The costumes of Star Wars are an often overlooked but vital part of the saga. Recently an entire exhibition dedicated to them sprung up -- Dressing a Galaxy.1 The costumes (and their designer, Trisha Biggar) have recieved much praise, and for good reason.
Costumes can be (and are) used to add something to the characters. Colour plays a big part, and so does style. One costume can tell us about a character's "age, gender role, profession, social class [and] personality."2 Star Wars demonstrates this brilliantly.
Padmé Amidala's costumes are generally the first ones you notice -- they were hugely elaborate and utterly gorgeous. Her costumes as Queen were designed to be eyecatching, and they are also colourful, in royal colours: reds and purples and blacks. There often appears to be more of the costume than there is of her, and that was probably the desired effect -- Padmé is trapped in her role as Queen. Her costumes as a handmaiden are much less complex; she's not so weighed down by duty. Her handmaiden outfit on Tatooine, where she first meets her future husband, is blue and grey -- cool colours, in contrast to the bright ones worn by the Queen. In fact, there aren't many bright colours on Tatooine, most people, including Shmi, are wearing grey, simple outfits. As we've been told, it isn't a bright spot in the galaxy.
Padmé's battle costume at the end of the movie is also fairly simple (but still true to her planet's culture), as she has left the Senate in all its glamour to fight for her planet. She has made a concious desision to not be weighed down. And, when the battle is won, her white costume at the end of The Phantom Menace gives her an "angel-like" appearance -- fitting in with Anakin's first words to her: "Are you an angel?"
In Attack of the Clones, Padmé's costumes are, by comparision, slightly more simple and less regal. "Overall," says Natalie Portman, "what was different about the costumes in Episode II from those in Episode I was they were made to make me look more like a woman."3 Her black outfit worn in the fireplace scene is interesting -- she is telling Anakin he can't have her, but her costume seems to be saying the exact opposite. The colours of her costumes have also changed slightly: not much red or purple, instead blues and yellows, and white for her battle scene.
And by Revenge of the Sith the colours have muted: it's mostly blues and blacks. Her costumes also serve as disguises to hide her pregnancy: "In Episode I, she was the Queen, and she was wearing disguises. I once said she should be able to slip out of the back of the costume, and you'd never know she was gone. Ironically, in this one, she's back to wearing disguises. As well as now hiding this marriage to a Jedi, which is not allowed, she has to hide the fact that she's going to have babies. All of the costumes had to disguise these facts."4
The last costume Padmé wears while still alive is her sleeveless tan outfit. It looks a little like her battle outfit in Attack of the Clones, except it's not white -- white is the colour of innocence, and her association with Anakin has taken away her innocence. In fact, after the battle of Geonosis is over, she doesn't wear white at all. Even the wedding dress isn't quite white5 -- falling in love with Anakin has sealed her fate. Only at the very end of Revenge of the Sith, when she is dying, is she back in white; Anakin has gone from her, and she has refused his offer of power.
The last costume we actually see Padmé wearing -- the dress she has been put in for the funeral -- is a blue dress almost certainly supposed to bring to mind water and the ocean. "I think they call this the 'End Dress'," Natalie Portman said. "It's really really beautiful. I think Trisha wanted to get an ocean sense. Someone said to me that it was very 'Ophelia.' With the flowers and the hair, it does look like I'm drowning."6 Anakin dies in fire and Padmé dies in water. In Chinese Taoist thought the element of water overcomes fire7, just as Padmé's children will eventually "overcome" (from a certain point of view) Darth Vader.
Anakin's costume is fairly simple compared to those designed for Padmé -- colour-wise, he starts off as a young boy wearing grey and by Attack of the Clones he is wearing black, in contrast to Obi-Wan, who wears light colours all the way through. An early sign of the tension between them, perhaps -- the outfits the characters have chosen to wear don't match, so perhaps their personalities don't quite match, either. In Revenge of the Sith Anakin's costume has again changed slightly. "We changed his colors, and we darkened them all down, hinting at what he's going to become. Although he was quite dark brown before, there were some lighter aspects. This time, we've really taken shades of dark brown to give him a dark outline even though he's still a Jedi."8 By the third act of Revenge of the Sith, Anakin looks much like Darth Vader -- who always wore black -- in everything apart from the mask.
