Quote Originally Posted by Penthea View Post
I suppose SE elected to make the top half of legs invisible so that the silhouette of the robe can remain to some degree without proprotionately thicker legs clipping through.
Gear doesn't need to make body parts "invisible" to avoid clipping – it simply replaces the body model entirely. This is the case for everything, except that usually it is replacing each piece with a gear model of the same proportions so you don't notice the switch. Things like bare arms or hands are modelled into the gear piece as well.