The most interesting thing about these old forms of armor to me is how they were developed in the first place. Did craftsmen work with warriors to test and fine

The most interesting thing about these old forms of armor to me is how they were developed in the first place. Did craftsmen work with warriors to test and fine-tune which designs worked and which didn’t? Or maybe it was more of an evolutionary process, whereby the winners of a conflict (which they won by having better armor) became the rulers, and therefore their designs were considered the best and copied?