Qui-Gon's costume is also fairly dark -- his cloak is about the same colour as Anakin's. A hint that he would have been a better master for Anakin? Possibly. It could also represent that he is out of step with the Jedi Council, and most of the other Jedi; the others, including Obi-Wan and Mace Windu, mostly have light brown cloaks.
Obi-Wan is one of the few characters who wears more or less the same sort of outfit all through the saga. It seems appropriate, considering that in every movie he is firmly on the side of the good.
Yoda's costume stays pretty much the same throughout the prequel trilogy, but during his duel with Darth Sidious in Episode III he loses his white Jedi cloak. Very possibly, the cloak symbolises his authority as head of the Jedi Council, which he now has lost. And come The Empire Strikes Back, he's no longer in Jedi clothes.
The Jedi, and therefore their costumes, were influenced by the Samurai. They all seem to wear roughly the same thing, with the same colours -- or the main Jedi characters do, at least. Some of the extras wear different things. Aayla Secura's Jedi costume shows off her stomach, for example, and Jocasta Nu's has patterns on it.
Jumping forward (or back?) a few years, we have Luke's costumes. Again, colour is important: he begins with a white costume in A New Hope, goes on to a grey one in The Empire Strikes Back, and finishes off with a black one. Luke's costume at the beginning of Return of the Jedi was specifically designed to bring to mind Darth Vader, but personally, I've always thought it looked a bit like the Emperor's costume, particularly with the hood covering the head. Either way, it's supposed to represent that Luke is nearing the edge.
Luke is still wearing his black costume at the end of Return of the Jedi, but by then it's fallen open to reveal some grey. Luke has been through a great deal, and will never go back to being how he was in A New Hope, but he's still remained who he used to be. A subtle touch, but a good one.
Palpatine is another one whose character journey is shown through his costume: through virtually all of The Phantom Menace, he's wearing a dark blue colour -- blue is the colour associated with Naboo, but we never see Palpatine wear light colours. In Attack of the Clones he mostly wears black and dark colours, matching up with Anakin's dark brown Jedi costume. In Revenge of the Sith he's still wearing black, but wearing red as well, especially in the fighting scenes; he's more aggressive in his plans now. (Red is generally the colour of aggression in Star Wars, hence why all the Sith have red lightsabres.) In all three of those movies, we also see him in his black cloak -- in that, his eyes are covered and we can barely see his face. It's a costume designed for stealth. Appropriate considering Palpatine worked in the shadows, kept himself hidden from suspicion, and didn't reveal his plans until it was too late. And as Emperor, he is always in his black cloak -- he's pure evil by this point.
Every costume in Star Wars has something to say -- whether it's something about the character or about the planet they hail from. Leia's white dress represents purity9, and the costumes of the various Queens tell us plenty about culture on Naboo. This goes for extras as well as main characters; a great many of the people walking about in the background have their own costume, and therefore their own planet, environment, and social class. The costumes may go fairly unnoticed, what with so many other things going on, but they help make the Star Wars galaxy a more real one, and a place populated with real people and societies.
Works Cited
1 "Dressing a Galaxy: The Costumes of Star Wars," exhibition by The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising and Lucasflim, Ltd. <http://starwars.fidm.edu/index.shtm>
2 "Costume." Wikipedia.com. 28 December 2005. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/costume>
3 Duncan, Jody. Mythmaking: Behind the Scenes of Attack of the Clones. The Ballantine Publishing Group: New York. October 29, 2002. Pages 90-91.
4 Ian McCaig, concept designer. Quote was found at The Padawan's Guide, a Star Wars prequel costumes website. <http://www.padawansguide.com>
5 A good picture of the gown can be found at The Padawan's Guide. <http://www.padawansguide.com/padme/wedding/padme_dvd_wedding.jpg>
6 Rinzler, J.W. The Making of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Random House, 2005, page 119.
7 "Water (Classical Element)." Wikipedia.com. 24 November 2005. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_%28classical_element%29>
8 Trisha Biggar, costume designer. Quote was found at The Padawan's Guide.
9 Carrie Fisher. Quoted in Ornament magazine, found at The Padawan's Guide.
