We all know that Naoko had a big inspiration from high fashion and vintage decor in the 90s when designing her characters.  Having been a big fashion history addict, I have compiled a list of EVERYTHING that I believe Naoko took the biggest inspiration from. I’m going to leave out all the well-known ones, as everyone has seen those.
Let’s start out with the most obvious (and usually missed) representations from the 1991-1995 Terry Mugellier fashion show, where Naoko found inspiration for Cooan, Petz, Calveras, Serenity, Setusna and Hotaru.
FIRST OFF FULL DISCLAIMER THIS IS MY OWN OPINON BASED ON MY KNOWLEDGE OF EARLY 90s COTURE FASHION
She also took inspiration for Beryl during this fashion show, although not completely the same color, and the necklace and jewelry were completely another story themselves, as Naoko loved to add other Vintage jewelry to the mix

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Moving right along to Sailor Moon R, there isn’t that much to talk about other than the Men of the series, as we’ve covered basically every Phantom Sister except for Berthier, which was really easy to find , as it hit me in the face. I have noticed that with some of these designes, Naoko just took inspiration, and not the full outfit like with Calveras and Cooan

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In the case of Diamond, Rubeus and Saphir, it’s a bit harder to pinpoint since they were based off of popular Gucci/Versace/Popular suits at the time, with embellished jewels.
One thing I will point out, however is Everything up until this point was mostly based off of Thierry Mugler.
 
Moving on to S.
The season where Naoko only pulled partial inspiration, while still making it known that she was directly referencing the fashion icon.
 The season that to me, is completely VERSACE. From the crossing on the breast portions of the outfits to the placement of the fabrics, the Witches 5 (with the exception of Kaori, we’ll come to that in a minute)  are what we could call “VERSACE MODELS” Here are a few examples

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Now, Kaori on the other hand, is pretty much the embodiment of the ‘Power woman in a power suit. All are Versace as well.

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Snow Kaguya as we know, is based off of a vintage statue, but I have reason to believe she was also inspired by this at the same fashion show in 1992 that inspired much of the first season designs.

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The starlights pose was inspired by the same fashion show in 1992 as well

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I will do a follow up to this later, this is all my mind has time for at the moment. 

Feel free to discuss and tell me what you think!

*Processing...  Processing... Blowing mind...*

Wow, that's just... wow.  

I had no idea so many of the outfits were based on real life fashion!

Wow, Starchild!! Thank you for this!!!! Going back to the same show that she got the carbon copy outfits from is really smart!

The Beryl one is super close! And at first I couldn't really see the Berthier one - the jewellery and black color sort of obscure it. But you're totally right! The neckline chestline? lol (aside from Berthier's missing straps), bottom, and the shape of the glove tops for the shape of Berthier's boots are all clearly there!

What's really cool to me is seeing the influence's choice of fabric - especially for Berthier. To me, it seems like Naoko is great at drawing fabric extremes like the chiffon/voile of Princess Serenity's dress and the pseudo-metallic (or full metallic) ones like for Calaveras and Galaxia but medium-weight fabrics I feel like she only has a handle on for suits? Like I have no idea how she saw Berthier's or Esmeraude's outfit fabrics being. Most fans automatically interpret Berthier's as some sort of spandex because it just looks matte and form fitting (and tbh it looks so unflattering in spandex...). But seeing the inspiration for it as something that was much more structured makes me wonder if that part of the outfit carried over in her mind when designing Berthier as well. Without any of the decorative structure lines on the bodice and without shine (actually, there is a bit of shine!), it would be hard to depict with her watercolors but it could be a very stiff matte fabric (something like a pleather?) which would look a hell of a lot better imo than spandex.

Also YESSS Versace!! I think the Witches 5 are definitely my favorite villains, aesthetically because of that influence <3<3<3.

I can sorta see how she might have linked the snow kaguya statue with the snowy-themed outfit via the central part of her skirt. I think further evidence of this link is that the statue actually had *flowers* etched into the bottom of it. Sort of the opposite thing she ended up with.

Hah all their poses are so fashion, really. Part of what made them so cool growing up I think! Though if you can find the Mercury pee pose influence I'll really have to hand it to you lolol.

Thanks again for this!!!

Aaah this is so cool. I've seen the other references tons of times but never these!! I'd love like something, like a webpage or imgur album SOMETHING, where all the fashion inspirations sometimes straight up ripoffs xD are compiled into one.


I'd also be interested in seeing if any of the anime outfits were inspired by maybe Japanese young girl fashion magazines. I know a lot of their outfits are more casual and daily wear but it would be interesting to see what contemporary idols and fashion trends they were taking after! (Other than the obvious "lol its the 90s!")

Was on tumblr and thought this post was relevant!

https://senshidaily.tumblr.com/post/183152519169/sailormoonparallels-sailor-moon-inspiration

It shows off some of the inspirations for casual outfits seen in the series.

Ooooooh good one!! And surprise, surprise - more Versace XD.