I decided to do some digging to try and find the interview I was recalling.
We're not just going to focus on the outfit but mind you.. you have to point out what an extreme change she went through with her duds alone, never mind her personality.
For one thing, she went from a harlequinn to someone whose only visual cue that they were linked to clowns at one time was the ruffle collar and her kind of two toned theme with some diamonds sprinkled around. And even those are pushing it. For someone unfamiliar with the premise of Harley Quinn, she could be a renaissance era hooker or something. It's like someone asked Jim Lee to draw a Harley Quinn revamp and he only heard the word 'harlot'.
Alright, sex worker jokes and slut shaming is not the way I want to go about this. So, let's compare two other revamps to how Harley Quinn was re-imagined.
So there was this one time when someone thought this was an awesome idea for Superman.
Everyone hated it, and he was soon back to fighting evil in his underoos which is more iconic and makes more money for DC.
With the Harley costume hate, DC decided it was better to keep it and ride the gravy train of publicity.

The other one I want to bring up is Catman. I was only introduced to Catman in Gail Simone's fantabulous Secret Six series. Originally created way back in 1963, he was a cat themed villain (duh) much like Catwoman and often got into scrapes with her as well as the Bat.
Eventually, he became a bit of a joke - that he was nothing like his old self but rather out of shape, dying his hair to make him look more bad-ass, all that jazz. This was in 2003 in a Green Arrow comic.
Then Gail Simone stepped in in 2005.
So there was this one time when someone thought this was an awesome idea for Superman.
Everyone hated it, and he was soon back to fighting evil in his underoos which is more iconic and makes more money for DC.
With the Harley costume hate, DC decided it was better to keep it and ride the gravy train of publicity.

The other one I want to bring up is Catman. I was only introduced to Catman in Gail Simone's fantabulous Secret Six series. Originally created way back in 1963, he was a cat themed villain (duh) much like Catwoman and often got into scrapes with her as well as the Bat.
Eventually, he became a bit of a joke - that he was nothing like his old self but rather out of shape, dying his hair to make him look more bad-ass, all that jazz. This was in 2003 in a Green Arrow comic.
Then Gail Simone stepped in in 2005.