Galactic Style Guide – Shoulders II

Happy Boxing Day, and welcome back to the Galactic Style Guide, where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! For our final installment of 2020, we’re wrapping up our look at the archetypal exotic space-fantasy ‘wide-shouldered’ look.

We’ll begin by teasing out some examples of armor-based wide shoulders from the earlier phases of galactic history (pre-1000 BBY):

I don’t have a ton of interest in (or access to) much material from this period, so it’s totally possible I’ve overlooked some key figure. Is there anyone I’ve missed? Please let me know!
As we’ll see, more modern characters from the Clone Wars all the way into the Legacy era have also worn armor that widens the upper body:

(Now that Season 2 of The Mandalorian is out in its entirety, keep an eye on this space as I’ll be going back and adding examples of this style from post-Disney sources)

Thus far, pretty much all our examples have been of named individuals. As good reenacting and living history is all about the ‘common’ experience, I wanted to see what a sample of generic examples would reveal. Thankfully, my reference shelf includes a copy of the New Essential Guide to Alien Species, so I thumbed through and did some quick maths. Of the 88 sentient species depicted, I was surprised to see that about 1/3^rd of them are depicted wearing either shoulder armor or some garment that widens the shoulders!:

While I didn’t expect it to be so high at first, after working on this series I’m coming to accept that William O’Connor and Chris Trevas clearly did their homework when they set out to illustrate this book and accurately reflect the galactic aesthetic.

So: what can we take away from this? I see many ‘original character’ cosplayers/costumers/’Batuu bounders’ on the Internet, and some of them have pretty solid outfits. However, items of their soft kits are typically drawn exclusively from either the thrift store or home closet, or only slightly modified. I am nothing if not a big proponent for interplay between the casual and the galactic wardrobes, but if we really want to do the galactic aesthetic justice, we can’t be content with items that would still fly perfectly as pieces of Earth fashion. If you want to take your outfit to the next level of galactic authenticity, think about accentuating your shoulders! The trick, of course, is to nail the ‘authentic GFFA citizen’ look without looking like a Power Rangers villain! After doing the research for this post, I’ve since gone back and added some shoulder-widening panels to my utility vest:

Maybe it’s my grainy camera, but I think they really do add an early-’80s feel, straight out of Return of the Jedi. What do you think? Is it an improvement, or outrageous? What parts of your ‘soft kit’ will you upgrade in 2021 to better reflect the galactic style? Leave your ‘resolutions’ in the comment below and let me know. Until next year, may the Force be with you!

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