Galactic Style Guide – Zippers

Welcome to another installment of our ‘Galactic Style Guide counterpoint’ subseries, where we help you strengthen your ‘Star Wars eye’ by highlighting and remedying common faux pas that can make your kit look Not Star Warsy. As part of the GSG, the ultimate goal is still to help you create a more accurate ‘outer persona’ – but we approach the goal from the opposite direction!
This month, we’re taking a look at one of the specific elements which George Lucas decided would have no place in his Star Wars aesthetic – zippers! (For our look at the other form of visible fastener Lucas specifically didn’t want to see, see this previous entry).

If I were to ask you when you first learned that Lucas didn’t want to see zippers and buttons onscreen, there’s a very good chance it was sometime after 2014 and the release of Brandon Alinger’s excellent SW Costumes – The Original Trilogy. However, the no-visible-fastener rule had already been in print for at least seven years: discussed in Rinzler’s The Making of Star Wars (2007), on page 125. What accounts for the delay before this fundamental GFFA costuming rule became truly widely known is, I think, social media; Facebook was still in its relative infancy in 2007. Since then however, the top-down Lucas directive has become frequently-cited in costuming circles, and yet cosplayers and Batuu-bounders still try to excuse visible zippers in their costumes; typically, this involves pointing to a screenshot of Luke Skywalker zipping up his flightsuit in Episode V:

Remember, per our sources, Lucas said he didn’t want to see such fasteners, not that they didn’t exist at all (many seem to have trouble with this distinction). Why Luke’s zipper (and presumably, those of all the other onscreen pilots and technicians) is perfectly permissible is simple: once worn, it isn’t visible – it’s hidden by a flap! (If you can think of a way to convey a pilot suiting up for battle by donning a one-piece flightsuit without showing them zipping it up, I am all ears!) However, there are a fair number of other characters whose costumes do include uncovered zippers: luckily for us, these tend to fall into one of two categories; unluckily for us, things seem to have taken a step backwards in the modern era…

One of the background Duros spacers in the Mos Eisley cantina is dressed in a space suit which has a definite zipper down the center – it’s quite plain in this publicity image. Here, it’s a case of a costume which was not even made for SW’77, but was a re-used chimpanzee suit from the original Planet of the Apes!

As displayed in SWCOT, the Imperial officer (left – page 20) and the Bespin ‘wing guard’ (center – page 112) both apparently have tall riding boots with zippers on the inside. However, as far as I can tell, this was never the case on-screen: the Bespin cop’s page even includes an on-set picture (at right) showing plain riding boots.
While gorgeous to look at, we need to recognize that many of the costumes presented in Alinger’s book are somewhat ‘cobbled together’ from the Lucasfilm Archives and aren’t 100% accurate to how they appear in the films. Speaking of Bespin…

Did you ever notice that Leia’s white Cloud City boots zip up the back? Of course not, because her heel is the absolute last thing you’re paying attention to while watching the movie, and what’s more, they’re almost entirely covered by the bottom hem of her jumpsuit legs!

Well, what about the Prequels?
One of our SWLH facebook group members pointed out that Queen Amidala’s red thone room gown apparently closes up the back with a placket-covered zipper:

While it is certainly an inelegant solution, as with our pilot flightsuits, this is a hidden zipper, and thus it is following the rule. I am fairly confident it is not meant to be the gown’s ‘in-universe’ method of donning, but is rather a simple concession to practicality when dressing an actress. Honestly, if you’re going to be distracted by something in this scene, the visible extension cord powering the gown’s glowing jewels is a far better candidate.

Then there’s this particular background Rodian seen in Episode I‘s Mos Espa

One of the Nikto extras on Coruscant wears what appear to be zip-up rubber galoshes (DK’s Complete Visual Dictionary, p.86)

Padme’s white Geonosis outfit also apparently has zippered boots—but as with her daughter’s mid-trilogy white outfit, all you can see is the few inches at the bottom, underneath her added shin details – hardly noticeable.

Aayla Secura’s boots however have full-length inside zippers in both her Episode II and III outfits.

