Not being up on my body armor identification, I can neither confirm nor deny the "obviousness" of the image involved. What I can do is fall back on previous experience wherein marketers and the like will gladly gank an image from GIS or other image source and use it if it looks "cool", regardless of whether or not it is an appropriate depiction. I suspect they went with the first piece of "tactical gear" they coud find that had a passing resemblance to a corset and the boning pattern inherent to many.

In fact, a quick GIS of my own found this MOLLE vest which looks an awful lot like the picture in question. It is not armored in its own right, but it does have cargo pockets to carry armor plates (the SR equivalent of which is to buy the Smart carying gear from Arsenal and add Gel Packs to it).

Meanwhile, having read (not merely looked at) the page, I found this bit of text, taken straight from the main marketing blurb box just under the picture you are referencing:


Emphasis mine, in bold. All of those points lead me to believe they are referencing a standard LBV than some sort of armor vest. Although if someone can point out armored cargo pants to me, I may have to consider purchasing a pair in the event of zombie apocalypse.

Reading over, I think you might be right. They advertise the pouches several times - the armor never. Could be people who have little understanding of corsets, and less of milspec gear.

You misunderstand (maybe). It's that the corset isn't good armour that is the point. I can imagine some runners trying to protect their starlet charge:

I WAS kind of thinking being surprised or having to "make a run for it" unexpectedly. Hard to stop to the store while being chased, much less lace up a pair of sensible combat boots. And as there are no rules for the things anyhow, I fall back on some old rules which automatically treat all ground as "difficult" and go from there, with things like a "balance augmentor" helping counteract at least part of the problem.

Isn't the purpose of one of those to invite things into it and not keep them out...Negative armor value with lots o pockets

The new vests have those features. The quick release is a pain to put back together, and you get those clever people who'll pull them.

One thing I want to see is heels with anchor spurs, in sr atleast.

As for coverage they had armored shawls iirc.

Edit- As for the cargo pants with the knee pads they might be refering to acu pants which have the foam knee pads you can insert. You are better off with regular kneepads though. You can get some pretty impressive clip on knee pads for cheap.

lol, my husband would agree

I wasn't really even thinking of the armor value, just the logistics of getting into (or out of) a corset. Although in 2072, I imagine it's easier with memory-plastics and super-velcro, or whatever they'd use.

Memory plastic... ok, now I'm starting to think of some REALLY interesting possibilities for OTHER things...

I don't mean to get the thread off topic or anything but I figured that part of the reason this was brought up is it was "tacticool".

To me part of running shadow's is looking the part as well so I thought I would share this in case you needed character clothing ideas...

Clicky

Read up on Arsenal.
It's not plastic, but Metal.
Use it to make your armor into a Corset if you want it to be.
And switch it off, when you need to breathe.

still something for the rich and strupid "Look at the wonderful sexy armor I bought dear so we can play at shadowrunners tonight" for the real deal that thing leaves way too much prime target area wide open.

Sorry, my classic Sci-Fi roots are showing here. Memory Plastic is the term I'm most familiar with. Memory metals, especially as we have begun to see in the real world these last few years, actually have somewhat different properties than the "memory plastics" I was thinking of. Most memory metals have two positions: relaxed and formed, and the one essentially has to be pretty closely related to the other. Memory Plastic, as I have always considered it and seen it in Sci-Fi, has a much broader distance between the (occasionally multiple) forms; think what appears to be a bed sheet which when activated transforms into a rigid sphere with handles and openeings, or even one part that remains "soft" until entry and then becomes rigid and seals the sphere. (Escape/Rescue ball in a space station.)