Costume Design by:
- Bob Ringwood ( notable efforts: Excalibur (1981), Solarbabies (1986), Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992), Demolition Man (1993), The Shadow (1994), Batman Forever (1995), A. I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) )
The first major film adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel, David Lynch's Dune that was itself the product of nearly a decade's worth of attempts. The general aesthetic of Dune is an intentionally archaic, almost baroque one, and this archaic, almost anachronistic design sense was carried through to Ringwood's costume designs, though a lot of them however tend to consist of bland and dreary uniforms which I have declined to include in this entry. The story told in the film is partly narrated by the Princess Irulan (Virginia Madsen), who in both her initial appearance in the rather dreamlike introduction, as well as properly in the finale, sports a lovely gold and grey dress, designed in a way that resembles the dresses of the Elizabethan or perhaps Renaissance era, with a large collar, and the skirt part of the dress is covered in a pattern of golden symbols.The first scene set in the court of Emperor Shaddam IV (Jose Ferrer)- the Emperor himself is dressed in a rather uninteresting buttoned uniform with a sash over it, with the only interesting detail being the cape worn over it, which is an ornate affair made up with golden fabrics.
Irulan does sport another dress early in the film, this being another Renaissance-era style dress, again made up of a golden fabric, and worn with a little tiara and veil. Whilst this was Ringwood's first role as costume designer on a science-fiction film, this was the second in his career, having designed the costumes for John Boorman's Excalibur a few years earlier - a definite similarity between the dresses seen in Excalibur and Dune can be seen .Similar dresses of of mostly black material with gold trim can be seen being worn by the other female nobles of the Emperor's court.
A faction with a significant part to play in the story of Dune is the Bene Gesserit, a significant member of which is the Reverend Mother Gaius (Sian Phillip), who throughout the film sports their religious garb, consisting of a black dress covered in yellow lining, and fixed with lace around the chest and neck, finally worn with a rounded headpiece with accompanying veil - again, a design rather similar to some of the designs Ringwood had came up with in Excalibur. The same pattern of dress is worn by all members, with the only difference being the complexity (senior members seen with Gaius also have the lace), but with differently shaped headpieces.
Briefly, the Bene Gesserit are seen wearing imposing black raincoats, which seem to be designed to be entirely zipped up - sadly, these are just seen in just two shots, and nowhere else in the film.
One member of the Bene Gesserit, the Lady Jessica (Francesca Annis) is the mother of the destined savior of Arrakis, Paul Atreides (Kyle MacLachlan), and is first seen in a sleek black dress, with a stiff open collar - when first seen, she is wearing a large fur-lined raincoat over it, with the hood being very large.
Jessica sports another dress, which is similar in design to her first one except being made out of a lighter material, all in white, with more pronounced shoulders and frilly collar and sleeves - interestingly enough, Ringwood would design a very similar dress to this in the later Solarbabies, worn by that film's female villain!
There also was seemingly this dress that Jessica was meant to wear, though thanks to the publicity photos being in black and white, that is only seen in the extended television cut - it is of a shiny tan fabric. It seems to be keeping in with the design motif of her white dress, with a metallic brooch around the waist.
The head of the Atreides family, Duke Leto (Jurgen Prochnow) usually spends all his scenes in dull uniforms, barring one brief scene where he sports a dressing gown made of a brown material, the lapels covered in a mosaic-like pattern - this is seen better in a production photo, as in the actual film the outfit is only seen from behind and in the dark.
The Atreides' family doctor, Wellington Yueh (Dean Stockwell) sports a black and silver-lined buttoned coat with cuffs made of a ridged harsh material, as well as leather segments over one half of the chest for medical equipment - the coat is worn with a silver belt and black boots.
In the world of Dune, instead of computers there are 'mentats', who have intricate skills of calculation - as such, the two mentats seen in the film are clad in very formal, almost academic wear, with the first being Leto's personal mentat, Thufir Hawat (Freddie Jones) - always seen in a long black buttoned coat, with his first having fur lining, and the second showing the odd cut of lapels the mentats have on their coats more clearly.
Most of the uniforms in this film, just are not very interesting, with the Atreides standard uniforms being single-breasted buttoned tunics worn with boots, and the Emperor's generals wearing Prussian-style tunics with a golden band down the front. One highlight is the desert uniform worn by the officers on Atreides, mostly on account of them having flaps exposing mesh panels that go over and actually reveal the chest, as seen in a particularly infamous publicity photo of Kyle Machlachlan! The soldiers under their command, however, are in dull jumpsuits worn with caps and fitted with pockets on the front and back.
