Costume Design by:
- Durinda Wood ( notable efforts: Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), Back to School (1986), The Journey Inside (1994), For Your Consideration (2006) )
The second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation would usher in some new stylistic changes in the costumes brought on by a change of costume designer, Durinda Wood (who had also been costume designer on Battle Beyond the Stars, her only scifi credit up to that point), who replaced William Ware Theiss (who had designed the costumes of the previous (first) season) - Wood's work on the show would prove to perhaps have the longest influence, as many of her designs on the second season would be either reused, or used as a basis for the designs of the later seasons - Wood's redesigned uniforms for the Ferengi and Romulans laid a template for how the following costume designer, Robert Blackman (who himself was a friend and colleague of Wood's) designed these cultures, and of course Wood also was responsible not just for the various lavish outfits worn by Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan, but also Star Trek's most iconic aliens, the Borg.
'The Child'
This was the season's first episode, and involved Troi (Marina Sirtis) becoming pregnant with a mysterious child - this episode already displayed the newer costumes for characters returning from the first season, with Troi herself in a much more sleek dark red catsuit with black lining around the chest.
Wesley (Wil Wheaton) also gets to sport a newer and more sleek uniform, this one being a greay jumpsuit with dark grey shoulders, and asymmetrical markings on the waist that simulate a belt.
This season also was introduced the character of Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), the wise and mysterious owner of the 'Ten Forward' bar onboard the Enterprise, and partly remembered because of the colourful outfits she wore, always coupled with wide-brimmed headgear of some sort - this design was inspired by, according to Wood in this interview with the 'Earl Grey' podcast, folk costumes worldwide (in particular East Asian traditional fashions), as well as runway fashions, as well as a shop in San Francisco that was selling wide-brimmed hats like that!
Guinan's second outfit in this episode is a grey-green gown with a popped collar and worn with a sloping 'tear drop' hat, though the combination of close-up shots and dark lighting make it very difficult to see clearly - however, this outfit can be seen in full thanks to being on auction on the Icollector website.
As for the titular 'child', they and the other children seen in this episode wear a variety of patterned onesies, a trend that would be continied by replacement costume designer Robert Blackman in the following seasons.
'Where Silence Has Lease'
This episode started with Worf and Riker enduring one of the more violent training exercises of the holodeck, where they had to combat holographic alien warriors, the most striking of these aliens being a skull-faced creature in a studded armor suit, with a collar made up of studded metallic pieces.
'The Outrageous Okona'
This episode involved the Enterprise encountering the titularly outrageous Okona (William O. Campbell), who is dressed like a classical dashing rogue, but with a futuristic twist, wearing a cut leather biker jacket (adorned with studded metallic pieces) over his baggy shirt and grey trousers, which also is adorned with a red sash to help make the character look more like a classically swashbuckling pirate.
Okona is on the run for at least one crime of eloping with Yanar (Rosalind Ingledew) from the planet Atlec, who is clad in a white dress with a light pink lining around the collar. Also on the hunt for Okona are Benzan (Kieran Mulroney) and his father, with Benzan being clad in a brown leather jacket and trousers, whilst is father is in a maroon jacket with a diagonal shiny collar. Also of note is Yanar's indignant father, who is just in a plain grey jacket.
Guinan appears again in this episode, wearing an orange outfit similar in cut to the grey-green one she sported in 'The Child', and thankfully is seen better than her previous oned were.
'Loud as a Whisper'
This episode involved the Enterprise meeting up with the deaf negiotator Riva (Howie Seago) who is always in a simple white gown worn with a frilled dark blue coat over it.
Riva is accompanied by a trio of interpreters who speak for him, with the lone woman being in a frilly white dress, whilst the two men are dressed differently - one of them is in a white gown with ridged sleeves and worn with a squat hat, whilst the other has padded pieces on his chest and shoulder.
Riva is called in to mediate a conflict on the planet of Solais V, where two tribes have been engaged in a vicious war - one tribe are in tan uniforms with triangular armor worn over their chests, whilst the other tribe are in bulky black padded armor instead.
'The Schizoid Man'
In this episode, the Enterprise crew meets the strange scientist Ira Graves (W. Morgan Sheppard), who dresses rather unkempt in a brown shirt with a pointed panel around the collar, worn under a beige patterned jacket.
There is also Graves' assistant Kareen (Barbara Alyn Woods), whose most striking outfit in this episode is a brown wool jumpsuit with baggy leg drapes and top stitched bands.
