Gamefreak got the idea for Mallow's design from the fake leaks. Just hear me out for a second.

Think about it, when have there ever been major human characters as a part of a pokemon's concept art? That isn't something that Gamefreak would do because the human characters have no relevance to the concept art of a pokemon.

What happened is that they got spammed with that leak so many times that they eventually noticed the girl with the flower in her hair. The character designers thought "hey I like her" and then they designed a character based on her.

desu I don't mind the designs from the leaks at all, but I would like a less humanoid rowlett evo even better.