Galactic Style Guide – Luggage

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the series where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to help you create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! While the Galactic Starcruiser may no longer be taking on passengers and has instead been gathering dust for the last year, I’m long overdue to examine examples of in-universe LUGGAGE! Back in its heyday, many Starcruiser passengers considered a themed suitcase essential for voyage immersion, but most of the ones I saw went pretty far off the mark from what we actually see onscreen…but there’s never a bad time to do a little research and try to improve your authentic ‘Star Wars eye’!
(But first, a quick FYI/programming note before we begin: this entry and next month’s are fairly quick and dirty, but there’s a good reason: my wife and I just bought a house, and naturally, real life takes priority over hobbies! I fully expect to be knee-deep in renovations well into the New Year, but hopefully things go smoothly and I can get back to more regular and in-depth posting before too long. With that said, let’s get started!

There aren’t many (if any?) examples of what we would recognize as luggage in the Original Trilogy. Luke has his blue backpack and a couple of trunks on Dagobah, but that’s about it – most everyone travels extremely light otherwise! It’s not until Episode I that we get a good look inside a ship’s cargo hold to see what traveling gear looks like in-universe.

The scene in which Padme cleans R2-D2 gives us our best look:

I hope you’ll notice that all of these cargo containers are rather…well, PLAIN! The lack of extreme weathering makes sense considering this is the Queen of Naboo’s private starship, but as such there’s also no need for royal insignia or ‘Property of Amidala’ labeling, either. Two particular styles of luggage get closeups in one of the DK books. Some rudimentary image searching shows the ones on the right bear a striking resemblance to motorcycle pannier cases, which makes sense as they seem to come in matching pairs:

(Presumably, when Obi-Wan jokes about “the queen’s wardrobe”, this is what he’s talking about!) The spinning semicircular compartment design is actually really cool. You’ll note that while it’s clearly intended to be stowed upright, the one behind R2 in the cargo hold is laying on its side. Also note the very Earth-y clothes hangers inside; in keeping with the ‘familiar but not familiar’ concept behind good SW design, I always liked these hangers seen in a marketplace in Republic #79:

I also came across a book by John Knoll about the making of the Prequels, and found a few more detail shots in the TPM section; this appears to be the same style Padme is sitting on above:

We see again how these are definitely off-the-shelf products, just repainted with cool neutral ‘spacey’ colors….it’s funny how the late-mid-90s smooth design aesthetic works so well with the art deco of Naboo spaceship interiors!

As Episode II‘s plot sees Padme and Anakin on the run disguised as refugees, we get a few more examples there too, as the couple travel with three distinctive bags:

It’s probably coincidence, but I feel like the leftmost one is almost the same shape as a CRT television! I’m unsure if these suitcases are off-the-shelf or custom pieces – one redditor claims her father designed and prototyped them for the film, but in the comments someone else claimed they owned one years before. Drop a comment below if you recognize or know anything about them!

I’ve touched on this before, but speaking of refugees…
Good living history tends to focus on the experience of the ‘common folk’, and where there’s war and conflict, there’s bound to be refugees…so in a setting called Star Wars, we should expect to see lots of these. While the main plots of titles tends to overlook this important demographic, when we do see them, they tend to carry a particular style of luggage!

As you can see, it seems pretty common for galactic refugees to carry their worldly belongings in what appear to be oversized, drawstring pillowcases! My only question is: who’s up to the challenge of accurately portraying an unremarkable, down-on-their-luck, space-tramper? 😉

Finally, I don’t think it quite counts as a piece of luggage, and I’ll be damned if I can see it onscreen, but I do find it interesting that Ki-Adi Mundi is shown in a reference book to have a small leather ‘portmanteau’ hanging (from what?) under his long outer vest. Is this a ‘Jedi Dopp kit’? Naturally, even such a simple item fits the setting’s medieval/military-adjacent aesthetic: plain, unadorned leather construction, closed with a flap and stud – no zippers or nylon here!

Unfortunately, the above examples are about it, as far as live-action goes! So, based on this (admittedly very small) sample, what can we learn?

Well, what don’t we see? Easy: logos, insignia, ‘greeble panels’, or Aurebesh text! Granted, these examples are all from the pre-Imperial period, but the core visual cues for the setting still apply across eras. In the scenes where they appear, the characters’ suitcases or cargo boxes are able to seamlessly blend into the background precisely because they don’t draw attention to themselves!

Another key element that definitely helps differentiate authentic GFFA suitcases from typical Earth suitcases of 2024: the lack of wheels! With air travel such a commonplace way to travel today, it is easy to forget that this is a very recent development in luggage design. While the first rolling suitcase was patented in 1972, it was still just that – a suitcase of classic design, just with wheels; the vertical and airport-friendly design with retractable handle that we recognize today did not appear on the scene until 1987! This is another area where we should remember that the storytelling cues of the GFFA are rooted in the pre-Vietnam period, in which the archetypal traveler from all but the lowest strata would carry a suitcase with a small handle and no wheels! Like our refugees above, for penniless travelers (Dust Bowl Okies, rail tramps, etc), just a pillowcase would be sufficient!

These rollaboards from ‘Heroes & Villains’ are better than your typical results for ‘Star Wars suitcase’, but like the rest of the brand’s offerings, they still can’t help but fall into the pitfall of plastering everything with logos and extraneous text – they’re suitcases designed to tell others you’re a SW fan, not to help you authentically fit yourself into the GFFA setting. Many of the suitcases in the background would actually be a better choice for immersion than the licensed ones on display!

So: if you want to use luggage to better immerse yourself in the Star Wars galaxy while on your travels, but gaudy, attention-seeking decoration is off the table, what elements should you look for in your carry-on? In this case, the first key seems to be Shape – something more than a simple rectangular box is ideal. If that’s all you can manage, then the next thing you can try to control is Color – you can’t go wrong with classic muted earthtones or cool neutrals. If all the luggage you can find are un-SWarzy hues like fire engine red or lemon yellow, then the final trick to bring your luggage into the GFFA aesthetic is Weathering – even the most eye-bleeding colors can be brought down to a manageable level with some scuffing on the edges, judicious black- or brown-washes, and a little grime in the corners. Of course, the level of weathering should reflect your persona’s status; the suitcase of a downstrata glitbiter in steerage will have a much different patina than that of an upstrata diplomat in first class (but the latter will still have a patina, it will just be different – this is still Star Wars after all, so it shouldn’t be completely unused and without any signs of wear)!

So there we go! What do you think? Have I completely overlooked any examples? Let me know below, or come discuss with us in the SWLH facebook group (which, I’m happy to report, recently hit the 1k member mark, so I definitely plan on doing some sort of giveaway there before too long). See you next month!

Researching, writing, and compiling articles like this takes a lot of time and energy. If you’ve enjoyed reading or got some ideas for your own in-universe luggage from this post, please consider supporting my work via ko-fi, or with a small donation below! Thank you!