Ever since Rachel Summers was exiled in the present day from the dark "Days of Future Past" timeline, she has struggled to find her place in a world she doesn't belong, and this search for herself was represented well in her costume choices as a member of the X-Men, Excalibur, and now the Dawn of X era's X-Factor.
Fans have seen Rachel Summers, or Rachel Grey as she was known for a time, move through various outfits and codenames that have each reflected her origins, heritage, traumas and personality in their own way, though some of her costume choices were better left in the past.
10 LOVE: HOUND PHOENIX
Rachel had a tragic upbringing in a dystopic future where mutants were hunted down and imprisoned by Sentinels and mutant-hunters known as Hounds, who were abused and brainwashed by the mutant-hunting cyborg Ahab.
Rachel was transformed into a hound by Ahab and forced to hunt down mutants, which left a lasting mark on her, both physically and mentally. After Rachel was granted access to the Phoenix Force, she manifested a red version of her Hound costume and facial markings, which she usually kept hidden telepathically.
9 NEVER AGAIN: ORIGINAL PHOENIX
While her Hound Phoenix costume seemed to fit Rachel's personality better during her time with Excalibur, when she first was granted the power of the Phoenix and vowed to reclaim the title in honor of her mother Jean Grey, she didn't nail the costume on the first try.
While her fiery Phoenix form looked powerful with the red and yellow coloring and dynamic chest piece, her costume, while she wasn't powered up, looked more like it had fallen out of Firestar's closet, and thankfully she didn't end up wearing this outfit too often.
8 LOVE: DARK PHOENIX
While the Dark Phoenix was technically a construct of the Phoenix Force that looked like Jean Grey who had been consumed by her power, the saga still left a dark stain on the legacy of Rachel's mother, and she used her time as Phoenix to redeem her mother.
Rachel switched to the gree and yellow version of her mother's costume for a short period, though she settled comfortably into the Dark Phoenix colors shortly after, which suited her much better than it did her mother.
7 NEVER AGAIN: ASTRAL NINJA
When Rachel Summers first arrived at the Xavier Institue she was briefly placed with the New Mutants due to her inexperience with her abilities, and she found a kindred soul in fellow student Magma, who was also in a strange land with a confusing origin.
While the two friends were exploring New York, they encountered the eternal psionic vampire Selene, who mentally controlled Rachel and Amara. Rachel manifested a masked costume that she wore on the astral plane while freeing herself and Magma from Selene's control.
6 LOVE: MARVEL GIRL
After a falling out with her father Cyclops over his relationship with Emma Frost, Rachel changed her name from Summers to Grey and adopted a modernized version of her mother's original graduated X-Men costume.
Rachel also started using her mother's former codename as well, and it was during this period as Marvel Girl that she also began to project a new dark energy form when using her powers, with only her eye left aglow from the Phoenix brand.
5 NEVER AGAIN: PRESTIGE
When Kitty Pryde took over as Headmistress of the Jean Grey School and leader of the X-Men, she asked her best friend Rachel to join her new squad of X-Men with a new costume and codename that wasn't rooted in the past.
Rachel became Prestige and wore a new costume that included a cape and a partial domino mask that referenced her previous hound facial markings, but the overall costume was unimpressive and didn't give the character the fresh new start she was hoping for.
4 LOVE: LEATHER TRENCH
When the leaders of the X-Men were divided by the events of Schism, the mutants were forced to decide whether to remain on Utopia with Cyclops or join Wolverine to help found the Jean Grey School of Higher Learning.
Rachel left with Wolverine and began wearing a new costume that was a hardcore mash-up of her previous costumes that was almost perfect (pouches for what), that she often wore with a split trenchcoat that replicated her former Phoenix effect, though she ditched the coat when she returned to the costume for Dawn of X's X-Men.
3 NEVER AGAIN: HOUND PRESTIGE
After Rachel was injured in a battle with an alien spaceship and fell into a brief coma, her hound markings reappeared on her face and she began having flashbacks of her time as the ferocious mutant-hunter in the future.
Rachel decided to redesign her Prestige costume to better suit her facial markings and highlight her past as a Hound instead of running away from it. While the costume was a slight improvement over the first Prestige outfit in some ways, it suffered from inconsistent details and she soon returned to her slightly brighter leather look.
2 LOVE: STARJAMMERS
Rachel first learned about her uncle Gabriel Summers/Vulcan during X-Men: Deadly Genesis, shortly before the revenge-fueled omega-level mutant headed to the stars to take his vengeance on the rulers of the Shi'ar Empire.
Rachel joined a team of X-Men that included her uncle and Vulcan's brother, Alex Summers/Havok, who would join with the Starjammers to stop the new Emperor Vulcan. Rachel adopted a new costume and gained a new connection to the Phoenix Force, which she later upgraded further with the spiked Hound armor.
1 NEVER AGAIN: DAWN OF X-FACTOR
While fans have only caught a few glimpses of Rachel Summers' new costume that is set to appear in upcoming issues of the new X-Factor ongoing series as well as the upcoming X of Swords event, it hasn't yet made much of a splash.
While it's nice to see a fashionable uniform for the team that connects the various members together with the new X-Factor insignia, there isn't much of Rachel's personality left in her costume, which has always been well represented in previous costumes over the years.