'Unnatural Selection'
In this episode, scientists dabbling in genetic engineering accidentally create a plague, with the scientists all wearing white trousers and blue-green shirts of a triangular-patterned material.
The engineered 'results' meanwhile all wear garish jumpsuits with boots of a similar colour - it seems that in the original costume sketches by Wood, the jumpsuit were going to have a vaguely more 'designed' look to them, rather than the slightly uniform look here.
'The Measure of a Man'
This episode introduced a new design for the admiral's uniform, this one being more sleek compared to the version designed by William Ware Theiss in the previous season - this one resembles the standard uniform much more, and has a golden strip over the black top marking, as well as an all-red collar.
Guinan sports another outfit in this episode, consisting of a lilac gown with a specially cut shoulders and rounded collar, worn with a headpiece with a disc-like shape on the top - this same outfit is seen in 'The Dauphin' but worn with a different headpiece, of the sloped 'tear' design. This costume (with the hat briefly seen in 'The Dauphin') can be seen in full via a photo when it was on auction on the YourProps website.
'The Dauphin'
This one involved Wesley falling in love with the alien Salia (Jaime Hubbard), who is always clad in a brown dress with a downward-pointed fabric on the front, as well as fabric around the chest.
Salia's governess, the stern Anya (Paddi Edwards) is for the most part always clad in a dark green gown with a hood, with light green fabric strips trailing down the sides, sometimes being worn with the hooded headpiece.
Anya briefly switches to a younger form, which is clad in a catsuit of a similar green colour, though this one has holes specially cut in it at certain parts, along the front, back and sides.
In this episode Guinan sports a lovely version of her typical outfits, this one being in a two-tone purple gown with a diagonal cut for the light fabric, and being worn with a 'tear drop' hat as well - this outfit is sadly never really seen in full in the episode, but can be seen in its full glory thanks to being on auction on the Julien's Auctions website.
'Contagion'
This was this season's only appearance of the Romulans, who were clad in uniforms that, whilst based on William Ware Theiss' designs in the previous season, had been reworked by Wood to be more solid and militaristic, worn with a vertical belt over the tunic, which was now entirely square-shaped with large shoulders - this design would influence the Romulan outfits in all the remaining seasons of The Next Generation with Robert Blackman continuing this theme very strongly. The uniforms themselves from this episode would be reused in subsequent seasons, hence the use of images from an episode from the following season ('The Defector') as well.
'The Icarus Factor'
This episode has Riker meeting up with his father Kyle (Mitchell Ryan), who sports a jumpsuit with a patterned jumper worn underneath.
Riker and his father duel in a battle of 'anbo-jitsu', a sort of futuristic martial arts where they both have to wear plastic armor worn over unitards, with Riker's suit being red with white lining, and Kyle's suit being white with red lining.
This would also be the best time to mention the outfits of the waiters in the 'Ten Forward' bar of the Enterprise - although mostly only barely seen in this season (or in most seasons of the show, actually), these outfits were first designed by Wood for this series, and only slightly tweaked by Robert Blackman in the later seasons (where all these photos come from). The bar stuff uniforms consist of a green and black patterned jumpsuit with a sort of apron-like piece fixed on the front, worn with trousers of an identical colour to the apron piece.
'Pen Pals'
This episode starts off with a holodeck sequence that has Picard (Patrick Stewart) wearing a sort of futuristic riff on a riding jacket (jumper?) for his horseriding in the holodeck, which is even worn with a flat cap!
Also present in this episode is the alien Sarjenka (Nikki Cox), who wears this shiny dress with angular tubing around the collar and cuffs.
'Q Who'
This episode once again has Guinan, who this time is in a very striking purple version of her typical outfits, this one having a criss-crossing fabric for the top half, and a hat slanted downwards, and being entirely in a lovely purple colour too no less.
This was also the episode that introduced the Borg, perhaps one of the most iconic designs of Star Trek - these menacing cyborgs were intended to be a new threat for the Federation, and were especially challenging to design due to how they had to not look like typical mechanical soldiers as most viewers and science-fiction fans had been accustomed with. For inspiration, Wood looked to an artwork by the legendary H. R. Giger, whose work often depicted creatures that combined organic and mechanical motifs - this theme was very obvious in Wood's original design sketches, and to a degree was sort of preserved in the final costume, which consisted of a jumpsuit with various mechanical pieces and wiring fixed onto them, and worn with the helmets (themselves half fixed by the makeup department) - the Borg in all remaining seasons would be handled by Robert Blackman, but basically following from Wood's original designs.
