

So, since we’re about to get what is probably Sasha’s final design change, i just thought now was a decent time to go over every design was considered before they settled on the current one.

You can tell this is EARLY amphibia, since this is a pony tail from the early pitch pilot, so sometime between pitch and actual design.

From what we see of this design, it looks okay, but MAN the bad shading just ruins this one.

The first concept that would use the actual style the show settled on, but you can tell it’s near as old as the previous one, and Sasha here has pure platinum blonde, and the placement of the beauty mark isn’t settled yet, here beying between her nose and eye.

The design itself though is pretty cool, but the actual coloring is just... all over the place. that said, i could defnitly see the design working with a bit of recoloring to make it more coherent(foreshadowing).

The final of Sasha’s earliest beta designs, and you see the beauty mark still isnt placed in the final spot, this one sets a theme that we’re gonna see going forward, in that the show was originally going to be way more blatant about the zelda references, with many of these designs looking incredibly similar to Ganondorf.

That is not a complaint though, as this design is GREAT. like, im gonna be honest, i like a lot of these designs WAY more than the one the show went with, and this is definitly one of them. It’s really cool. Also, i think i like this ponytail the best out of all of Sasha’s beta hairstyles.

also, i REALLY wish Sasha had kept the Flamberge. not only is it a really cool weapon that’s rarely seen, but it’s also german in origin, which would have been a nice way to tie in the fact that Sasha has german ancestry.

And here’s the first example of the second batch of Sasha’s designs.

And im a bit mixed. in some ways it’s my least favorite of these designs(I get what they were going for, trying to tie her more to the Toads of which she’s a part of), but it’s too out there to work as Sasha’s singular main design. That said, if they had been allowed to keep the blood and gore stains as a main feature, i definitly think this would have been an upgrade, just by how that little detail adds so much character to what Sasha’s become.

Also, while not as muhc as the flamberge, i like this claymore more than her single swords.

And here we have what seems to be the fan favorite out of the beta designs.

And i fully get why. Also, this is a design where Sasha basically went, “im gonna go all out and dress like Wind waker Ganondorf if he was still a bandit king.”. It’s awsome, cool, and really memorable. 

Sasha as a bandit queen looks fantastic, and if i had to choose one, singular design for Sasha before season 3B, it would be this one.

It’s also the best argument for Sasha’s original ponytail design, as this look actually makes the design rock.

Meh is the word to describe this one. The bird skull is a nice bit, but other than that... It’s a really boring design. Really glad they didn’t go with this one.

Probably the second most popular beta design, and the best way to describe it, is that it’s her regular attire, but way cooler. Dig that massive braid. Also it manages to take the idea of a small bird skull, and actually use it in a good way.

Definitly would have prefered this one to the actual armor.

Now im going a bit out of order with this one(the last of the second batch of designs), as this is from the third and final batch of designs, but i wanted to highlight it before the next one, in that if i was writing this story, this would absolutely be the look Sasha had for season 1.

It’s cool, sleek, and spiffy, and it works really, really well as a first set of duds, a beginners set of armor so to say, before her wardrobe change in season 2, where i would change her simply getting a recolor, to instead change into...

This is easily my favorite design of sasha’s beta looks, and again, if i had been writing this story, this is what she would have changed into in season 2.

Its regal, powerfull, and cool, while also serving as a good, and strong mirror image to Anne’s design change.

It’s Sasha taking cues from ganondorf, but just dropping the sorceror bit, and going full in on the tanky brawler part. And it’s awsome. Also, i could easily see this design being used really well with it taking damage, say Anne chopping off one or two of the spikes during their duel.

It’s also the final one of the second batch of beta designs, and all the following are from the final list, where they seem to have just thrown out designs to see if one stuck.

So for those who do not know, this kind of breastplate was a real thing.... and if it was not paired with a lower half to compliment the hartman hips look, it looks just as silly and stupid as it does here.

Probably the worst design, looking absolutely silly and being impossible to take seriously.

An okay, not particularily impressive, but not bad design. Not sure what the eye amulet is supposed to have been. maybe a plot macguffin that was dropped?

It would have servied, but it wouldn’t have been a particular good design.

And finally, they went back to what was probably the first design, cleaned up it’s colors, and all in all made it much, much better to look at. 

It’s also easy to see that this design was what was chosen as the basis for the final design they went with for season 1 and 2.

And it works, it’s a cool design... but at the same time i think the red version of the finalized armor is simply a better version of this one.

Again, i would have preffered if they went with one of the other designs, make the change a real development, and not just a pallete swap, but of all the designs to have used as a base for the final product, this one works pretty well.