Galactic Style Guide – Children

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the monthly series where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ to help you create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! This time we’re looking at a segment of the galactic population which we don’t tend to see much of: children younglings!
As it sounds like a major target market for Disney’s Galactic Starcruiser hotel is families with children—and because I’ve seen many would-be guests express uncertainty about how to dress their children in GFFA style—I thought it would be especially helpful to collect and share some examples of in-universe clothing worn by children. I’ve attempted to present them chronologically and grouped by planet.

We begin in the distant past, on Ruusan during the New Sith Wars c. 1,000 BBY. Here we see the first appearance of a general trend of children wearing shorts and/or short sleeves (or no sleeves!):

It’s worth noting that pretty much every youth we see on Tatooine is a slave, so I’m not sure how much their style of dress is indicative of childhood under the twin suns versus social status (would young Luke have worn something similar as a farmhand?). One thing is for sure, while the garments themselves are simple construction, the cloth they’re constructed from has a lot of texture! However, we know (Dressing a Galaxy, p11) that Anakin’s tunic was made of a silk/linen/hemp blend (presumably the others were something similar), which sounds pretty comfortable (well, except for all the sand).

The Naberrie girls come from a completely different background than Ani and friends, and Pooja’s outfit is indicated in one of the reference books as ‘traditional children’s clothing’. Presumably the white collar, sleeves, and skirt are one garment, with the belted jacket(?) on top and petticoat beneath.
When their aunt dies, the girls don more formal hooded capes for the occasion. I wonder if Pooja’s under-cape outfit is Ryoo’s Episode II outfit as a hand-me-down? The colors and skirt pleats look similar:

Young Boba Fett wears a simple outfit, the same as the younger clones on Kamino. At first I thought it was a darker blue shirt with the lighter sleeveless tunic over it, but nothing is visible under the tunic’s v-neck (though I suppose the undershirt could be a v-neck too). It’s possible this is all one piece: simply a v-neck tunic with the arms in a darker shade; if you’re dressing thousands or millions of clones, why have two garments? The slight overhang at the shoulders gives the appearance of layering and keeps me wondering how this is constructed.

The character ‘Numa’ comes from The Clone Wars season 1, and wears a simple sleeveless dress. Since 3D-animation textures are difficult to translate into functional garments (more on that later), the folks at Sideshow have chosen to interpret her dress as a two-layer creation. This actually makes a lot of sense practically, as it would be cheaper to replace the ‘apron’ layer (which would see the majority of wear & tear) than to replace the whole dress. (This is the same reasoning behind the plastron or ‘Custer’ shirt, which inspired the ‘bib’-front style worn by Han Solo, Rebel fleet troopers, and others.

This male Twi’lek child seen in the Coruscant underworld (Clone Wars again) wears short sleeves and a tunic—like Numa’s—with a square neck hole. Perhaps this is a traditional Twi’lek style?

Paxi Sylo’s outfit is super low-key: cargo shorts, tank top, and bucket hat!

Jorin Sol (from Dark Horse’s Empire and Rebellion series) is seen here as a child. Since he was presumably born during or just after the Clone Wars and is perhaps 10 or 11 here, it seems this type of contrasting collar decoration (see the playtime image below) stuck around for a number of years.

The Towani siblings from the Ewok TV movies wear interesting get-ups. Cindel’s vest is actually a very pale purple and looks like quilted silk. Her brother starts our trend of young people wearing flightsuits, paired with a heavy-duty vest.

The kids from the Galaxy of Fear series (aka Star Wars does Goosebumps!) are pretty consistently depicted on the covers as wearing cream jumpsuits, with or without pockets (no layering, surprisingly).

The trend of dressing children in flightsuits seems to have been popular for close to two decades, as the surviving Solo children (plus Tahiri Veila) wear them well into their twenties.
Unlike his siblings, as an adolescent Anakin Solo often paired tunic with long belted long vest, for a more traditionally Jedi-esque look:

There are a couple examples of ‘children at play’ I have discussed previously in my Image Analysis series:

While this feels like a wide-ranging survey of children’s styles, I’m positive there are tons of examples I’ve not included. Leave a comment here or in the SWLH facebook group and let me know what who I’ve left off!

In general, you can’t go wrong by following the standard rules for GFFA fashion: natural fabrics, earthtones or muted colors, solids (no patterns), and layering. Will your children be wearing in-universe garb on the Galactic Starcruiser? I’d love to see what you come up with!
Until next month!

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