Inside the costumes of Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Last Jedi costumes

When Disney and Lucasfilm decided to launch a new Star Wars trilogy in 2015, it was up to costume designer Michael Kaplan to figure out how to dress the characters. Kaplan, the man responsible for the BAFTA Film Award-winning costumes in 1982’s Blade Runner as well as J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek reboot, was chosen to costume both The Force Awakens and its new sequel, The Last Jedi. He began by looking back to the original Star Wars films from the late 1970s.

“I want to continue the path that has already been set,” Kaplan tells Vogue. “We made a conscious decision to return to the look and feeling of [the original 1977 Star Wars film] A New Hope, when I started on Episode VII with [director] J.J. Abrams. It’s always thinking about things that are right for Star Wars and that are believable in that world.”

It took Kaplan and his team a year and half to conceptualize the looks in 2015’s The Force Awakens, mostly because they had to redesign the Empire and Rebel uniforms, as well as the Stormtroopers. The Last Jedi, which follows Rey (Daisy Ridley) as she begins her Jedi training with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), took a year to design. It sustains the sparse, utilitarian and — with its notes of Haider Ackermann and Rick Owens — surprisingly of-the-moment aesthetic established in the first film. The latest installment includes thousands of costumes, which were kept secret during the production. For Rey, Kaplan once again focused on rugged, functional pieces suited to running and fighting, including padded trousers, textured knits and flat-heeled boots, all rendered in earthy tones that camouflage easily against a rocky landscape.

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