clothing – Page 6 – Living History in the Star Wars Galaxy

Galactic Style Guide – Children

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the monthly series where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ to help you create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! This time we’re looking at a segment of the galactic population which we don’t tend to see much of: ~~children~~ younglings!
As it sounds like a major target market for Disney’s Galactic Starcruiser hotel is families with children—and because I’ve seen many would-be guests express uncertainty about how to dress their children in GFFA style—I thought it would be especially helpful to collect and share some examples of in-universe clothing worn by children. I’ve attempted to present them chronologically and grouped by planet.

We begin in the distant past, on Ruusan during the New Sith Wars c. 1,000 BBY. Here we see the first appearance of a general trend of children wearing shorts and/or short sleeves (or no sleeves!):

It’s worth noting that pretty much every youth we see on Tatooine is a slave, so I’m not sure how much their style of dress is indicative of childhood under the twin suns versus social status (would young Luke have worn something similar as a farmhand?). One thing is for sure, while the garments themselves are simple construction, the cloth they’re constructed from has a lot of texture! However, we know (Dressing a Galaxy, p11) that Anakin’s tunic was made of a silk/linen/hemp blend (presumably the others were something similar), which sounds pretty comfortable (well, except for all the sand).

**the Mos Espa junkyard gang:** Anakin, Amee, Melee, Wald, Seek.

Click here for examples from Naboo, Dantooine, Alderaan, and more!

Han Solo’s magic shirt

I’ve never seen this mentioned before, but I don’t know how nobody’s ever noticed this gaffe.

When he’s put into carbon-freeze, Han Solo is wearing the same double-breasted shirt he’s been wearing for the entirety of Episode V.

When he’s unfrozen a year later in Episode VI, he’s still wearing the double-breasted shirt.

What gives? I don’t see anything wrong…

Project: Merino baselayer retool

First off, I want to give a big shout-out to my supporters from January and February: Sam C., Rich F., Tamara A., and Chelsea C.! Your support and kind words mean so much to me – THANK YOU! Now, onto this month’s project!

Always on the lookout for cool military surplus items to use in my various living history kits for outdoor adventuring, I got very excited back in January when Major Surplus started carrying these quarter-zip ‘undershirts’ for $15!
Now, they’re probably fine on their own, but the thruhiker in me got Really excited when I saw they were made of merino wool! Wool by itself is already great for outdoor purposes (it’s durable, insulating (even while wet!), fire-retardant, and water-resistant), but wool from merino sheep is especially soft. It’s just about all I wore on the Trail last year (props to Montana-based Duckworth for their awesome base layer shirts!), and as soon as I saw this garment I immediately thought of Dass Jennir (from the excellent Dark Times comics) who was pretty frequently depicted wearing what look like blue-gray, knit v-neck tops!:

Since I want my Star Wars wardrobe to be three-season adventure-ready—and the reviews said the shirts ran small and only Medium sizes were left in stock—I quickly snagged one up to try and retool it to be a little more GFFA compliant.

Project reveal below!

Galactic Style Guide – Formalwear II

from *By the Emperor’s Hand*: Mara Jade (impersonating a baroness) and casino security

Galactic Style Guide – Formalwear I

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, the monthly series where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ to help you create a more authentic ‘outer persona’! While quality reenacting and living history are geared more towards the ‘common’ experience, Disney’s Galactic Starcruiser hotel experience is billing itself as a luxury cruise, and I’ve seen plenty of folks online asking, ‘What am I supposed to wear???’ With that in mind, I’ve combed my reference library and collected some examples of formal outfits to help get an idea of what ‘fancy dress’ looks like in the Galaxy Far, Far Away.
Since any discussion of in-universe formalwear is really a discussion of the clothing of the galactic upstrata, and since the Original Trilogy is—aside from Leia—generally not concerned with these kinds of characters, our best examples from top-tier sources come from the Prequel films (which were very much focused on galactic elites). One thing’s for sure: Trisha Biggar’s costume designs reveal a clear preference for robes, cloaks, and coats in late-Republic senators’ clothing:

**Late-Republic senators and aides**: Liana Merian, Agrippa Aldrete, ‘Unidentified Draped Senator’, Sei Taria, Silya Shessaun, Gem Sirrom, Terr Taneel, Chi Eekway, Fang Zar;
Mon Mothma, Bana Breema, Male-Dee, Giddean Danu, Bail Organa, Rep. Binks, Sheltay Retrac

Galactic Style Guide – Shirts III

Welcome back to the Galactic Style Guide, the monthly series where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to help you create a more accurate ‘outer persona’! For this installment, we’re wrapping up a few upper-body stragglers which are both easy ways to add a little unconventional GFFA style to your own wardrobe.

**Center closure:** Dunlan, Astor (*The Ahakista Gambit*), Teesoo and Saya Ksi (Bounty Hunter’s Code); Biggs Darklighter (Dewback Attack-Hugh Fleming (*SW Insider* #35), Tag Rogaren (*From the Ruins of Alderaan*), colonist (FFG Far Horizons), Soontir Fel (*Rogue Squadron* #25)

Note that examples 1&2 both come from the planet Ahakista, and almost half of these use a right-over-left ‘womens’ closure!
For the reenactor with some basic sewing know-how, this is a very easy style to replicate. Because of Western fashion’s silly gender-specific closure rules, if you buy a button-down shirt of the opposite gender, you can flip-flop the front sides and get a closure without buttonholes on top. Then just add a strip of Velcro down both fronts. If you want Fel’s Mandarin collar style, it’s likewise easy to remove the fall from a shirt’s collar to leave the stand (this will still have a buttonhole at the top, however; you may be able to cannibalize the removed material to make a new, buttonhole-less stand).

you may already have our next example in your closet!

