Category: Research

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…

keep reading for plenty of examples from the lucas and disney eras!

Galactic Style Guide – Backpacks II

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the bimonthly 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 returning to our examination of in-universe backpacks, this time focusing on some less rigid examples, encompassing not just backpacks but also things like satchels and bedrolls.
As we said last month, this kind of unassuming and field-functional gear is woefully underrepresented among the GFFA costuming community (who tend to go for eye-catching and…less-than-functional). This is too bad, because a good pack can really elevate an impression and make it feel like a living, breathing kit and not just a costume: it shows the viewer “I am a real individual with needs beyond what I carry on my belt or in my pockets.”
Let’s dive in and get some ideas!

The softpack that gets the most screentime in the Lucas films is probably the one Luke totes Yoda around in during his Jedi training. As far as I know, nobody has yet identified it as a milsurp piece (though the buckles might be?) so it may have been made in-house for Episode V. If anyone has any details on it, please share them below in the comments!

keep reading for more in-universe backpack inspo

Galactic Style Guide – Backpacks I

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the bimonthly series where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to help you create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! This topic has been requested by several folks, so it’s been a long time coming. In this entry, we’re taking a look at an oft-overlooked category of gear, which can really elevate an impression and make it feel like a living, breathing kit. We’re talking about backpacks! Due to the sample size, I’ve decided to break this into two parts – one for ‘hard’ backpacks, and one (next month!) for softer packs.

Let’s go chronologically and kick things off with this paired bedroll-backpack from the old, Old Republic (Tales of the Jedi: Redemption #3). As usual, the cover art is far more evocative than the actual panels, but I include it here as the pack itself seems to be fairly structured:

The inclusion of a big ol’ wooly blanket/bedroll is not only appropriate given the hostile climate of Rhen Var, but also a very attainable piece of functional kit!

I’m sure there have to be other pre-Prequel-era examples, but I haven’t found them! If you know of any, please let me know below! Next, let’s move on to some liveaction hard packs.

Continue reading

Galactic Style Guide – Text

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 a design phenomenon that’s big on the Disney side of things (whether it be in films made under them, things sold by them, or costumes worn by fans while visiting them) but which was only ever a minimal part of the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’: text on stuff!

The fact that we went six films with zero non-technical Aurebesh (and the first two, most seminal films had NONE at all) should tell you everything you need to know: when it comes to Aurebesh on kit items, it’s always superfluous.
With that in mind, I want to look at some examples to illustrate why you’re better off omitting Aurebesh entirely. Out of respect for the SW costuming/maker community, I’m focusing on publicly-available items sold by Disney, but the point is still applicable: even when executed correctly it’s still largely* unnecessary, and—if used at all—should act as a garnish, not a side dish – let alone the main course! If your impression is relying on Aurebesh to make sense, something’s not working and it might be time to go back to the drawing board.

*As we saw before, pretty much the only folks we saw wearing Aurebesh pre-Disney are prisoners and biker-gang types. Occasionally we see small identifiers like ‘crew’ or ‘staff’, but these simply serve to demonstrate the wearer’s membership in a group as separate from the public.
For a refresher on examples of places where we do commonly see in-universe lettering, check out this GSG entry.

Let’s start off with a couple items featuring completely redundant Aurebesh additions. Did you ever notice that all the top brass at the Death Star’s conference room had matching drinkware?

Here’s the version sold at Galaxy’s Edge:

From one side, it just looks like a slick space-fascist travel mug. From the other side though, it looks like the Empire thinks its officers need to be constantly reminded of who they work for.
more Bad aurebesh products, and how to prevent them!

Galactic Style Guide – Ponchos II

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the bimonthly 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 ponchos, focusing on examples from the prequel era! (As a reminder: for our purposes, we’re defining a poncho as a garment worn as an outer layer for protection from the elements, which covers the front of the body).
Let’s keep things rolling with the poncho I think I would most want to curl up in:

Qui-Gon wears this poncho when venturing into Mos Espa in Episode I—the script specifying that he is “dressed as a moisture farmer”. Trisha Biggar notes that the coarse-weave is a silk/linen mix and that the border is “printed”—though I’m not sure what exactly that means (Dressing A Galaxy, p20).

Take a good look at that beautiful nubby texture!
keep reading for many more examples

Galactic Style Guide – Ponchos I

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the bimonthly series where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to help you create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! It’s been a minute since our last entry in this series, but here on the last weekend of Star Wars Month, we’re taking a look at examples of garments which have been part of the GFFA look since the very beginning: ponchos! For our purposes, we’re defining a poncho as a garment worn as an outer layer for protection from the elements and which covers the front of the body; things like capes and cloaks tend to be open in the front and worn more for form than function (hence their frequent use by ‘classes’ like gamblers and politicians). As we’ll see, ponchos on the other hand are almost always associated with salt-of-the-earth folks who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. Let’s dig in!

