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

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would 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.

Chronicles. However, she was unknown to Lucas and McCallum until she was discovered quite by happenstance. Like most success stories, it started with the requisite talent, training and hard work, but it was a dose of serendipity that brought her to Star Wars.
When McCallum was working with Lucas on the first season of the television series, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992-94), he frequently traveled abroad. While in Prague, he met David Brown who would become his production supervisor and close friend. During a break in the filming, Brown went home to Glasgow and came back—with photographs of the weekend. McCallum recalls, “In one of them was this stunning woman; breathtaking and elegant. I asked him who she was, and he said, ‘Her name is Trisha Biggar. She’s a friend of mine and a costume designer.’”
For an alien species, the costumes proved to be much more than just clothing. They are a huge contribution to the actor’s performance. Biggar used color and texture to depict Palpatine’s descent from a caring Senator to a callous Emperor. As his textured robes became darker and developed a corroded appearance, they foreshadowed his decaying moral fiber. “To wear these fantastically operatic costumes in playing the character was wonderfully empowering,” says Ian McDiarmid who portrayed Palpatine “They made me feel positively reptilian.”
Terence Stamp (Chancellor Valorum in The Phantom
Menace) concurs: “I don’t really know when I start getting into the character, but I’m aware of a shift when I start putting the costume on.” And Jimmy Smits (Bail Organa in Revenge of the Sith) is also Biggar’s ardent fan. “She is incredible in what she has done with all the costumes,” he says. “They make you feel regal and noble just walking around in them.”
“While prepping Young Indy’s third season location shoot in
Europe, McCallum was in the throes of interviewing costume designers,” says McCallum. “One day, I talked with six designers— a depressing experience because I could tell it wasn’t going to work with any of them—but then I remembered Trisha. I called up David; got her number in Scotland; met her in London and 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 Jedi Outfit, from Revenge of the Sith.

In Episode III, Revenge of the Sith, Biggar had twelve planets, each with twelve different species, environments and characters.

Q U E E N A M I DA L A i n 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 an ocean sense. Someone said to me it was very ‘Ophelia.’ With the flowers and the hair, it does look like I’m drowning.”

QUEEN AMIDALA in Palpatine Office Outfit, with a Shiraya fan headdress, from The Phantom Menace.
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
Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) who lamented, “I spent the first film in a white turtleneck dress meant to emphasize my purity—pure only by the color of the costume. All I have to say is that (throughout the prequels) Natalie Portman walks through a doorway, and has a wardrobe change. I got one, sorry, two dresses, and the first one looks the same way all the way around.” As for her slave-girl garb in Return of the Jedi, Fisher remembers, “It was the bikini from hell. Like steel— not steel, but hard plastic—and, if you stood behind me, you could see straight to Florida.” determined to emulate Natalie Portman’s look as Senator Amidala in Episode II: Attack of the Clones. “Those lace pieces and trinkets were once owned by Glaswegian great-grannies,” says the newspaper. A striking pearl and black-and-blue beaded breastplate on one of Portman’s sensational dresses came from a Victorian dress that had been hanging in the shop for years. Sadly, McLay, who also dressed Madonna for Evita, died of a heart attack at age sixty-four in May 2004, but her husband Farquhar and son David have vowed to carry on the unique business that she began in the 1970s in a stall in the Barras, Glasgow’s flea market.
When McCallum says Biggar “scrounges,” he means it quite literally. Although she circles the globe before each film acquiring fabric (some more than one hundred fifty years old), a small antiques shop in her own hometown has been the source of many of the findings she incorporates in her designs. The late Cathie McLay’s Saratoga Trunk on West Regent Street in Glasgow is a treasure house of vintage laces, trimmings and jewelry. So much so, that the British tabloid Daily Star reports that the shop is besieged by Star Wars fans
While scavenging for fabric for the younger Obi-Wan
Kenobi in Episode I, Biggar unearthed several rolls of brown wool, circa World War II, in a warehouse in London’s East End. The wool was almost a perfect match for Guinness’s costume and she managed to squeeze out ten or twelve cloaks. “During a wet scene on The Phantom Menace set,” she recalls, “the cloaks started to shrink in front of our eyes, shortening to almost knee level in a matter of minutes, which meant using— and ruining—a new cloak for every take.”

ith the opening of Dressing a Galaxy at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising

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Museum, in Downtown Los Angeles, comes a unique opportunity to see fashion, not from some Parisian designer or times long past, but from a modern-day fairytale. The FIDM has put together a well arranged, succinct show packed with paraphernalia from the new Star Wars trilogy, and even a few pieces from the old. It is entertaining to glance around the exhibition and view famous props such as the iconic lightsabers, or peer up at the giant wookies costumes. However, the real meat of the exhibition is in the clothes and their presentation. From dark and insidious robes to

