Whenever I come across someone online showing off an original Star Wars costume, few things can make it feel out-of-universe faster than visible Earthly fasteners. This should come as no surprise, as the lack of visible fasteners (zippers, buttons, etc) was one of Lucas’ chief design points when creating the original film’s visual style (see Alinger’s SWCOT). While working on a future installment of Galactic Style Guide, I realized I should probably lead by example and make sure none of my own kit pieces broke this rule…and if any did, to fix them ASAP!
Since a lot of my gear has been purpose-built for GFFA living history, most of it is fastener-free. However, some of the milsurp pieces I use would need tweaking; the first of these was my satchel, originally an M9A1 gas mask bag:
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 authentic ‘outer persona’! While the Style Guide has traditionally been concerned with topics of clothing and personal adornment, one’s outer persona can also include GEAR. Well, summer has arrived and after spending half of last year in a tent with my wife on the Appalachian Trail, I had two questions on my mind: 1) what kinds of shelters might adventurers in the Galaxy Far, Far Away use to protect themselves from the elements? And 2) are there any tents readily available in 2022 that might approximate these galactic styles? The answer may surprise you! While this topic might not be much use to readers planning a visit to the Galactic Starcruiser or their local fan convention, it’s important to remember that ‘doing (in the reenacting/living history sense) Star Wars‘ can (and probably should) take more authentic forms, and that if you want to venture into the outlands or create an in-universe encampment—like say, for an upcoming GFFA airsoft event?—having a good shelter can really come in handy.
While tents seen in earlier Star Wars materials (or only described in text) tend towards the unrealistic (at least by current capabilities)*, many shelters from visual media are actually fairly mundane, which is great for those wishing to create a reenacting encampment, or undertake an in-universe backpacking trip! *for a perfect example of this, see Mace Windu’s “wallet tent” in the novel Shatterpoint, which packed down to the size of a pocket yet could automatically unfold into a two-person shelter
Since debuting my first draft Rebel-partizan-on-Naboo impression back in 2018, further research has caused me to continue to refine the kit. In addition to needing some more layering, the main thing that needed upgrading was the shirt. My ‘Mark I’ Naboo shirt was not (aside from the Mandarin collar and the color) based on any specific onscreen examples, and the use of a Vietnamese ao dai pattern was only inspired by costume designer Trisha Biggar’s comments re: the general use of Asian elements in Naboo fashion (and at the time I liked the asymmetry of the design). However, I realized that I should probably wear something that more clearly ‘read’ as Naboo in origin, and it should probably be constructed of a lighter material as well – the Mk I was sewn from a ‘rustic’ 7.1-ounce linen. Since this piece is intended for a Galactic Civil War era persona, I really wanted to try and move away from the traditional Naboo style seen in the Prequels, especially the Renaissance-heavy designs of 32 BBY:
“We had designed Naboo more or less around Art Nouveau (we called it “Space Nouveau”), which was based on organic, plantlike forms. The costume ideas looked gorgeous on the women, but when you put guys in them, they didn’t look very tough.” – Ian McCaig, Dressing A Galaxy, p.72.
Roughly inspired by the lines of the traditional Indian kameez, I pored over my reference library to see what Naboo male fashion stuck around through the years while noticing any common elements:
Welcome to the first entry in our ‘Galactic Style Guide counterpoint’ subseries! Where the GSG could be summed up as ‘how to look Star Warsy’, these alternate posts are meant to highlight and remedy common mistakes that can make an outfit look NotStar Warsy! From the very beginning, the world of Star Wars has always had a very specific visual style. Unlike the matinee serials it was inspired by (in which heroes wore shiny, silver bodysuits and enemies wore bright gold and scarlet robes), the Galaxy Far Far Away was much more grounded in its visuals. While characters might fly starships across the galaxy and duel with swords made of pure energy, they didn’t dress futuristic. Chief costume designer John Mollo’s mix-and-matching of real world historical styles (Russian/Japanese peasantry, American cowboys, medieval gowns, World Wars military uniforms, etc) for inspiration provided the solid and believable foundation from which the series’ visuals would evolve. As part of this grounded approach, most characters tend to wear costumes in a very specific range of colors:
“The color scheme basically was the baddies would be black or gray, with the exception of the stormtroopers, and the goodies should be in earth colors—fawns and whites… Mollo tried to keep the colors muted wherever possible. Color is very, very difficult to use. Bright colors don’t work well on film, particularly reds and blues. George always goes for the authentic….and if it’s all garish color, it doesn’t work.” (Brandon Alinger. Star Wars Costumes – the Original Trilogy, 2014. p 15.)
This rule does not mean, however, that your outer persona need be limited to earth tones and shades of gray – as we saw a few weeks ago, there are tons of examples of characters wearing every color of the rainbow (especially in the pre-Imperial period)! However, if you noticed, almost all of them had something in common. As we read above, the main rule for creating authentic in-universe clothing is simple:Avoid. Garish. Color.: thus, if a garment is a fully-saturated hue, it is much less likely to ‘read’ as being authentic to the Star Wars setting. Let’s take a look at what I mean.
In Episode I, Anakin Skywalker wins the Boonta Eve Classic podrace, which we’ve discussed before. Following the race, he and Qui-Gon sell his podracer, go home to mom, and Ani exclaims, “look at all the money we have!” Here’s the thing – the money Anakin hands her appears to be a stack of Republic credits.
On his way out of town (in a deleted scene), he also gives his old friend Jira her own stack of Republic credits:
As I was preparing an upcoming post, I started wondering which characters in the Saga wore colors beyond earthtones, black, white, or shades of gray. I started leafing through my Visual Dictionaries and several hours later I had created the following rainbow of characters. These are presented in chronological order within each color band, and as we cans see, Trisha Biggar’s costumes for the Prequels are FAR more colorful than those of the Galactic Civil War period. If I do a third collection for all the blacks, whites, grays, and earthtone characters, I’m sure there will be many more OT characters represented.
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!):
from Jedi vs. Sith (2001)
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).
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.
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 like to focus on 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 give folks an idea of what ‘fancy dress’ looks like in the Galaxy Far, Far Away. Following up on last month’s look at examples from onscreen, this time around we’re focusing on outfits seen in EU materials.
I had written about this prop years ago, but that was really just noticing that the item Qui-Gon hands Anakin was the same as one in the Episode I Racer game:
Well, last week I decided to enlist the help of the prop hive-mind and posted a thread on the RPF seeking help in identifying this piece, and in a surprisingly rapid timeframe, one of the respondents had it pinned down!
Living History in the Star Wars Galaxy 