From the Episode III section of DK’s Complete Visual Dictionary, we have two blue-collar types: a firefighter (onscreen for all of ~1 second) & landing pad mechanic (did he ever even appear onscreen?) who have several zippers on their jumpsuits (CVD, p. 154).

So far, I hope you’ll notice that these zippers (except for our Coruscant fellows) appear either on footwear (which is rarely seen, and never the focus of a scene) or on background characters (never seen up-close and honestly, probably not meant to be).

Now, how do these categories hold up in the post-Disney era? Somewhat surprisingly, the only example I’ve dug up from their sequel trilogy is Admiral Ackbar in ‘The Last Jedi’; again, they’re only on the inside of his footwear:

Things really kick into high gear with 2016’s Rogue One, however:

Bodhi Rook: a main character, with a zipper front and center.

Token Screaming Child (plus big ol’ four-hole buttons on the collar, to boot.)

It’s very hard to tell, but I’ve been told that Corporal Tonc and several of the other Reb commandos have a zipper on the khaki or blue flak vests (underneath the trapezoidal flap?) to close them up.

Bistan (the screaming monkey with the M60)—wears a flightsuit with at least four, possibly as many as seven(?!) conspicuous zippers. Based on the design and details of this suit, I have a feeling it’s more-or-less unmodified milsurp.

General Merrick and the rest of Blue Squadron all have a big zippered pocket on their flightsuits’ left thigh, plus two harder to see ones on each leg below the knee (for a total of FIVE!)

SOLOASTARWARSSTORY‘s background character Naley Frifa

From Book of Boba Farb:
Perhaps the most overt, I-feel-like-we’re-being-trolled example of visible zippers, apparently worn by a space-Vespa-gang gal, ‘Drash’ –  like, it’s clearly just an off-the-rack black leather biker jacket with the sleeves cut off!

As we’ve pointed out before, the D+ shows have relatively small costume budgets compared to films, and civilian softgoods are a prime place to cut corners/save money…but zippers on background characters, footwear, and appendages is one thing, and this giant, silver, chunky-toothed example (on what I understand is a featured/main character) is something else altogether.
(As they are well outside my wheelhouse, if there are other characters on these shows who display zippers or buttons, please let me know about it with a comment below!)

Then there’s this outfit, which keeps popping up on my Pinterest. Apparently it’s worn by the player-character in this Batuu-themed VR game from ILM?

So there you have it. As we close, let’s remember that the above examples are a tiny minority in the grand total of SW character designs. This is not meant to excuse lazy costuming, but to illustrate the importance of critical thinking often needed in the pursuit of authentic, high-quality GFFA costuming. As we’ve seen from the examples above, sometimes shortcuts have to be taken, especially when outfitting dozens of extras, or to allow actors into/out of their costumes quickly, and this reality is something I’m fine with.

However, I wish costumers would apply some common sense – if the rule of the setting is ‘zips or buttons shouldn’t be seen’, and a character shows up with some visible on their costume, it’s not that hard to point a finger at the costume department and then do your best to pretend they’re not there. However, this is a lot easier to do if the offending zippers themselves are small and/or limited to rarely-seen footwear and minor or background characters. This was pretty much the case in the Lucas era, but things seem to be slipping in the post-Disney (and especially D+ streaming-) era.
Zippers are going to sneak in here and there, and it’s absolutely okay to call them out when you see them, but that doesn’t make their presence right. Some will say “zippers are Swarzy” because they do appear onscreen and they believe that anything that makes it onscreen “is ‘canon’!” My own belief is that past mistakes shouldn’t excuse future ones, and so if zippers go against the essential, timeless flavor of Star Wars, you should do your best to present the idealized Galaxy where these elements aren’t seen. Don’t seek out the few rare exceptions in order to justify deviations…recognize the things that make the Galaxy’s look unique, and conform to them. And when one of those has traditionally been ‘avoid visible fasteners’, then zippers ought to be hidden.

(Special thanks to my monthly supporter P.D.! Researching, compiling, and writing this series takes a lot of time and energy, and your support keeps me going! If you’ve learned something from this series, or will use this post as inspiration for your own in-universe backpack, please consider sponsoring my work via ko-fi, or with a small donation below! Thank you!