Galactic Style Guide – Hats II

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to help you create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! This month we’re continuing our survey of galactic headgear.

Conical ‘coolie’ hats might not be politically correct, but K’hkruk’s hat is still freaking sweet. The Mos Espa example appears to be a little more substantial (or maybe it’s just more broken-in) than the standard Asian rice hat, and looks tightly woven. Would probably be perfect sunshade on Tatooine (Ki-Adi Mundi wears his while tracking down Sharad Hett), and if paired with a fully GFFA-style outfit, you might be able to wear one without eliciting cries of “Cultural Appropriation!” As we see, this style was commonplace among the civilians of Nadiem during the Clone Wars (Hide in Plain Sight).

As I’ve found in my other ‘fictional anthropology’ pursuits, to make sure your audience knows you’re dealing with a fantastical, non-modern-Earth setting, throw in some Tall Hats…it works in BONE and Dinotopia, and the GFFA is no different!:

While the first example is necessary as the character is a Cerean conehead, the others are just weird and fun. Our dignitary’s headwear appears to be constructed of felted wool, but your guess is as good as mine for the others.

Here’s the point where you can tell the costume designers just said, “Alright, anything goes: knock yourself out!”. I could call these ‘extravagant hats for formal events’, but I think I’ll just go with WTF hats for rich folks: trade barons, nobles, senators, dignitaries. As the final scenes of Episodes I and III both feature a funeral, we can extrapolate that on Naboo, hats are more appropriate for formal occasions involving the monarchy—none of the Naboo wear hats at Qui-Gon’s funeral, but plenty of locals wearing headgear for Amidala’s:

Naturally, we should follow up with some WTF hats for poor folks. Note that these all come from Mos Espa, though I suspect if we had access to the Lucasfilm costume archive materials, we’d find some great examples in the underlayers of Coruscant and aboard the Jendirian Valley as well.

One fun thing about the last example is that this appears to be a rare overlap between actual historic reenacting and the GFFA: our podrace fan looks to be wearing a 19^th century ‘mountain man’ wolf-ear hat, as depicted by David Wright in Bent’s Fort Arrival.

We’ll be wrapping up this survey of galactic hats next month, so be sure to subscribe to SWLH so you don’t miss any future installments! Until then!

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