The New Barbarians (1983)

Costume Design by Mario Giorsi

Between filming of 1990: The Bronx Warriors and Escape from the Bronx, Enzo Castellari made The New Barbarians (also known as Warriors of the Wasteland), a film with much more 'space age' costume designs than most post-apocalyptic films. Its protagonist Scorpion (Timothy Brent) is only dressed in brown leather trousers with a codpiece attached, and a muted green fur coat, except for in the final battle where he dons see-through plastic chest armor.

Assisting Scorpion is his rather sardonic and cynical former accomplice, Nadir (Fred Williamson) who sports the most memorable outfit of the film by far – the black leather and gold-trimmed vest and armor pads aren’t something forgotten in a hurry! Of note is how the armor piece on his forearm is coated in the multicoloured arrow tips, making it look like its adorned in jewels.

Of the main cast, the last to note is Alma (Anna Kanakis) whose outfit sadly never gets a decent shot in the film itself, being a shirt worn with tan and purple leather leggings with a diamond pattern on the waist, as well as the white shoulder pads she sports in her first appearance.

The evil Templars all sport white and black uniforms, the only differing versions seem to be sported by their various leaders, notably One (George Eastman) and his lieutenant Shadow (Ennio Girolami). One’s uniform is adorned with studded leather pieces (presumably a nod to Lord Humungus' kinky getup in The Road Warrior, a subtext that actually reaches its full conclusion in one scene of New Barbarians).

Shadow’s however is more conservative (though still with leather straps and codpiece), with rounded shoulder pads and leather collar. The most notable thing about Shadow’s style has to be that hairdo though!

The last of the three lead Templars is Mako (Massimo Vani) who also is immediately recognizable via his purple-dyed mohawk and braided ponytail. Mako, like the other Templar commanders, has an open shirt and rounded collar, but his uniform is distinguished by the studded stripes on his shoulder pads and trousers.

The other Templars are all dressed identical, in white overalls with triangular leather straps going over the chest and large pointed shoulder pads with black lining. Most of the Templars also wear white motorbike helmets with the uniform – between this, Castellari’s two Bronx Warriors films, Sergio Martino’s Hands of Steel and Bruno Mattei’s Robowar, motorbike helmets truly were a sign of evil in Italian scifi films!

The other wasteland residents are in contemporary clothing except for Vinya (Iris Peynado) is notable, thanks to the see-through stockings and bikini she wears during the love scene with Nadir.