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Dressing a Galaxy
The Costumes of
Star Wars

Patt Diroll

“You know, sometimes I even amaze myself.” — Han Solo

t 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
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.
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
47 ORNAMENT 29.1.2005

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.
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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.”
48 ORNAMENT 29.1.2005

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
Q U E E N A M I DA L A in
an ocean sense. Someone said to me it was very ‘Ophelia.’ With the Palpatine Office Outfit,
flowers and the hair, it does look like I’m drowning.” w i t h a S h i r a ya f a n
headdress, from The
Phantom Menace.
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MALE TUSKEN RAIDER
A N D C H I L D i n Tu s ke n
Robes and Accessories,
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.”
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
JA N G O F E T T i n
bounty Hunter
Outfit, from Attack
of the Clones.
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.
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
49 ORNAMENT 29.1.2005
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.”
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ith the opening of Dressing a Galaxy at the

W
Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising
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 Throughout the prequel trilogy, Biggar
fairytale. The FIDM has put together a well arranged, worked closely with Ivo Coveney who
succinct show packed with paraphernalia from the supervises the costume props. “That means
new Star Wars trilogy, and even a few pieces from the
Trisha makes the ‘soft’ stuff and we make the
old. It is entertaining to glance around the exhibition
and view famous props such as the iconic lightsabers, ‘hard’ stuff—custom jewelry, helmets, buckles,
or peer up at the giant wookies costumes. However, armor, masks and the elaborate headdresses,”
DIRECTOR GEORGE LUCAS the real meat of the exhibition is in the clothes and he states. “We don’t do the creatures. There’s
their presentation. From dark and insidious robes to a separate creature department for that.”
starched uniforms and outlandishly huge alien attire, a wide and amazing menagerie
Coveney, who grew up in London, says he
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 became enamored of Star Wars when he saw
costumes against a backdrop of the planet Naboo and the dark uniforms of the Sith the first film when he was twelve. “I had never
situated in the same room as Vader himself. George Lucas commented while touring seen anything like it. From that time on,
the exhibition: “I was overwhelmed when I came in here. The costumes are displayed I knew that I wanted to design for the theater
very elegantly, with nothing distracting, which makes for a much more singular and create special effects,” he says. After
focus... I especially liked that the costumes were grouped according to the societies,
finishing a course in stage design he went on
showing the differences from one environment to another.”
Costume designer Trisha Biggar went all over the world to collect the raw to work in opera, West End shows and films.
ingredients for her magical combinations, with visible results in the finished garments. “And now here I am, having come full circle
The most appealing aspect of this exhibition is the ability to see these costumes to Star Wars. In my work, nothing I do is real.
personally; they stand up well even under close observation. The materials used for It’s all a cheat, but that’s my job, to make it
these clothes seem solid and tangible. There is a visible improvement in quality, if not
look good on film. I’m very fortunate that
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 George allows me to do it well.” So what is his
task that was at hand, having to design and represent alien cultures with clothing. The next flight of fantasy? He is off to New York to
FIDM Museum provides a wonderful venue for viewing the fruition of these labors. prepare for Disney’s Tarzan, the Musical slated
The companion book, Dressing a Galaxy: The Costumes of Star Wars, is expertly to open on Broadway in the spring of 2006.
shot and enjoyable to read. In many ways, the book is a behind-the-scenes tour. Since Another key behind-the-scenes player is
the costumes are seen on the actors themselves, the book presents a new perspective.
concept artist Iain McCaig, who is charged
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 with telling the visual story through his
what was seen in the exhibit proper. The book also describes the use of computer sketches. “A multitude of cultural influences
graphics for many of the costumes and aliens. The clone troopers of the new trilogy, are drawn upon to communicate the mythic
unlike the stormtroopers of old, exist as electronic data. The book is published by quality of the films,” he says. “They are neither
Insight Editions in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc, and is 216 pages in length,
sci-fi nor fantasy. They are more centaurs
priced at $50.
Dressing a Galaxy, with over one hundred original costumes, sketches and and medusas, gods, goddesses and monsters.”
ephemera, is on display until December 10, 2005. The FIDM Museum is at 919 South A priceless asset is Lucas’s voluminous
Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90015; 800.443.3436. — Patrick R. Benesh-Liu reference library housed at the ranch, a twenty-
five-hundred-acre former dairy farm. He has
amassed esoteric books for decades and now
ENTHUSIASTIC STAR WARS FANS, in self-constructed costumes, during the exhibition owns the libraries of both Paramount Pictures
opening of Dressing a Galaxy: The Costumes of Star Wars. Photographs by Robert
and Universal Studios.
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
50 ORNAMENT 29.1.2005

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
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Q U E E N A PA I L A N A
SENATOR AMIDALA in
with inset headdress
Peacock and Brown
detail, from Revenge
Ensemble, from the
of the Sith.
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.”