Well, i hired Ingrad (or whatever her name is) from Dawnguard (which im sort of starting to regret, seeing as ALL she talks about is the Dawnguard...
I changed her clothes to a better suited armour, and forgot that once i or her left the room, it would change back to the original armour seeing as she is no longer my companion..

Is there a way (xbox) to get her to keep the armour i gave her on?

check out the Ultimate Follower Overhaul mod. It lets you equip your companions, and they keep using that equipment when you dismiss them (by taking away their default equipment, it should be noted). However it hasn't been updated for Hearthfire yet, so there are some bugs with the new Housecarls.

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Not really a response to your post as I do not know for sure but i suspect not (yes I am 360 too) my reasoning being that since i have so many problems with housecarls/bards you name it I would not even attempt it!!!

I think (you may have to check this) there is a technique for doing this, I think for it to work you need high pickpocket. Basically you give them the armour you want them to wear, then dismiss them, as they turn away pickpocket them and you SHOULD be able to take their original armour, but make sure you keep one of the original pieces (boots are probably the best choice) because if you take it all the entire set will respawn

Pickpocket perk to get armor items

yeah, on xbox, pretty much gotta max out your pickpocket skill and perks. With some npc's you can ask them to follow you, give them armor (has to be better rated than their default armor). Tell them to stop following, then pick pocket before they change clothes again.

Unfortunately with some npc's you do not have the option of asking them to follow you after the first time illia (?) for instance. In that case you can't pickpocket the default clothing/armor until you get the perk at the top of the tree that allows pickpocketing worn items.

Hopefully Bethesda adds the follower improvements from the Gamejam to this game at some point; pretty sure the feature where you could set "favorites" for your followers might allow us to choose what gear they wear by default.

Be prepared that when you pickpocket their original gear....when they are home or not following you they may just be in their underwear....with boots. True.

In my current game Lydia stays in her original armour but with bare feet (even if I leave her with some to wear).

i hear yah im trying to have an all tavern clothing only rule in my house but the three people who actuly DO live there dont bother to follow that rule

This part's strange. You mean Ingjard? I had her as a steward in another file, and she never mentioned the Dawnguard at all, just made generic, passive-aggressive comments in an annoyed tone of voice, haha. I got sick of that happening every time I walked near her, so I decided to go with a different steward. Maybe her dialogue changes when you complete the main quest of Dawnguard? What does she say, exactly?

"Another victory for the Dawnguard!"

All.

The.

Time.

Yep. True.

BTW, you can buy your spouse's default wear items. Not so for stewards unless the steward is your spouse.

I was trying to build up my character's pickpocketing skills so I could pickpocket the clothes off the spouse when I noticed the default robe and boots in her store inventory, so I tried buying it from her and and lo and behold it worked.

Of course I was hoping she would put on clothes I had given her, but she didn't. As Andra pointed out, unless the NPC is currently following they will only want to wear their default clothes and if not in their inventory then it's down to underwear.

So, I gave her her clothes back. There are kids in the house after all.

This is one of the gamejam features I am hoping for the most. Even though it is a small feature, I still really want the ability to better customize and control my followers.

I remember seeing something in the patch 1.8 beta files about follower perks, so maybe we will finally be able to have total control over customizing them, and even giving them perks. It'd be nice to have followers stop setting off traps and whatnot, or to be able to paralyze enemies with archery to better back you up.

Awesome if true, but I can't seem to find anything about this in the various 1.8 beta threads.