The first poncho we see in the Original Trilogy is worn by Luke as part of his farmboy attire:

While it’s a fun idea, as we’ll see next month, this is not Qui-Gon’s poncho.
more examples inside!

Galactic Style Guide – Colored Lenses & Visors

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 costuming faux pas that can make an outfit 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!
In past entries, we’ve looked at things that aren’t really part of the typical ‘galactic aesthetic’: bright colors, visible fasteners, overly-designed patchwork clothing, etc. This month, we’re going to focus on an element of character design which is present in the visual record, but which has a very specific pattern of usage and which is far overrepresented in the fan-costuming community.

Good reenacting—fictional or historical—typically deals less with the elites of a given culture/period/setting, and more with accurately representing the experience of its common people. Since the current paradigm of Star Wars ‘Original Character’ costuming seems to entirely revolve around 3D printing, armor, and helmets, if you want to create an armored or helmeted ‘OC’ that will faithfully represent a typical galactic inhabitant, then listen up and read on!

There’s one easy way to tell at a glance if an armored Star Wars character is somehow SPECIAL: just look at their helmet! If the lenses or visor are anything other than plain black*, you can bet money that they’re some sort of elite. Some examples from the good old EU:

Shae Visla (Mandalore the Avenger!), Utapau shadow scouts/Clone shadow trooper, clone commandos, Commander Gree and 41st scout trooper (Episode III), shadow trooper, shadow EVO trooper, and Emperor’s Shadow Guard (The Force Unleashed)

Notice anything?

Keep reading for recent post-disney examples, and analysis!

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!

Puttees/leg wraps/winningas: Luke Skywalker (0 BBY), ‘Galen Erso’, unidentified Warrick Davis character (Episode I), Anakin Skywalker, Wald (32 BBY), Owen Lars (19 BBY), Padme Naberrie (?)
many more examples below (some you may have in your closet right now!)

Galactic Style Guide – Footwear I

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’! It’s taken us a few years to get here, but in this entry, we’re finally taking a look at the one element a good costume literally stands upon – shoes! There’s a lot to unpack here, so our first two entries will look at live-action sources, and the third will cover visual examples from EU sources.

I’ve done my best to break these down by category, but my research library is far from exhaustive!; these are mostly drawn from the Complete Visual Dictionary (DK) and Alinger’s SWCOT. (Even if I could afford a copy, Trisha Biggar’s Dressing a Galaxy is not as useful for those of us interested in ‘common’ galactic folk…plus, the prevalence of characters wearing long robes means we don’t often see any footwear anyway!).
Let’s get started by looking at what it seems just about everybody wears in the Galactic Civil War era:

Riding boots: Biggs Darklighter, Ben Kenobi, Dannik Jerriko, the Tonnika sisters, Han Solo;
Rebel pilots (0 BBY), Luke Skywalker (medal ceremony), Bespin wing guard, Alliance generals, Luke (4 ABY), Bib Fortuna

I didn’t include them here (because…y’know, space-fascism), but I should note that most ranking Imperials wear similar boots. If you’re portraying a character in the Civil War period, you really can’t go wrong with something tall, black, and shiny!

Plenty more examples within!

Galactic Style Guide – Good Greeble Guidelines

Happy New Year’s Eve, and 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 costuming faux pas that can make an outfit 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!

Although notably absent in the original film (and the Prequels), the pieces of wearable technology discussed in this early Style Guide entry have become nearly ubiquitous in the post-Disney era and among the casual costuming/Batuu-bounding communities. These devices’ purposes have been inconsistently identified, but most sources suggest they are either communication devices or personal transponders—think a wearable ‘Personal Locator Beacon’. (These differ from the plaques worn by Imperial and Rebel officers throughout the Original Trilogy, which clearly served to denote the wearer’s rank, and about which this article is not concerned!)


Despite being fairly limited in the visual record, “jacket greeblies” are frequently relied on by costumers to add ‘GFFA spice’ to an outfit, and the proliferation of 3D printing in the last decade has unleashed a flood of fan-made iterations of these wearable doodads. However, not all fan-made greeblies are created equal, so I wanted to try and ‘crack the code’ to see what makes the onscreen examples ‘work’ and some fan designs work…not so well.

It is important to note that when they show up in Episodes V and VI, we really only see these devices worn by Rebel Alliance personnel (with one possible underwhelming exception). If we look at our samples, we note that those from Empire are constructed in a different manner than those seen in Jedi: while they were kitbashed originally, the pieces worn onscreen were resin casts (Alinger, 86), which is perfect for outfitting dozens of background troops but limits the amount of detail seen on the final product:

Continue reading to learn the secrets of designing good greeblies!