Info on the costume designs:
-The Batman suit has not changed between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.
-The Catwoman suit functions a bit like a female version of the Batman Suit: technology built into the suit itself for her needs. They wanted to make the suit a function sort of suit for burglary, so they stayed away from making it too shiny or binding.
-The heels in the Catwoman suit can be used as weapons. The ears in Catwoman’s suit have a specific function and purpose that works with the technology of her suit. When they are on top of her head they look like ears, but they drop down over her face to become goggles. Catwoman’s goggles function as both night vision goggles and a jeweler’s loupe.
-They modeled the Bane costume with nods towards the wrestling costume that exists in the comics, but centered it on the realistically grounded back-story that exists in the Nolan universe.
-The Bane costume also leans heavily on the fact that it’s a less technological aspect of creation, unlike the Batman suit. It has a slightly clunky aspect of it as if parts of it were being made along the way during his travels. The mask dispenses gas that Bane needs to survive.
-Bane’s mask was built to express a more menacing animalistic and vicious element to the character; to give the audience a feeling of a snarling and dangerous aspect.