Galactic Style Guide – Hats III

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 Galaxy-accurate ‘outer persona’! This month we’re finishing up our brief survey of in-universe head coverings.

In my research into space-archeology clothing styles, I found the wide-brimmed, low-crowned style seems more common on the galaxy’s fringes, and is more likely to be worn by bounty hunters, settlers, explorers, treasure hunters, and the like. As I discussed previously, this style draws on visual archetypes of Spaghetti Western gunslingers and Pulp Serial archeologists, although our two final examples (both Naboo) seem to buck the trend, and instead invoke the more pastoral petasos of the Classical Greek traveler.

While the prevalence of oversized rigid headgear has really taken off in the Post-Disney era…Dass Jennir did it first (Blue Harvest). The second example is another Mandalorian reuse of a RougeOne costume element, but the original extra is always in the background so I don’t have a good shot of him.

This farmer (from Darth Vader and the Cry of Shadows) wears a rigid hat that looks like it would be ideal to 3D print.

The influential planet of Kuat appears to have a tradition of wearing inverted cones as hats, or at least their security forces and Clone War-era Senator do. If you want a planet-specific cultural look to latch on to, Kuat definitely has it!

For a setting involving so much spaceflight, it’s surprising that so few characters wear actual flying caps. I’m sure there are some more out there, please let me know if you’ve found more examples! If you’re interested in sewing your own, a WWII US Navy deck hat (sewing pattern linked—just omit the visor) provides a great fitted cap along these lines!

I didn’t know where else to categorize it, but Padme’s servant at Varykino, Teckla, wears some kind of knit (?) skullcap. The Naboo seem to reserve head coverings for formal occasions, but I suppose this could be a sign of working-class—is this an in-universe hairnet?

So what can we take away from this survey of galactic hat styles? For starters, what I’ve unpacked was just a small sampling…just look at all the random styles worn by folks at the 32 BBY Boonta Eve podrace!

While I’m glad to see the Star Wars costuming community (especially the Batuu-bounding segment) embracing Caps With Flaps and Hooded Cowls, this seems about as far as things go currently and is due largely to overrepresentation of the tired Jedi/Sith/Rebel/Smuggler/Mandalorian ‘character classes’ who are rarely depicted wearing headgear outside of helmets. Considering the numbers of costumers claiming to be ‘Order 66 survivor’ Jedi, it’s surprising that so few of them actually try to blend in with the common galactic citizenry.

Will you be adopting new headgear to make your costume or impression more GFFA-accurate? Let us know with a comment below, or come join our discussion at the SWLH facebook group. See you next month for another installment!

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