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000-000_29.1 DRESSING A GALAXY 10/25/05 5:25 PM Page 46 Dressing a Galaxy The Costumes of Star Wars Patt Diroll “You know, sometimes I even amaze myself.” — Han Solo hat famous line from the first Star Wars film might well serve as the mantra for the imaginative genius who leads the costume design team for George Lucas’s blockbuster space operas. Whipping up duds worn a long time ago by the denizens of galaxies far, far away twould be a daunting challenge for any designer, but for the amazing Trisha Biggar, it is all in a day’s work. “Her ability to manage, move, design, build, locate and scrounge was a rare find,”says Star Wars producer, Rick McCallum. The unflappable Glasgow native takes it all in stride, crediting Lucas’s own vision and hands-on involvement with her success. Having trained at Wimbledon School of Art, Biggar worked in the United Kingdom in noted theater companies such as the Glasgow Citizens’ Theatre and Opera North in Leeds. Her film credits include Silent Scream, Wild West, and The Magdalene Sisters. She has also designed for numerous television series; among them Moll Flanders for which she received a BAFTA nomination for Best Costume Design, and The Young Indiana Jones ANAKIN SKYWALKER AND PADMÉ AMIDALA in Wedding Ensembles, from Attack of the Clones. Photographs courtesy of © 2005 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM, except where noted. All Rights Reserved. Used under authorization. 000-000_29.1 DRESSING A GALAXY 10/25/05 5:25 PM Page 47 Chronicles. However, she was unknown to Lucas and McCallum For an alien species, the costumes proved to be much until she was discovered quite by happenstance. Like most success more than just clothing. They are a huge contribution stories, it started with the requisite talent, training and hard work, to the actor’s performance. Biggar used color and but it was a dose of serendipity that brought her to Star Wars. texture to depict Palpatine’s descent from a caring When McCallum was working with Lucas on the first season of Senator to a callous Emperor. As his textured robes the television series, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992-94), became darker and developed a corroded appearance, he frequently traveled abroad. While in Prague, he met David Brown they foreshadowed his decaying moral fiber. “To wear who would become his production supervisor and close friend. these fantastically operatic costumes in playing the During a break in the filming, Brown went home to Glasgow and character was wonderfully empowering,” says Ian came back—with photographs of the weekend. McCallum recalls, McDiarmid who portrayed Palpatine “They made me “In one of them was this stunning woman; breathtaking and feel positively reptilian.” elegant. I asked him who she was, and he said, ‘Her name is Trisha Terence Stamp (Chancellor Valorum in The Phantom Biggar. She’s a friend of mine and a costume designer.’” Menace) concurs: “I don’t really know when I start “While prepping Young Indy’s third season location shoot in getting into the character, but I’m aware of a shift when Europe, McCallum was in the throes of interviewing costume I start putting the costume on.” And Jimmy Smits designers,” says McCallum. “One day, I talked with six designers— (Bail Organa in Revenge of the Sith) is also Biggar’s a depressing experience because I could tell it wasn’t going to ardent fan. “She is incredible in what she has done work with any of them—but then I remembered Trisha. I called with all the costumes,” he says. “They make you feel up David; got her number in Scotland; met her in London and regal and noble just walking around in them.” I instantly fell in love.” Thus began Biggar’s long relationship with the Lucas organization. Preparing for each episode, she spent time every three months at Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch in the heart of Northern California’s Marin County, planning the design concepts and then hopping on a plane to scout fairs and markets around the world for exotic materials. When she falls in love with a fabric, she traces its source and works directly with the manufacturer, ultimately saving thousands of dollars. There is an overwhelming amount of work for any costume epic, but there is always a costume house with an inventory of period apparel readily available. Biggar, however, has to start at the drawing board to produce some twelve hundred costumes per film for creatures of all shapes and sizes. She must create them for a completely imaginary environment, but it must have some reality to it and that is where she shines. The number of craftspeople involved