One of his most memorable looks from the film features a purple wool fedora style hat; a purple tailcoat; a satin teal cravat; a teal waistcoat; an orange satin shirt; purple suede gloves and a pair of brightly coloured plaid pattern trousers

Nicholson’s own personal style was enhanced, and he even had his own input into the costumes, such as the shade of purple matching his favourite sports team, the LA Lakers.

Well, director Schumacher felt the suit needed to convey more sex appeal and had studied statues of Greek Gods for inspiration for his batsuit design

In Tim Burton’s 1992 Batman, the main difference in design for this Batsuit is that is that it exhibited a sleeker and more armoured look than in 1989 design. The torso section in particular featured art deco plating style sections rather than the more muscular form. According to Bob Ringwood, images of art deco appliances and industrial vehicles were used as inspiration and their aerodynamic designs were translated into the design of the suit. Learning from the previous production, the foam rubber material used to construct this costume was slightly thinner and flexible, allowing the actor more movement. The design of the chest emblem was also tweaked so it resembled the design originally seen in the comics and the cowl now displayed a smooth finish as opposed sugardaddy to the bat-skin texture seen in the 1989 iteration.

In order to make the movies more family friendly, Warner Bros. decided the movie franchise needed some major changes, including dropping Burton. So, in early 1994 director Joel Schumacher was bought on board to produce a more light-hearted approach to Gotham’s caped crusader. The gloomy, sinister settings that epitomised the look of Burton’s 1989 and 1992 versions were replaced with elements of neon, producing a drastic contrast in look and feel.

The design of this Batsuit sparked controversary, with one design feature in particular causing quite a controversary – nipples. Why were nipples added to the Batsuit? As a contrast to the bright neon sets of the film, the new suit itself lacked colour, with muted dark gold/bronze used for the chest emblem and a new silver tinted utility belt.

There was also the addition of the Sonar suit worn at the end of the film when he defeated the Riddler (played by Jim Carey). This suit was finished in an iridescent silver-black and a new bat symbol adorned the chest. There was also the new addition of lenses which slid automatically over the eyeholes of the cowl.

Schumacher returned with a sequel which was unfortunately met with overwhelmingly negative reviews by viewers. The controversial Batsuit design seen in his original 1995 Batman Forever was updated with a blue iridescent finish, but the overall inspiration of the muscular physique remained.

Again, a second costume known as the “Sonar Ice” armour was worn by the Caped Crusader for the film’s climax against Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger). The design was almost identical to the Sonar suit from the previous film, but this time using a blue and silver colour scheme. Batman & Robin (1997) marked the end of the Schumacher-helmed series, with many considering this the end of the character itself on the big screen. It was not until eight years later in 2005 that the film series was successfully rebooted.

With his 2005 Batman reboot, director Christopher Nolan instructed his Academy Award®-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming to ignore the designs of the suits made for the previous film adaptations and focus more on recent comic book illustrations. The actual construction and materials used for the suit were very similar to the Burton and Schumacher film iterations. Suits were constructed from a combination of silicone, rubber, and wet-suit Neoprene. Batman’s cape proved to be a challenge as Nolan wanted it to flow in the breeze for scenes when the Caped Crusader was seen walking around, but also take on a rigid appearance when needed. About a dozen different versions of the cape were made, each with a specific purpose during filming.