Costume Design by:
- Trisha Biggar ( notable efforts: The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (1996), Da Vinci's Demons (2014 - 2015), Emerald City (2017) )
Note: Most of the costumes for this film, as well as the follow-ups Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, were based on costume sketches by concept artist Ian McCaig (as well as others such as Dermot Power), with Biggar's duties more or less realizing them on the screen rather than designing proper.
Costume Design Genre: futuristic
The second part of the prequel trilogy,
Attack of the Clones, which once again had Trisha Biggar realizing lavish costumes (based on the various costume sketches by Iain McCaig and others) to be worn during some hilariously badly-written romance scenes. Padme's first costume is a purple lined dress of a floral print, with a large sleeves and speckled jewel pieces over the back of the collar, and her hair being bunched up in a conical hairstyle. A lot of the dresses worn in the prequels tend to consist of diagonal pieces of fabric, wthis being being no exception judging by the underskirt part of the dress.
Padme's second dress, worn after a videogame cutscene sequence, is a grey and black dress with large puffy sleeves and a patterned piece worn over the front. Also completing the look is a sort of headdress consisting of triangular metallic pieces worn over a 'bun' hairdo that was possibly meant to call back the hairdo worn by the princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) in the original films.
There was however a very elaborate dress worn by Padme that was never seen in the final film due to the sequence being deleted - in a senate hearing, Padme wears this large-sleeved dark blue and yellow dress, with filigree-like markings over the shoulders.
One of Padme's most striking outfits in the film is worn when she goes in disguise, leaving the planet Coruscant for her home planet of Naboo. This dress, according to Biggar, was inspired by Russian traditional gowns, with this being most obvious in the disc-shaped headress and long flowing shape of the dress, which is made of an orange and burgunday fabric no less. According to Biggar, a lot of the costumes in the prequels, including this one, were made with fabrics native to her home city of Glasgow in Scotland too!
This dress is slightly tweaked when onboard the passenger ship, with the headdress dovered with a lace veil, and the the burgundy part of the dress removed. Also of note is the disguise worn by Anakin (Hayden Christansen), which is a lovely patterned black and gold shirt.
When back to her family home on Naboo, Padme wears a lovely flowing dress made of a pastel pink and cream fabric, with curved metallic pieces around the neck. Shame this is the dress worn during the infamous 'I hate sand' scene.
Another lovely dress worn during a romance scene is this floral-patterned deal, adorned with translucent fabrics and a hairdo that has also been fitted to resemble the 'Danish buns' hairstyle Carrie Fisher sported as Leia in the original
Star Wars.
There was another dress worn by Padme that didnt make it into the final film due to its scene being cut, this being when Padme visits her family on Naboo - this is a bit of a more skimpy dress, consisting of a powder blue top and skirt that exposes the midriff.
Outdoors this dress is worn with a pale cloak as well.
Perhaps one of the most risque costumes in the prequel films (not worn by a background character, that is), this latex leather corset dress is worn with a glittery scarf, as well as briefly with a feathered collar.
In perhaps one of the film's mosr unpleasantly maudlin (and hilariously badly written) sequences, Anakin has nightmares about his mum getting murdered and returns to Tatooine, Padme travelling with him wearing a silvery patterned hooded cloak, fastened with a brooch.
Underneath the cloak is a another dress, this being a large sleeved blueish-white deal that has been cut to expose the midriff, and once again, to call back the original films, Padme's hair is arranged in a buns hairstyle.
During the most hilariously awful sequence of the film where Anakin spouts off like a whiny teenager about having massacred unarmed kids, Padme sports a blue dress which has a more stiff fabric piece over it, this more a stiff segment adorned with yellow, orange and and red patterns, as well as trailing threads hanging down from it as well.
For the rest of the film, Padme wears a form-fitting white jumpsuit, with lining around the collar, and worn with a beige cloak and boots - this design looks like it was attemping to call back the unused design sketches of Ralph McQuarrie that were left on the drawing room floor, as well as the white colour of Leia's costumes in
Star Wars and
The Empire Strikes Back.
Somehow Anakin and Padme get together at the end of the film and foor the wedding, Padme wears a wedding gown made of lace, which according to Biggar was found on an old bedsheet in Australia!