in realizing her designs varies from eighty to one hundred twenty at the busiest times: couture-level cutters, sewers, dyers and printers, embroiderers, beaders, milliners, mold makers, sculptors and jewelers. Her task is unlike that of any other designer. Although influenced by cultures around the world, her costumes must not resemble anything in our own galaxy. “It is one thing to be able to draw something on a sheet of paper and another thing to make it three-dimensional and work. But, Trisha can do that and make it work in the real world,” says Lucas. “It is very hard to pick the right fabric, to modify the design in such a way that it looks like it fits into a real world—not just some designer’s conception of what the real world might be. She is a very positive force on the set and the best I’ve ever worked with or ever seen.” OBI-WAN KENOBI In Episode III, Revenge of the Sith, Biggar had twelve planets, in Jedi Outfit, from each with twelve different species, environments and characters. Revenge of the Sith. 47 ORNAMENT 29.1.2005 000-000_29.1 DRESSING A GALAXY 10/25/05 5:25 PM Page 48 QUEEN AMIDALA in Senate gown, with inset of the design sketch, from The Phantom Menace. Her Mongolian inspired headdress is based on the horned coiffures that married women used to wear in that country. PADMÉ AMIDALA in her Action Outfit, from Attack of the Clones. An example of how clothing can impact an actor was the casting of the late Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Lucas, who wanted the character to look part monk and part Samurai warrior, was apparently having difficulty convincing Guinness to accept the part and asked designer John Mollo to visit him and show the sketches. “For whatever reason this seemed to have done the trick,” Mollo recalls. And Bruce Spence (Tion Medon, Revenge of the Sith) remembers, “My costume added things to my head—I felt almost priest-like when it was on—and that is when I thought, ‘Okay, I am the administrator of this planet,’ but that role carries extra responsibilities that have been accumulated over eons.” Portman had numerous costume changes in Revenge of the Sith, but she loves what they called the deep blue “end dress,”which she wore in her coffin in the funeral scene. “I think Trisha wanted QUEEN AMIDALA in an ocean sense. Someone said to me it was very ‘Ophelia.’With the Palpatine Office Outfit, 48 ORNAMENT 29.1.2005 flowers and the hair, it does look like I’m drowning.” with a Shiraya fan headdress, from The Phantom Menace. 000-000_29.1 DRESSING A GALAXY 10/25/05 5:25 PM Page 49 MALE TUSKEN RAIDER AND CHILD in Tusken Robes and Accessories, from Attack of the Clones. JANGO FETT in bounty Hunter Outfit, from Attack of the Clones. DARTH VADER with lightsaber, in Revenge of the Sith. His helmet was based on the German World War II version. One actress not as enthralled with her Star Wars attire is determined to emulate Natalie Portman’s look as Senator Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) who lamented, “I spent the first Amidala in Episode II: Attack of the Clones. “Those lace pieces film in a white turtleneck dress meant to emphasize my and trinkets were once owned by Glaswegian great-grannies,” purity—pure only by the color of the costume. All I have to say says the newspaper. A striking pearl and black-and-blue beaded is that (throughout the prequels) Natalie Portman walks breastplate on one of Portman’s sensational dresses came through a doorway, and has a wardrobe change. I got one, from a Victorian dress that had been hanging in the shop for sorry, two dresses, and the first one looks the same way all years. Sadly, McLay, who also dressed Madonna for Evita, died the way around.”As for her slave-girl garb in Return of the Jedi, of a heart attack at age sixty-four in May 2004, but her husband Fisher remembers, “It was the bikini from hell. Like steel— Farquhar and son David have vowed to carry on the unique not steel, but hard plastic—and, if you stood behind me, you business that she began in the 1970s in a stall in the Barras, could see straight to Florida.” Glasgow’s flea market. When McCallum says Biggar “scrounges,” he means it While scavenging for fabric for the younger Obi-Wan quite literally. Although she circles the globe before each film Kenobi in Episode I, Biggar unearthed several rolls of brown acquiring fabric (some more than one hundred fifty years wool, circa World War II, in a warehouse in London’s East End. old), a small antiques shop in her own hometown has been The wool was almost a perfect match for Guinness’s costume the source of many of the findings she incorporates in her and she managed to squeeze out ten or twelve cloaks.