Purpose or historical precedent for Link's tunic laces?

Question

In the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess rendition, Link's tunic appears to have laces on most, if not all, of its side seams below the sleeves, but only partially atop the sleeves, and not at all atop the shoulders.

Is there a practical reason for this partial placement of lacing (why not either sewn or laced the full seam), is it meant to be a design choice or a repair, has this lacing ever been seen before in real cultures, or is it presumably just for visual aesthetics?

Answer 1

Links tunic is made that way obviously mainly for fashion.

We can break it down into 3 pieces (2 matching). The front/back and then the 2 sleeves.

This type of front/back without the sleeves is a common surcoat.

The sleeves on the other hand are likely 100% style choice, but it could also be that the tunic is a much more solid construction and needed to be slit and the designer simply liked this better than stitching it, or that are designed to connect to some other armor piece to support it, but what this could be, who knows. There is however, no shirt design that has such lacing I know of for the sleeves.

It could also just be there to reinforce the stitching which is often enough done on older clothes so that you have two levels of stitching/lacing that takes off tension and makes it less likely to tear. This is definitely somewhat true of the cap.

So there is functionality to why they are be there, but there are also design choices.

Also Link's Tunic is Actually a Surcoat (a weird one at that), over Leather armor, over a cotton or Linen Gambeson

Gambeson

Leather Tunic

Surcoat

Answer 2

Completely out of universe answer.

It looks to just your typical cord lacing to allow more leeway for different sizes people to wear the clothes.

I can't find anything that resembles that pattern of lacing ,but typical medieval clothes commonly used this type of fastening.

This photo shows lacing that was used in the 15th century with Memlinc and other Italian and Flemish artists:

Obviously not the same Link's tunic, but demonstrates that sometimes laces are just for decoration, as seen in the above photo around the bottom of the garment.

There are a few types of lacing,

• Spiral Lacing
• Ladder Lacing
• Double Helix Lacing
• Criss Cross Lacing
• Over Under Lacing

A lot of it decorative, but for the majority of the time did serve the purpose of creating better fitting clothes.

Answer 3

The green part of the costume could be a single piece of fabric held together at the sides by laces. A medieval-esque example is shown below. It also becomes clear that the green fabric is leather. Note for instance the shadowing on the pattern in the corner of his tunic, which would be created by leather tooling and carving.

The way leather moves means that it is easier to render realistically in a computer game than what say cotton-fabric would:

• It does not flutter in a breeze
• it buckles but less so than soft cotton and does not hug his shape, so it does not seem "odd" if it remains unchanged when Link makes a movement. Imagine the contrast to a polygon-defined t-shirt, which can make it look like the character is wearing a cardboard box.
• It can be smooth and shiny, meaning less computation on how it reflects light and less fuss about its texture.

Thanks to the comments by Valorum and DisturbedNeo in particular, which made it possible to piece together this answer.

Answer 4

Someone said that it's a Surcoat over leather armor which is wrong 🤣, it's a over chainmail. Which is also probably a good reason as to why those cross stitches are there. They are actually ties. If you look, they go all the way up to under the sleeve. Without the stitches, the tunic could actually be pulled in half with the neck area being the "middle", this would make it easier to put the tunic over the chain mail like a poncho almost, and the stitches would pull the tunic back together. Sliding a shirt over chainmail would be a lot harder.