Galactic Style Guide – Shoulders I

Welcome back to the Galactic Style Guide, where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to create a more authentic ‘outer persona’!
Ever since the days of Ming the Merciless, sci-fi designers have been using a wide-shouldered silhouette to let the audience know a setting is exotic or non-Earthy, and Star Wars has been no different. While I’ve found no specific mention of this design point in comments from costume designer John Mollo, his original designs for ‘girl Luke Starkiller’ show a mantled hood that may have planted the seed that eventually became this prevalent costume element:
It’s worth pointing out that even though the very first onscreen SW character (C-3PO) could be said to display a form of this style, it really didn’t kick into full gear until Return of the Jedi, and by the time the Prequels rolled around, giant collars, mantles, and shoulder pads were in full force!

(I struggled with including TC-14 for a while; on the one hand, it’s a hard material, but also we have Artoo tell Threepio he’s naked without plating, so it seems like a clothing analogue)

 

 

Whew! As you can see, the wide-shouldered look was really widespread in the Prequel era, and post-1999, it started coming on strong in even earlier periods. This image of the Jedi Covenant (c. 4,000 years before the Battle of Yavin) depicts members with all three kinds of wide shoulders: clothing-based (1), armor-based (2), and what I’m calling mantled (4).

Let’s start by digging into examples of our first category from non-Prequel sources:

In our next installment, we’ll finish up with the prevalence of the wide shouldered look from armor and common racial fashion. Is there anyone I’ve missed? Leave a comment below, or join the conversation in the SWLH facebook group!

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