What a character wears ends up saying quite a lot about them, especially when it comes to Dragon Ball. Goku represents the turtle school throughout most of the series just by wearing his orange gi, linking him to his Earthling roots when the story reveals that he’s a Saiyan. Pretty much all of Gohan’s outfits end up saying something about him, as well.
Then there’s Vegeta, a man who goes through the whole series with multiple variations of what’s basically the exact same outfit. Vegeta’s Saiyan suit is also particularly interesting in that it’s not uniquely his. As a result, it winds up a piece of clothing with quite a bit of lore behind it.
Only The Stretchiest Spandex
The fact that Saiyans can turn into Oozarus is an important detail, but it’s also one that ends up ruining characters’ clothes. Naturally, the fight against Vegeta was never going to end before he transformed. To avoid Vegeta losing his clothes, though, Toriyama has Vegeta reveal that his suit stretches to fit his body’s shape.
This is a property that all Freeza Force armor seems to share. Spandex comes in two styles, but it’s one size fit all. The same goes for the chest piece, with shoulder pads designed to stretch out of the way during combat. No wonder Vegeta never takes it off.
The Benefits Of The Crotch Guard
The Saiyan armor crotch guards are an interesting accessory. They visually persist up to Freeza’s return in the Cell arc and have made reappearances even in Super. It does make sense, though. The crotch guards help characters catch the eye more readily, but they’d end up tiresome to draw every week, which is likely why Vegeta ditched them.
They were a massive benefit to his character design in the Saiyan arc, but would quickly hinder his mobility as a fighter. Plus, the shoulder guards are the real star of Vegeta’s original look. The crotch guards are just a nice visual bonus.
In Direct Opposition To Goku’s Gi
More importantly, though, the crotch guards help Vegeta look more ornate in contrast to Goku’s rather simple martial artist’s gi. Vegeta’s uniform is meant to be the audience’s glimpse into what the Saiyan upper class looks like. Vegeta is visually so much more ornamental than Goku, but he’s not necessarily better.
This is a trend Toriyama tends to keep with all of Vegeta’s redesigns. Vegeta’s outfit needs to contrast Goku visually since they’re constantly paired together. That’s likely a major reason why Vegeta’s suit was darkened in Dragon Ball Super: Broly, among also just making Super Saiyan Blue look better.
Might Very Well Be His Boo Arc Spandex
Visually, Vegeta’s Boo arc spandex is just his Saiyan suit with no armor and the arms cut off. It does look like a tank top with sweatpants on occasion, but most fans seem to accept it as a pair of spandex. Either way, it’s clear from its design that Vegeta doesn’t want to stray too far from his Saiyan origins.
It’s also just entirely likely that this is one of Vegeta’s old Saiyan suits. Why throw away good spandex, after all? Vegetto’s appearance seems to indicate that this is the case since his outfit doesn’t change in the Goku Black arc where Vegeta wears his full Cell arc armor.
Vegeta’s Visual Contributions To Vegetto
On that note, it’s worth mentioning that Vegeta’s Saiyan suit doesn’t contribute much to Vegetto’s overall aesthetic. While Vegetto does inherit Vegeta’s gloves and boots, the outfit is actually Goku’s. It’s a common belief that the blue outerwear is Vegeta’s Boo arc outfit, but it’s really just Goku’s gi turned blue.
The Goku Black arc proves this outright when Goku and Vegeta fuse into Vegetto while fighting Zamasu. Both the anime and the manga feature Vegetto, as he appeared in the Boo arc. There’s no indication that Vegeta contributes much to Vegetto beyond his boots, gloves, and gi color.
Vegeta Knows His Fashion History
For as rigid a man Vegeta ultimately is, he does seem to keep up with fashion trends, at least as far as they concern his armor. Before the fight with Freeza, Vegeta laments to Gohan and Kuririn that he’s stuck with an older model of the Saiyan suit. Up to that point, Vegeta had worn a variation of his Saiyan arc armor.
It’s also worth pointing out that this means that Vegeta spent the Saiyan arc decked out in the best gear possible. By the Cell arc, though, none of this matters though since Bulma ends up making the rest of Vegeta’s suits for him.
Vegeta Ditches The Suit Entirely In GT
For as poorly as Dragon Ball GT drops the ball in continuing the series’ legacy, it does at least try to take the franchise in an aesthetically new direction. Characters rarely, if ever, wear their old clothing. The only time anyone really does is when Gohan wears his turtle school gi for the final battle against Omega Shenron.
This makes Dragon Ball GT the only series Vegeta appears in where he doesn’t wear some variation of his Saiyan suit. Interestingly, though, the Saiyan suit does appear through Nappa. During the Super 17 arc, Vegeta effortlessly kills off an escaped Nappa without so much as sharing a hello.
The Inner Workings Of The Resurrection F Suit
Vegeta’s Resurrection F suit is genuinely one of the better works of character design Toriyama has done for the series. The suit is designed specifically to pair with Super Saiyan Blue. In Vegeta’s base form, the grey body gives him a new look that’s complemented well by regular old Super Saiyan.
When Blue, however, the suit takes on a deep blue color thanks to SSB’s aura. Not even Goku’s gi changes this way when turning Super Saiyan Blue. In many ways, Super Saiyan Blue is designed with Vegeta’s new suit in mind more so than Goku. It’s a shame Super dropped both outfits for the characters.
Vegeta Mainly Wears The Suit Bulma Made Him
In the grand scheme of things, Vegeta has now spent more of Dragon Ball on Earth than as a villain. Even by the end of the original series, that felt like the case. This also means that, logically, Vegeta doesn’t wear his actual Saiyan suit long. By the time the Cell arc starts, he’s wearing gear specifically made by Bulma.
Both Dragon Ball GT and Dragon Ball Super continue this trend of Bulma helping Vegeta out combat wise. She’s actually the one who makes Vegeta’s Resurrection F suit in the first place. Vegeta will never wear a traditional Saiyan suit again.
Vegeta Wears His Original Suit In Every Z Arc
Interestingly, every single Z-era story arc in Dragon Ball features some depiction of Vegeta in his Saiyan arc armor—at least in the manga. The Saiyan arc speaks for itself, but Vegeta spends the first half of the Namek arc wearing a revised version of his Saiyan arc armor.
In the Cell arc, Toriyama draws Vegeta in his armor during a title page depicting Cell’s DNA hosts and in the Boo arc where Toriyama draws Vegeta in his Saiyan arc armor as a title page leading up to Vegeta’s suicide attack against Majin Boo. Neither Super nor GT continue this trend, but it’s an interesting detail to make note of.