Throughout the prequel trilogy, Biggar worked closely with Ivo Coveney who supervises the costume props. “That means Trisha makes the ‘soft’ stuff and we make the ‘hard’ stuff—custom jewelry, helmets, buckles, armor, masks and the elaborate headdresses,” he states. “We don’t do the creatures. There’s a separate creature department for that.” Coveney, who grew up in London, says he became enamored of Star Wars when he saw the first film when he was twelve. “I had never seen anything like it. From that time on, I knew that I wanted to design for the theater and create special effects,” he says. After finishing a course in stage design he went on to work in opera, West End shows and films. “And now here I am, having come full circle to Star Wars. In my work, nothing I do is real. It’s all a cheat, but that’s my job, to make it look good on film. I’m very fortunate that George allows me to do it well.” So what is his next flight of fantasy? He is off to New York to prepare for Disney’s Tarzan, the Musical slated to open on Broadway in the spring of 2006.
Another key behind-the-scenes player is

DIRECTOR GEORGE LUCAS

starched uniforms and outlandishly huge alien attire, a wide and amazing menagerie of clothing is on display. Each area is grouped in order of theme and given an appropriate background, such as the collection of the Princess Amidala’s many costumes against a backdrop of the planet Naboo and the dark uniforms of the Sith situated in the same room as Vader himself. George Lucas commented while touring the exhibition: “I was overwhelmed when I came in here. The costumes are displayed very elegantly, with nothing distracting, which makes for a much more singular focus... I especially liked that the costumes were grouped according to the societies, showing the differences from one environment to another.”
Costume designer Trisha Biggar went all over the world to collect the raw ingredients for her magical combinations, with visible results in the finished garments. The most appealing aspect of this exhibition is the ability to see these costumes personally; they stand up well even under close observation. The materials used for these clothes seem solid and tangible. There is a visible improvement in quality, if not in design, between the few old costumes on display and the new. The fans and fashion critics alike can appreciate their construction. It also reflects on the enormity of the task that was at hand, having to design and represent alien cultures with clothing. The FIDM Museum provides a wonderful venue for viewing the fruition of these labors.

The companion book, Dressing a Galaxy: The Costumes of Star Wars, is expertly

shot and enjoyable to read. In many ways, the book is a behind-the-scenes tour. Since the costumes are seen on the actors themselves, the book presents a new perspective. Many quotes from the actors are included, and their comments on their experiences and explanations for the purposes of their costumes bring a sense of realism to what was seen in the exhibit proper. The book also describes the use of computer graphics for many of the costumes and aliens. The clone troopers of the new trilogy, unlike the stormtroopers of old, exist as electronic data. The book is published by Insight Editions in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc, and is 216 pages in length, priced at $50.

concept artist Iain McCaig, who is charged with telling the visual story through his sketches. “A multitude of cultural influences are drawn upon to communicate the mythic quality of the films,” he says. “They are neither sci-fi nor fantasy. They are more centaurs and medusas, gods, goddesses and monsters.” A priceless asset is Lucas’s voluminous reference library housed at the ranch, a twentyfive-hundred-acre former dairy farm. He has amassed esoteric books for decades and now owns the libraries of both Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios.

Dressing a Galaxy, with over one hundred original costumes, sketches and ephemera, is on display until December 10, 2005. The FIDM Museum is at 919 South Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90015; 800.443.3436.

— Patrick R. Benesh-Liu

ENTHUSIASTIC STAR WARS FANS, in self-constructed costumes, during the exhibition opening of Dressing a Galaxy: The Costumes of Star Wars. Photographs by Robert Liu/Ornament.

But in the end, it is Lucas’s own infinite imagination that is the “force.” McCaig, a native Californian and honorary Scot—he trained at Edinburgh College of Art—recalls some of the challenges: “George told us that Queen Amidala was to be in disguise: that she could sneak out the back of her costumes and you wouldn’t know she was gone, which is why she is wearing clothing up to her chin and white face-paint, like you find on geishas, Mongolians or Elizabeth I of England. George has a ruthless eye for detail and a meticulous memory.” The ombre velvet

QUEEN APAILANA with inset headdress detail, from Revenge of the Sith.
SENATOR AMIDALA in Peacock and Brown Ensemble, from the Revenge of the Sith. with inset detail.

gowns for Queen Amidala’s retinue were originally formed in white; fitted to perfection and all but finished before they were completely taken apart to be ombre-dyed, to ensure that when the handmaidens stood together, the depths and level of color aligned.
Completing the costumes for Star Wars required hundreds of thousands of hours in workrooms on three continents— England, the United States and Australia. “But ideas don’t only come from fabrics,” says Biggar. “Art, architecture, archaeology, nature, fish, coral, there is revelation to be found everywhere.” For example, in Episode III, McCaig based some of the Trade Federation aliens on insect forms. One was modeled after a praying mantis; another, a wasp to convey alarm.
As for advice for aspiring theatrical designers, Biggar has this to say—“Be open to everything in this vast, brilliant, exhilarating planet we live on and the many rich diverse cultures and the histories of the people who live, or have lived, here and you will never lack for inspiration. And you know what? Sometimes you will even amaze yourself.”