Posted in: Movies | Tagged: 20th century fox, alien, aliens, Ellen Ripley, LV426, reebok

LV426 Alien Day Official Apparel Strangely Only For Men, Again

It comes as no surprise that 20th Century Fox has once again jumped upon the idea of offering new Alien/Aliens merchandise to commemorate LV-426 (April 26th), the fan celebrated unofficial (yet strangely official) "Alien Day".

These are completely a step up from last year's footwear offering, as the 2016 30th Aliens anniversary stompers were limited to 1,984 pairs and only came in men's sizes. Yes, the shoe designed for and worn by Ripley (a woman) were only available in men's sizes.

The items this year are pretty great, not gonna lie.  New Reebok stompers were announced, a $300+ retail dual pack of shoes, one based on the Xenomorph Queen Mother and the other based on Ellen Ripley's power loader suit.  These at least come in "unisex sizes", starting at "3" on the website, but no mention on if that is in men's sizing or women's sizing.  Considering how TINY a woman's 3 would be, we're going to assume it's in men's sizes, which defeats the purpose of calling them "unisex".  No word on how many will be available, but the street date appears to be July 2017.

There's this awesome shirt from Macy's that the official Alien franchise twitter posted about, one that I was like YES LETS BUY IT only to notice it is only available in men's sizes.  Because obviously women would *NEVER* want to wear a shirt with a xenomorph in such a position.

Maternity shirt, hello?!  Which oddly enough has never been offered as an officially licensed item, but something readily found on etsy, Redbubble, Cafepress, all the usual places.

Another item from last year were the commemorative 30th anniversary Ripley shirts that various theaters doing special Aliens screenings were selling.  Guess what?  Also only available in men's sizes. The men's small (which was impossible to find the day of the screening, at least at my local Alamo Drafthouse theater) would've been nice for us ladies in the audience, but again because the assumption women wouldn't WANT the shirt meant they barely had any in stock meant mediums all around, which is long enough on me to turn into a dress.

It sure seems like for a franchise where the hero is a woman, the licensing department thinks women aren't their target consumer audience.  I would gladly enter two examples to the contrary, both contestants in the Her Universe Fashion Show during San Diego Comic Con, both who are now winners in the competition (albeit for other designs):

So obviously, yes, women are interested in such things.  What gives, Fox?  Maybe by next year we'll have more Ripley goodness by women for women through the official licensing channels.

UPDATE- Oh look, an action figure of a lady character from Aliens has been released by The NECA Store. But they can't even put the character's name in the image:

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