Last week, we got our first real taste of rewards from the new Fashion Report. The first few weeks added things like an emote and furnishings to the boutique vendor, but given the Report’s glamour focus, it was pretty likely that we were going to see glamour gear at some point, too. If the total of your lifetime Fashion Report scores is high enough (with the apparent cutoff point being a total rating of 300), you can purchase the Spring Shirt, and if you’re even higher (at 500 total), you also have access to the Spring Bottoms. Because the need for lifetime points wasn’t at all clear, I’d not been trying very hard for the Fashion Report (since there are a lot of things about it that bother me), so I only managed enough points to get the Shirt.

And, when it comes down to it, the Shirt is a wonderful glamour piece. We don’t have very many “plain” shirts in the game right now. There are, of course, a few, like the Extreme Survival Shirt, the Falconer’s Shirt, and the new Sweaters we got recently, but all of these work best for certain kinds of looks. They aren’t as multi-purpose as the Spring Shirt, which really has the potential to work for a wide variety of classes and in combination with just a ton of stuff. I’ve been pondering ideas for healers and Bard with it since I picked it up, but the first thing I ended up doing with it was to make a new Machinist glamour.

Glamour Components (Required Level: BRD/MCH 50)
Weapon: Revolver of the Wanderer (Dark Brown)
Head: Survival Hat (Russet Brown)
Body: Spring Shirt (Nophica Green)
Hands: (Replica) Allagan Gauntlets of Aiming
Legs: Guardian Corps Skirt
Feet: (Replica) Allagan Sollerets of Aiming

Way, way back in the beginning of Heavensward, I wanted to use the Dhalmelskin Fringe Boots to make a sort of cowgirl glamour for Machinist, and my very first Ranged DPS glamour on the site was an attempt at that. That glamour never quite satisfied that goal for me, though, mainly because I didn’t like my options for tops back then and I didn’t care for the available hats, either. Since then, I’ve always kind of had the idea in the back of my mind, but it’s not one I’ve really returned to very much. The Spring Shirt really got me thinking about it again, though, and it turned out to be very easy to work with.

The Guardian Corps Skirt made a place for itself immediately, but the rest of the look actually went through some evolution. Initially, I was going for the Shirt in Pure White, and I glamoured that with the Gaganaskin Hat of Aiming, Sky Rat Fingerless Gloves of Aiming, and Expeditioner’s Thighboots, all dyed to match the leather cinch on the top. While that was functional enough, it felt a little too bland, and I wasn’t really happy with the choice of gloves in particular. That lead me to consider the Allagan Gauntlets, which I hadn’t used for Machinist or Bard in quite a long time.

With a color change on the shirt to match the Gauntlets and swapping out for the Thighboots for the Allagan Sollerets for good measure, I was feeling a lot better about the look, as the colors were a little more varied overall. Going to green for the Shirt did mean needing to find a new hat, since the Gaganaskin one had some red in it that didn’t mix in well with everything else. The Survival Hat was then an obvious choice (and overall, I think I like its shape better, anyway). I think this actually marks the first I’ve used the Survival Hat at all—its shape had never really seemed right to me, but now that I’ve actually put it to use, I find that I rather like it.

Of course, this is going to be far from the only glamour I put together using the Spring Shirt. I think it’s got a lot of potential for healers in particular, but it also seems like it’d work well for Samurai, too, and of course it’s a great piece for Bard. I’ll be thinking about both the Shirt and more uses for the Adventuring Sweater in the days to come while we’re waiting for 4.25 I’m sure!