Tag: cloak

Galactic Style Guide – Capes and Cloaks II

Happy Orthodox Star Wars Day!, and 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’! In this entry, we’re continuing our exploration of capes and cloaks by looking at those seen in Lucas’ Prequel Trilogy. Star Wars’ costume designs have always been a unique mixture of Spaghetti Western, 20th century military, Eastern/’exotic’, and medieval styles, and the use of capes/cloaks are largely responsible for the latter. Let’s get back to it, and see what we can learn!

Seeing how the story revolves around a Republic becoming a dictatorship, it’s no surprise that one of our main Senator characters (Bail Organa) in Episode III is often seen wearing an asymmetrical toga-like cloak, as does his ship’s captain (Raymus Antilles). Here’s another set of cloaks I would love to get my hands on in the Lucas Archives and examine just how they are constructed (I have a suspicion that they’re simpler than they appear, and are likely just a multi-yard rectangle with stitched pleats and an offset neck hole). Note the leather(?) piping along the leading edge and around the neck hole, which is a low-impact way to add a bit of detail and structure without being distracting.

As we’ll soon see, while the folks wearing capes and cloaks in the Classic Trilogy were often of questionable repute, those in the Prequels are commonly upstrata, and often members of the Republic government.

our breakdown of Prequel Trilogy capes and cloaks continues

Galactic Style Guide – Capes and Cloaks I

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’! In this entry, we’re examining examples of capes and cloaks. (Robes—like those worn by the Jedi or Emperor Palpatine—have sleeves and will be covered in a future post!) Traditionally, a Cape will be shorter in length and made of more fashionable materials compared to the longer, more utilitarian Cloak, but I use them fairly interchangeably here.

Star Wars’ costume designs have always been a unique mixture of Spaghetti Western, 20th century militaria, Eastern/’exotic’, and medieval styles, and the use of capes/cloaks are largely responsible for the latter. With many cosplayers eager to add a little ‘swish’ to their outfits, I hope these posts will be of some use: because when inspiration is needed, it is best to go right to the source instead of to what others have done!

Let’s dive right in with the only guy (IMHO) who can compete with Han Solo in terms of style!

Biggs Darklighter shows up to his desert hometown rocking a solid black knee-length wool cape with a short standing collar (and no visible fasteners, naturally!). It doesn’t appear to be lined, so that great drape is due to it being a really solid weight of fabric. If it is lined, it’s in a pretty similar color or material (note also that this is a rare example of a ‘good guy’ character wearing a ‘bad guy’ color).
However, with the Anchorhead scenes on the cutting room floor, we have few major characters wearing these kinds of garments in the rest of the film.
The only one who really comes to mind is the Mos Eisley spy Garindan who wears a most interesting hooded cloak:

Unlike the rest of our examples, old Long-snoot’s hooded cloak is a one-piece, and I’d love to see what the overall shape of it is! Visually, we can deduce that he’s an antagonist (because the cloak is black!), and as we will come to expect, it’s made of wool in a nice weight, is a solid color, and unadorned.
Aside from Garindan, It’s not until we make it to Cloud City in the next installment that we find another cape in the foreground:

Breaking down lots more In-universe caped characters after the jump