'Samaritan Snare'
This episode involved the Enterprise having one of its members being held hostage by the 'Pakleds', apparently dimwitted aliens who are all clad in drab ridged brown jackets, worn with brown belts all over with a padded front flap. This costume would then be reused in the fourth season episode 'Brothers', worn by the character Lore (Brent Spiner), which sure looked very loose on him!
This episode also marked the first appearance of the very ominous surgery scrubs issued to Starfleet personnel - these scrubs, made out of a harsh looking material, and worn with red gloves, look rather similar to the equally eerie scarlet scrubs worn in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers.
'Up the Long Ladder'
This episode involved two groups of Earth colonists who had became estranged from each other, with the first group, the Irish-descended Bringloidi, just being in fairly rural 19th-century garb - only Brenna (Rosalyn Landor) sports a slightly futuristic riff on the period garb, being a knitted wooly crop top with sleeves!
The Bringloidi's rivals are the Mariposa, who dress much more typicall futuristic as seen with their leader Wilson (Jon De Vries) who sports a smart, asymmetrically cut white jacket with cream lining, worn over a buttonless shirt with flaps over the collar as if they were still a traditional shirt. Also of note is his secretary who also wears a very short top.
The other Mariposa residents are dressed no less controlled, with a cloned official wearing a grey coat with silvery material over the lapel, and several citizens in buttonless jackets and jumpers.
'Manhunt'
This was the episode of the season which once again featured Lwaxana Troi (Majel Barrett), who of course sports several lavish outfits as per the course of the character, her first one being a wondeful silver dress worn with a lilac gown over it, the dress having threaded jewellery adorning it and the gown also threaded with shining adornments.
Lwaxana's second outfit is a rather more reserved but still ornate dress of a maroon colour, with black leaf patterns threaded on the front.
Lwaxana's third outfit in this episode is a much more colourful shiny dress of a rainbow coloured floral pattern, with a rainbow coloured floral wreath worn over the front and cuffs as well.
Lwaxana's last outfit is an absolute delight, consisting of a shiny purple dress with large floral pieces fixed on either shoulder, forming a crest, with another floral wreath down one side, as well as a marking of some sort on the front chest. A photo showing this particular outfit better is on the auction page on the Julien's Auctions website.
Lwaxana's faithful and silent servant, Mr Homn (Carel Struycken) once again appears, this time clad in a gown of a black and green akin to plaid, which itself is coated with golden leaf markings - rather more elaborate than what he wore in his previous appearance!
Lastly for the episode are the rather comically grotesque Antedeans, fish-like aliens who are in outfits that honestly call to mind fishbowls with the inverted curved collars and shiny material, that itself rather brings to mind fish scales, considering the creatures it is worn by.
'The Emissary'
This episode introduced Worf's former lover, K'Ehleyr (Suzie Plakson), who is first seen sporting a grey triangle patterned jumpsuit with a triangular opening flap fitted with buckles on the shoulders.
K'Ehleyr's second outfit is a much more sleek all-red outfit consisting of short leather jacket, over a spandex unitard worn with red leather boots - the jacket's sleeves are covered in golden curved pieces, and over the leotard is a belt of a similar shape.
K'Ehleyr's third outfit, worn during her trip to the holodeck's combat simulation, is a very sleek and bold unitard of a pink and black pattern, which is worn with black leather armor pieces around the shoulders and one side of the body, and then worn with a large studded glove. This outfit bears some slight similarities (with the black and pink pattern and asymmetry) to the outfit worn by Sybil Danning as Saint-Exmin in Battle Beyond the Stars, which Durinda Wood had also been costume designer on.
K'Ehleyr's last outfit is her Klingon uniform, which is mostly just identical to the Klingon uniforms designed by Robert Fletcher for the first four Star Trek movies, except that this one has a strip of shiny material down the front, possible designed to emulate chainmail.
'Peak Performance'
This episode involved the Enterprise undergoing training exercises, being overseen by the stuffy observer Sirna Kolrami (Roy Brocksmith), who is clad in a rather simple yellow tunic with a rounded collar, giving him a hunched appearance somewhat fitting his officious nature - the collar and sleeves are both fixed with triangular patterned markings.
Lastly, are Wood's redesigned uniforms for the Ferengi, which whilst sadly only very briefly seen in this episode, would end up regularly reused in the following seasons of The Next Generation (under Robert Blackman's tenure as costume designer). Wood's new Ferengi uniforms are a massive improvement compared to Theiss' designs, with the new uniforms having a more crisp outline, as well as the beautiful iridescent patches on the collar and sleeves. the collar being fixed with a ring-like piece.
