I dropped some good armor by mistake, thinking I had a cupboard open to put it in. My Housecarl almost magically appeared and asked if she could have it. I had to say no because it was something I wanted to use later.

Since then, I have dropped similar armor near my housecarl and she totally ignores it.

So how do I get her to wear specific armor? Something better than what she has already.

You do know that you can hand things to the followers?

You have to have them in Follow You mode, then you Trade equipment with them. They will put the equipment on only if it offers higher stats, as determined by their skills not yours, than what they are wearing.

As for a NPC picking things up, they do that, but who knows what criteria they use to decide to pick something up. However, you can drop things near any NPC and get a chance for them to ask if they can have the item. The fact that the NPC is a Housecarl/Follower is coincidental in this case.

They have to be asked to be a follower, and not your husband/wife as the good kit may just go into the shop inventory. Trade equipment, give them better stuff, then wonder where the hell the new stuff went after you reload or leave them alone for a while. Take one thing from their inventory if this happens, and the new stuff should reappear on them. Maybe, if you are lucky. And they will only equip it if it's actually better, not better looking.

Also, if you have them not Follow you anymore, they revert back to their stock armor. Until you have them follow you again.

NPCs will sometimes remark on items you drop, asking if they can have it or even fighting over it if more than one is around. I've also had them tell me I dropped something and then give it back to me. In my experience it's completely random... I've had a housecarl and follower fight over a wooden plate and then ignore a more valuable item that I dropped a few minutes later.

With regard to what they wear and equip, housecarls and other followers have some vanilla glitches... the only way I've found to get them to wear specific stuff is to give the items to them via the "trade" dialogue (which IIRC only works for housecarls if you have asked them to follow you). Usually once they have items in their inventory they will equip the "best" ones based on armor rating (or damage for weapons) but it doesn't always work out that way, sometimes they seem to ignore any improving or tempering on items you give them and choose strictly by base armor/damage rating of the items instead. They also don't seem to take their own skills into consideration, for instance a follower with higher 1H skills than 2H may still equip and use a 2H weapon you gave them to carry even though they are not well trained for it. It can be very frustrating.

There are some mods that will allow for micro-management of follower inventory, letting you see (and remove) default gear you don't want them to use and in some cases even choose yourself which items they have equipped at any given moment. Without modding you're kinda stuck with whatever they choose to do, you just have to experiment with trading things in and out of their inventory to see which ones they prefer and go from there.

That's a bummer. I wanted all my housecarls to have the same "uniform". They all seem to wear an Iron Cuirass so I would assume they are all heavy armor users. I was hoping to get them all wearing Orcish armor around the home.

Oh well, one for the modders to consider then, make the housecarls wear the kit they are given permanently.

It would be nice if the Followers would keep the armor we give them. In fact, it would be cool if we could choose what armor they wear, regardless of the stats.

Sure, we could give them weak stuff, but this is our choice and we have to deal with the consequences.

There are several mods, I believe, that help fix up the whole "follower equip" thing. Not sure which ones are working right. You could make a thread in the mods section, asking for which one currently works best.

yh. I was the same. I wanted all my female housecarls to wear Forsworn armor ( )

I just starting using UFO (Ultimate Follower Overhaul) and love it. Aside from allowing for multiple followers, followers on horseback, and easy leveling up of follower stats/skills, it also lets you micromanage their apparel and weapons. Complete inventory control allows you to take away everything you don't want them to have and give them what you do want them to have. There's a dialogue option about how they could "dress better" which turns their default outfit into tradeable gear, which you can then take away and improve or replace. Incidentally it also does away with the issue of more hidden default gear spawning every time you release and reacquire them, which you can't remove and which stacks in their inventory reducing their available carry weight. It also takes care of the whole "I'd rather use my crappy old default hunting bow than the pretty new one you gave me" problem.

It is compatible with Followers Can Relax and Follower Trap Safety and effectively replaced every other follower mod I was using or considering.

An often expressed desire, and I agree completely.
Ultimate Follower Overhaul mod fixes this, if you are on PC.