It's the mid-stage evolution for this Pokemon (Sprigatito being the first, and Meowscarada being the final, shown here). I like the design too, and I went with Sprigatito for my starting Pokemon in Violet.
#2 gets my vote too because Meowscarada is like mascarada/masquerade, so putting the mask on over its Floragato face makes a lot of sense.
Reminder than pokemon don't wear clothes. It just looks that way. That "mask" is part of its body. It contains blood vessels and nerves.
That eevee has severe head trauma and his brain is leaking in a hat shaped hernia. Thoughts and prays to your eevee 🙏
Some Pokemon wear clothes. Mimikyu wears a cloth, Cubone wears a skull helmet, Machoke and Machamp wear a fighting belt. These are the ones off the top of my head. But yeah I'd probably agree that with Meowscarada canonically it would be part of its body.
I agree with mimkkyu and cubone, but i believe the fighting belt is also part of their bodies. Unless there's canon proof of them removing it at some point?
Machoke Red/Blue Pokedex Entry: Its muscular body is so powerful, it must wear a power save belt to be able to regulate its motions.
Later entries also refer to the Power Save belt as an item consciously worn by Machoke to control its energy. I would take that to mean that Machoke could choose not to wear it? May or may not be related to the hold item Power Belt.
I didn't watch any of the spookypasta videos about the 'true reason Machoke wears a belt' because they're not canon.
That's so confusing and lore breaking. The item just appears out of thin air when they evolve?
Who knows, mate. There are so many idiosyncrasies introduced by the early games that the later ones had to grapple with.
In my mind, Machoke which live around humans voluntarily wear the brace, which keeps their strength under control so as not to accidentally harm them, but I'm open to the idea that Machoke further afield wouldn't have them. As to where they could get the belt, it may be distributed through Pokecentres.
edit: fwiw I think the reason the whole 'Pokemon (base versions) don't wear clothes' thing came about because of Gardevoir, where people thought Gardy was wearing a dress? Then they had to say, no, actually, it's part of the Pokemon, but unfortunately people retroactively applied that to Pokemon which do adorn themselves in clothing or other items. Like, you won't find people retrofitting that to say Farfetch'd's (damn that looks awkward) leek is part of it.
