May the Force of Fashion be With You

With it being Star Wars Day (May 4th..May the force be with you..get it?) and me being a closet nerd and all, I can’t get light sabers and jedis out of my head. Once I really started to think about it, I realized that Star Wars had some really iconic fashion. Although I wasn’t around when Princess Leia first had little boys transfixed with her gold bikini, I do remember hearing about it as a child even twenty years later. You can’t have a megablockbuster like that without a few fashion studs. We’ll talk about fashion from the Star Wars of the seventies and the new cast who starred in films like Episode II:Attack of the Clones..See? I found a connection with my blog and Star Wars…I know..I’m badass

Padmé Amidala was played by actress Natalie Portman. The incredibly intricate royal wardrobe was designed by concept artist Iain McCaig and costume designer Trisha Biggar for .Episode I. The two would be joined by artist Dermot Power in developing Amidala’s clothes for Episode II In 2005, Padmé’s costumes became the centerpiece of an exhibition showcasing Biggar’s amazing work called Dressing a Galaxy, which was accompanied by an amazing book spotlighting her designs. The costumes designed for Padmé in The Phantom Menace were widely admired, and were featured in a Vogue magazine spread. The character Padmé Naberrie Amidala, Queen and later senator of Naboo, maintained a large wardrobe of extravagant, ornate and in some cases very elaborate disguises, dresses, and robes of office throughout her life. Little nerdy Star Wars facts; the most important in Amidala’s entourage were her five handmaidens. Saché, Yané, Rabé, Sabé and Eirtaé not only helped the Queen with her intricate gowns, hairstyles and make-up, but they were also trained in self-defense. When in danger, Queen Amidala disguised herself as one of her handmaidens, and adopted her less formal name of Padmé. So why did Natalie Portman or Padmé have all that white makeup on her face? No she wasn’t going through a geisha phase! Her white-painted face had stylized beauty marks on her cheeks to display symmetry, and the paint that divided her lower lip was called the “scar of remembrance”, which marked Naboo’s time of suffering before the Great Time of Peace. I love this character because as the Star Wars story goes on she, as most girls in western civilization, started to appreciate her own natural beauty and begins to focus on that with her fashion choices instead of the clothes

The Slave Leia Costume
I remember watching a rerun of Friends and seeing this episode. At first I thought it was so idiotic and weird. What guy would picture that? I thought it was so weird that I had to talk about it at school the next day. Was I mistaken or what? Every guy who had seen Star Wars said the same thing..some of them didn’t even let me finish my sentence
“Oh yeah, when Princess Leia was in that bikini? Yeah, that was hot”
Ask half of them what was said in that scene or the next five minutes of the movie, they probably still don’t know. The Slave Leia Costume or the Princess Leia Organa was worn when she was captured by Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi. The costume was worn by actress Carrie Fisher and stuntman Tracy Eddon and was created by costumer designers Aggie Guerard Rodgers and Nilo Rodis-Jamero, inspired by the works of fantasy artist Frank Frazetta’s Egyptian Queen. Star Wars creator George Lucas requested the costume in part based on Fisher’s complaints about the lack of interesting costumes in A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. It was the first time in the Star Wars saga that Princess Leia was scene as a woman. It had geeky boys everywhere wishing to go to a land of Naboo people and very little fabric. Talk about a way to break the puberty look.

Sith Apparel
We can’t talk about Star Wars without talking about Darth Vader and the Sith. As George Lucas envisioned the Sith as the dark counterpart of the Jedi, their robes were mainly designed as black versions of the Jedi apparel. They seem to be widely inspired by ancient Babylonian or Egyptian fashion; for example, Naga Sadow’s and Darth Andeddu’s headdress are quite similar to Pharaonic deshret and khepresh crowns. Also, rather than be limited to dark colors, the robes of these ancient Sith were quite vibrantly colored, extremely opulent. However, unlike the Jedi who did not believe in material possession, the position of Sith Lord was highly individualized and the personal attire of each Dark Lord reflected this. Although similar to the armor worn by the Jedi Knights of the Galactic Republic, Sith apparel was in fact much more personalized to the wearer than its Jedi counterparts; for many Sith, their armor was an integral part of their identity. For example, take a look at Darth Vader. He was given his unique armor after suffering disfiguring burns from a volcano. But Darth Vader still has power. There may be people out there who haven’t seen Star Wars, but I don’t know a person alive who hasn’t heard someone say in a low voice, “I am your father.”

Source: www.starwars.com
www.starwars.wikia.com

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