Tunic

This gives us a pretty good place to start for how to design Sokka’s tunic. A warrior of the Southern Water Tribe needs his clothes to be comfortable, free moving, and rugged. All attributes that a martial arts uniform must also have. So, why don’t we base our design off of one?

The “traditional” keikogi is made from sashiko fabric, a weaving pattern made from linen or cotton. I put the word “traditional” in scare quotes because the history of the uniform style now known to Americans as a “gi” is heavily interwoven with the export of Japanese and Okinawan martial arts to the West.

Myriad other weaving options exist, of course. The Southern Water Tribe is very heavily influenced by Inuit culture and aesthetics as well and, though Inuit traditional clothing favors fur and leather over woven fabric, other First Nations techniques offer a wide range of possibilities for fabric options.

Of course we, as costumers, are limited by what is readily available. While a film studio might commission a weaver to produce a bolt of custom fabric, as amateurs we’ll have to make do with what we can buy off-the-shelf at the local fabric store. Practically speaking, that means a cotton or linen twill. Both of the weaves shown above are, technically, types of twill weave, though they have far more decorative features than the simple, machine-made cotton twill shown below. Still, the plain old twill is inexpensive and hard-wearing, just like we’d imagine Sokka’s tunic should be.

I will always favor going to a local fabric store over buying online so that I can feel the weight of the fabric and see the thread and color myself, but not everyone has the luxury of being able to visit Fabric Row every week like I do.

Belt

Once his tunic is finished, Sokka will need a belt to go over it. Of course, the simplest style of belt is just a strip of sturdy fabric tied around the waist. This is probably the oldest style of belt in world and variations on sash belts appear in many times and places. Japanese obi are often made from silk brocade, though any material can be used; Gaelic crios feature wool thread woven into complex designs; modern martial arts belts are simple cotton/polyester blend, heavily reinforced.

Once again, Sokka’s outfit seems relatively simple, with only slight decoration, as is his belt. That tracks with the fact that he does briefly sport an elaborate championship belt over his white belt, something that would only make sense if his belt is comparatively thin and plain. We can also assume that his belt will be made from similar material to his other clothes. For us, that’ll mean a white cotton twill, same as his tunic collar.

Breeches

Having pieced together the top of Sokka’s outfit, we come to the pants. We must first ask how they’re actually held up. Most modern pants intended for outside wear use buttons, zippers, and/or hook-and-eye closures on their flies. None of these seems like a “traditional” Southern Water Tribe method. Buttons before the modern era were difficult and expensive to make and button-holes are time consuming to stitch.

Many pre-modern “pants” were actually no such thing, but a separate breechcloth or cod-piece and pair of hose or leggings. Consider the Shoshone leggings below, which would be tied to the belt which also held up the wearer’s breechcloth.

Sokka, however, is very clearly wearing pants, as we can see see above when he takes off his top. This means we have to ask how such things are held up without belts, buttons, or zips. As before, the answer is actually simple and we can look at a modern martial arts uniform for the clue. Early trousers featured drawstrings, as seen above, just as many workout clothes today continue to do. Drawstrings are simple, cheap, comfortable, and easy to replace if they break.

Sokka also tucks his trousers into what looks like a either a pair of leather boots or greaves. This means the bottom must be cuffed. Well, not must be, it is possible to tuck even fairly loose pants into the tops of a set of boots, but cuffs would go a long way to making his outfit more comfortable to wear. They are also likely to be some form of loose fitting trousers allowing freedom of movement. Loose pants that tighten just under the knee appear around the world and go by many names, from breeches to salwar to knickers to tobi. Sokka seems to be wearing something like one of them.

This still leaves us with a few options for the actual cuff closures. Again, many methods have been used through time, including buttons, buckles, zippers, and elastic. If we were working with Korra, who lives in a transitional period where all these methods are readily available, we might consider any of them. Sokka, however, is largely working with what is relatively simple to produce by hand. Once again, I believe a drawstring is our best option.

Shin Guards

With some notion of his clothes, we can move on to Sokka’s accessories. Excepting his signature boomerang, of course. His footwear seems like a good place to start, since we already touched on that topic. The whole reason we worried about the cuffs of his pants was that they had to tuck into whatever was covering his shins, whether that was armor or just the tops of his boots.

It’s hard to tell what sort of footwear Sokka has. The high knee might indicate armor, similar to the greaves on the left, but it seems more likely that they are simply high boots. Given the strong Inuit influence on the design of the Water Tribes, it seems likely that Sokka might be wearing a mukluk, a style of boot popular among Arctic peoples.

Once again, as a costumer, we need to step back and consider what sort of garment is practical to make and what what material is available. Those aren’t the only two options, after all. We should consider the possibility that what Sokka is wearing is a pair of gaiters. It was actually popular for many boots to be divided into parts, donned separately, similar to a pair of ankle boots and gaiters. In terms of a Sokka costume, then, we can focus on only producing an appropriate pair of gaiters.

So, we can consider Sokka’s footwear to be a pair of low, ankle boots or possibly shoes, probably a moccasin style, with a pair of leather or fur gaiters worn on the shins which cover the tops of his shoes. He then tucks the cuffs of his breeches into the tops of the gaiters.

Forearms

Moving back up, we come to Sokka’s forearms. And, once again, things get a little murky. Our first impulse might be to assume that he’s wearing something like Muay Thai wraps, but Sokka’s only cover his forearm and don’t extend over his knuckles or hand, which would make them completely useless for the actual purpose that boxing wraps are supposed to serve, to protect the delicate bones of the hand and wrist. They actually look more like compression wraps for an injury.

The only reason to bind his forearm like he does is if Sokka has an injury there, which wouldn’t make sense to continue doing after it healed and he never complains about; to secure his sleeves, which he doesn’t wear; or if another piece of armor was going over it, which he doesn’t have. Maybe those blue fingerless gloves are padded, similar to bag gloves, and he’s wearing his tape underneath that. That is a tempting possibility, that Sokka is wearing fingerless padded leather gloves with tape underneath to prevent chafing and secure his wrist.

Another possibility, however, is that Sokka actually is wearing forearm armor and not a wrap at all. What initially looks like a forearm wrap may actually be quilted armor. Thick quilted padding has been, and remains still, popular as inexpensive protection in its own right, in addition to being worn underneath other forms of armor.

His father, Hakoda, also gives us some indication that this might be the right track. He wears a metal bracer over a long, fingerless glove that looks similar to the ones that Sokka wears. We also see that Sokka does wear what look like vambraces with his wolf head armor, and perhaps there are quilted pads underneath that, which he wears the rest of the time.

This strikes me as the more likely scenario. That Sokka’s forearm and shin garments are partial padding, meant to go under his full armor, that he wears on their own. This, again, is actually fairly common. Arming wear is designed to be worn under other armor but is also frequently used on its own to provide lighter, more flexible protection. Wool, canvas, and leather have all been used for arming wear.

This also offers a tempting option to the lower leg gear. Rather than gaiters, they may be lower leg arming greaves, meant to be worn under his heavier armor.

Necklace

For a nice change, Sokka’s necklace seems fairly straightforward. It looks like a wampum, a traditional form of seashell beaded jewelry produced by many First Nations peoples. We can see examples of wampum beads and jewelry below, and see similarities to Sokka’s. Seashell beads are also natural for the Southern Water Tribe to use for decoration, is is one thing that they should have aplenty.