Galactic Style Guide – Footwear II

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the monthly series where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to help you create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! In this entry, we’re continuing our look at the great variety of galactic footwear seen in live-action sources.
If you’re not able to acquire taller boots but still want to get a Star Warsy silhouette, our first two categories are great options!

Note that for all of these characters, the puttees go to mid-shin or higher. Luke’s wraps create an ideal silhouette which matches the shape of the leg with a narrow ankle…compare these examples with the sloppy ‘mid-calf-boot-with-wraps’ look seen in the Disney+ Kenobi Showbi:

Spats and gaiters are most heavily represented in Episode VI, but like puttees are a great way to disguise the fact that you may be wearing ankle boots or shoes. I particularly like my Swiss milsurp snow gaiters, which work really well (with a little tailoring to hide the chunky zipper).

The following are really only seen worn by characters in cold environments (so, not ideal for Batuubounders) but if you live in higher latitudes, these might be just what you need! (*While mostly obscured under his leg armor, the moccasin toe tells us Dengar appeared to wear these too.)

Our next category, surprisingly, is only seen on characters who are green!

This type of footwear are only seen in a specific context:

Thus far, we’ve had tons of examples for our categories. This next one, however, is pretty poorly represented, and for good reason. Wearing slacks unbloused over shoes or boots generally contributes to an un-SWarsy silhouette – it’s just too Earthly.

However rare they are, one particular scene contains literally hundreds of characters with this unbloused pants/shoe combo:

As costume designer John Mollo admitted, properly outfitting the 400+ extras in the Yavin ceremony was outside Episode IV‘s budget, and they “really had to make do. Nothing was made at all; it was all stock items. We took our gray Rebel combat jackets and our pilot outfits, and we added funny caps. At Berman’s, in boxes, we found something like two hundred US Marine olive green stand-ups, which we left well at the back because they had buttons on them.” – Alinger, SWCOT, p. 192.
If you rewatch the Yavin scenes, note that the majority of pilot characters wear their flightsuits unbloused as well–only Luke, Biggs, and a few others get to wear tall boots, as does the only flight crew technician with a speaking role:

Were it made today (with an infinite Disney-backed budget behind it), I imagine that most Rebel personnel on Yavin would probably be outfitted with proper boots…and if we look to Rogue One, that’s generally what we see.

And I think that is enough for now! Are there any examples or styles I’ve missed? Drop a comment below, or come discuss with us in the SWLH facebook community! At some point I would like to try and tackle Expanded Universe footwear in a following installment of the Style Guide. Please subscribe to follow along and be sure you don’t miss a single post!

(Special thanks to my monthly supporters P.D. and R.F.! Researching, compiling, and writing this series takes a lot of time and energy. If you’ve enjoyed reading, or will use this post as a research source for your own costume, please consider supporting my work via ko-fi, or with a small donation below! Thank you!