Galactic Style Guide – Aurebesh I

Welcome back to Aurebesh Month and our first of two installments of the Galactic Style Guide (where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to help you create a more authentic ‘outer persona’) taking a look at something that’s become really popular among the Batuu-bounding community in recent years: using in-universe Galactic Basic lettering—the Aurebesh—on kit items.

I see folks incorporate Aurebesh words into their clothing so often, it inspired me to do some digging and see how many examples I could find from the various visual media sources.
The first instances I found are all a certain segment of the galactic populace that I don’t think I’ve ever seen re-created before, but which would make for an excellent living history impression:

**PRISONERS:** from Agent of the Empire—Hard Targets and Empire: The Wrong Side of the War

I was a little disappointed that these guys are just wearing yellow/orange jumpsuits, and that there wasn’t a little more consistency between them and the more interesting prisoner uniform of the Imperial Remnant in 12 ABY (Jedi Outcast):

And speaking of Jedi Outcast…

more examples of aurebesh on clothing after the jump

Galactic Style Guide – Revealing Outfits

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 this series is normally geared at pointing out style elements that are widely and commonly represented in the galaxy, this month we’re taking a look at a ‘style’ which is comparatively un-common. Or perhaps I should say, while we have many examples of revealing outfits, after examining the complete sample, we will see that this style should really only be worn by a limited set of character types. (For our purposes here, I’m considering an outfit ‘revealing’ if it exposes some combination of arms, legs, or torso).

scanties-Jabbas — **Jabba’s scanty retinue:** Leia, Malakili, Rystall/Greeata/Lyn Me;
Oola, Yarna d’al’ Gargan, Diva Shaliqua.

The character Jess—said to be a popular musician—while not a slave or servant, nonetheless dresses revealingly while at Jabba’s court.

far background Mos Eisley cantina patron Leesub Sirln – wearing a surprisingly futuristic-looking and revealing…leotard? (with riding boots!)

The Expanded Universe includes a number of examples as well:

keep reading

Galactic Style Guide – T-shirts and tank tops

Welcome back to another installment of the Galactic Style Guide, where we break down the ‘Star Wars aesthetic’ in order to help you create a more Galaxy-accurate ‘outer persona’! For this month’s installment, now that midsummer is here (for us in the Northern Hemisphere at least), I wanted to take a look at examples of T-shirts and other short-sleeved or sleeveless tops. What more can you say about them? On modern Earth these are among our most casual clothing, which puts them at odds with the galaxy’s overall space-fantasy aesthetic, but as we’ll see, they do occasionally show up in the EU as everyday clothing.

Short-sleeved T-shirts: Luke (Splinter of the Mind’s Eye), Dass Jennir (*Blue Harvest, Out of the Wilderness*), Aegis crewman*(Razor’s Edge), Dexter Jettster; NEGtAS Besalisk, Janks, Bandomeer prisoner (Dark Times #15), Duro in the big city (Langdon Foss), Ruusan lookout (Jedi Knight). Voren Na’al

Programming Announcement

Hello readers! I wanted to give a heads-up that the next few months will see a slight change in the posts being published here at the Star Wars Living History blog. At the time this post goes live, my wife and I are on our way to Mt. Katahdin, Maine, and as of 7 June 2021 will be southbound on the Appalachian Trail, hiking 2,200 miles to Springer Mountain, Georgia…which will make it very difficult to keep up with writing and maintaining a blog! (I’ll be checking in along the trail on my facebook page and my Instagram feed, so be sure to ‘Follow’ for those who want to keep tabs on our progress vicariously!)

However, this shouldn’t mean a lack of content for our readers and subscribers: In addition to some guest pieces contributed by members of the SWLH facebook community, I’ve scheduled new installments of the Galactic Style Guide to continue to drop on the last Saturday of the month, with other articles rolling out on a bi-monthly instead of weekly basis. In other words, excepting August (AUREBESH MONTH!!!), expect two posts per month instead of four.

While I wish our hike could be done with more GFFA style, old-school canvas backpacks are heavy and don’t hold nearly enough stuff for a thru-hiker, while most modern ultralight gear is way too colorful to match the galactic aesthetic. But we will see. I’ve been kicking ideas around with a couple of high-caliber galactic ‘reenactors’ about the possibility of organizing a Star Wars ‘ruck’ hike. I would love to do a true long-distance trek using Star Wars gear, or for more of a challenge, with my Middle-earth kit (all organic, handmade, and essentially Iron Age), but I figure I should get thru-hike #1 under my belt first 🙂
Nonetheless, as you can see above, I’ve still tried to inject at least a little GFFA style into my daily hiking outfit: Alderaanian fleet trooper with Donovian Rainman footwear, and I’ll be rocking a moisture farmer bucket hat for at least the first leg of our journey!
I even made a point of choosing a shirt without proper buttons 😉

Wish us luck, MTFBWY, and I’ll see you (Force willing) in December!