The Fremen also have a few priests sporting red cloaks with black tabards covered in symbols, as well as acolytyes in black habits with zig-zag patterns down the front and cuffs, though these are sadly only really seen in the extended television cut of the film. Also of note is the beautifully patterned ceremonial robe that Paul wears at the film's end, covered in mottled blue and peach patterns and rune-like symbols.
It was originally intended for there to be street scenes on Arrakis, with the citizens wearing a variety of wonderfully ornate headwear - sadly, the scene was entirely scrapped from the movie, a fact that Ringwood was documented as being very miffed by! The hats were all briefly modelled for production photography before shooting, and can be all seen here (ignore the insufferable comments from boring nerds).
To survive in the harsh desert climate, the Fremen wear special 'stillsuits' designed to preserve all human bodily fluids, and this resulted in one of the most famous designs of the movie, as well as being one of Ringwood's first instances of having to work with rubber, though this film would be heavy on the rubber and leather outfits. Ringwood intended the stillsuits to look like a 'second skin', with the suits designed to resemble musculature, as well as the ornate patterns almost making it have an 'aboriginal' look, according to Ringwood in interviews on the Dune costumes. The actual suits gave the production team quite a headache to realise as Ringwood did not want to have the suits realised with a substitute material such as foam, so a compromise was reached, with the bulk of the suit made of foam, but painted over with a rubber mixture that would coat the foam entirely, topped off with a shiny paint coat to make the suits have a slick sheen - which isn't really seen in the final film thanks to most characters wearing them in the desert!
The suits were notoriously hellish to wear in the desert heat, but the actors somehow still enjoyed wearing them because thanks to the musculature 'they had the bodies they never had' and thus 'felt very sexy'! Different sculpts were made for the few women Fremen stillsuits, as well as miniature versions for the few child actors.
The villain of the film is the homophobic caricature Baron Harkonnen (a character which truly feels more vile knowing that Frank Herbert, the original book's author, had a gay son who he tormented and drove away from him), played by Kenneth McMillan in a fatsuit and admittedly pretty slick red and black vinyl overcoat - shame about the godawful caricature of a character it was made for though.
It is the Baron's newphews who are much more noteworthy, with Feyd Rautha (Sting) being clad in another slick outfit, made of of ridged leather and straps, with pronounced shoulders and collar, as well as what looks like a corset on the waist and of course, a codpiece. Of course, one very infamous bare minimum of an outfit that Sting was made to wear on the film was the plastic winged speedo which was only designed at the last minute - the original scene would have had him nude!
The Beast Rabban (Paul Smith) is another nephew of the Baron, and is dressed in a similar outfit to Feyd - however, his lacks the straps, as well as the collar being entirely around the neck, almost as if it was part of a spacesuit. Rabban's suit is also much more weathered in comparison to Feyd's more pristine one.
The Harkonnens have their own 'mentat', the devious Piter De Vries (Brad Dourif), who is dressed roughly the same as Hawat, except his coat is a much more drab grey fabric, though this does allow for the odd design of the lapels to be seen better.
Nefud (Jack Nance) is one of the commanders of the Baron's army, and is in a ridged shiny black vinyl uniform with a collar similar to Feyd's outfit, tho his outfit is cut much more loose.
The House Harkonnen' soldiers are all in similar uniforms to Nefud, being all leather jumpsuits with high collars, and worn with imposing gas masks - some of the gas masks are worn without face shields, but all have large pipes sticking out, fixed to the 'plugs' on each shoulder - in a way, these designs resemble Moebius' original concept for the Sardaukar uniforms in the Jodorowsky attempt, than this film's own attempt at the Sardaukar do!. Also of note is how the soldiers seem to have a haircut where they have a rectangular strip shaved in the middle. The Sardaukar meanwhile, are just in simplistic black rubber hazmat suits, with the visors having a green light just behind the glass.
Lastly, are the uniforms worn by the Guild Navigators, which again are mostly made out of rubber and leather, in this case being large coats with high collars, and some of their number wearing misshapen rubber masks over their faces - implied to have been mutated too far by the 'spice'. It is interesting to see the amount of kinky rubber and leather designs in the film, considering how the Jodorowsky attempt had H.R Giger assigned as one of its artists!
It should be worth noting that whilst so many costumes were designed for the film, there are of course a few surviving ones still for sale, with photographs showing them in full, and they can be viewed on this page of the DuneInfo website.