Naturally, in this film Padme once again has several servants around her, with the first we see being another 'decoy, though this unlucky one gets offed in an explosion. The outfit, briefly seen in the film itself, is a white gown adorned with black fabric the sides, as well as a black necklace worn around the neck and a hairdo akin to those sported by Queen Amidala in
The Phantom Menace.
Padme is always assisted by her faithful handmaiden Dorme (Rose Byrne), who in her first appearance wears a hooded purple gown, though the hood is down in all her scenes.
Dorme's second outfit is a more formal blueish-grey dress, with circular lining around the sides, and designed to slightly resemble a late era Victorian dress if anything. There seems to be another dress that Dorme wore that seems to have not made it into the final film, made of darker materials.
On Naboo is the current queen, Jamillia (Ayesha Dharker), who sports a regal gown of a black and white colourscheme, with the design being a bit similar to the red robe worn by Amidala in the previous film. Here, the look is slighty different due to Jamillia's makeup, and ridged fan-like headdress, as well as shiny black material going down the dress in a diagonal shape.
Also of note in this sequence is the one Naboo politician in the metallic green-blue dress designed to have a large feathery collar, as well as Sio Bibble (yep, I still hate typing up that name) returning in a rather drab tunic made out of a rough material. You can also see Jamillia's handmaidens, whose hooded gowns are made of a darker orange and red fabric.
The Naboo security forces are also in darker coloured uniforms as well, with Captain Typho (Jay Laga'aia) in a black and brown uniform made entirely of leather, with the brown segments worn over the shoulders, the uniform once again worn with a peaked cap.
The Naboo military's pilots are also in rather darker coloured uniiforms, now consisting of red pants, boots and black leather tunics worn over brown shirts, as well as face concealing helmets this time around.
The Jedi once again feature a lot in the film (due to being the mascots of the thing!), though none of them are really worth covering with the exception of Luminara Unduli (Mary Oyaya) who is only briefly glimpsed in the film (and was probably only conceived for merchandise reasons, like a lot of the characters frankly), but wears a very striking costume with a large headdress, and a patterned leather panel running down the front. This design was based on costume sketches by the production artist Dermot Power, who helped design the various dresses in this film rather than Iain McCaig.
Another one of the Jedi to wear a more unique costume is the Jedi Temple's archivist, who wears an outfit that really hammers home that the Jedi's robes are just kimonos, hers being adorned with ornate lettering.
Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is once again in this film, as well, he's the villain of this saga. In most of his scenes, he wears a black and golden robe with a diamond collar panel, as well as golden linings inside the sleeves - shame that the way his scenes are lit makes the outfit look much more drab than it is.
Much more striking is the outfit he wears during another dreary political scene, which is only briefly seen in the film (and surprisingly hard to find a decent picture of online) but has became a bit of a laughing stock on the internet due to the large, lumpy shoulder pads. Personally, I kind of love this outfit for being so ridiculous, especially with how it's worn by a major villain no less!
Bail Organa (Jimmy Smitts) is the senator for the planet Alderaan (all to set up the original films and their plot), and blueish-black and grey robe worn over a jumper, the robe adorned with patterns on the sides and back.
Like the other prequels a ton of costumes were made all to just never even get seen in the final film, usually for extras seen in the Coruscant bar segments as well as the various other senators, as well as the brown outfit worn by Palpatine's aide Mas Amedda, who wears armor-like pieces on his shoulders.
And on the note of costumes that never made it into the final cut, there's the various members of Padme'a family, whose scenes were entirely cut out of the final film - Padme's father Ruwee wears a tunic with straps and short sleeves, whilst her mother Jobal wears a purple top with wide shoulders. Her sister Sola meanwhile wears a veil, and the family servants sport blue dresses with yellowish bodices of sorts worn over them.
The film's political intrigue is centred on the 'Separatists' wanting to leave the Republic, though most of the Seperatists leaders are all just entirely CGI creations, as well as their leader Count Dooku (Christopher Lee, entirely phoning it in here) just in a dull black tunic worn with a cape. The only real notable members are once again the Trade Federation's heads Nute Gunray and his aide, who wears a similar costume as he did in
The Phantom Menace, albeit with a large leather panel down the front, and a different headdress.
The film of course is about the origins of the stormtroopers and Boba Fett of the original films, though the clone troopers here are all CGI, and Boba's 'father' Jango Fett (Temeura Morrison) just wears a recolour of Boba Fett's armor. However, Jango's partner Zam Wesell (Leanna Walsman) is a different story, being perhaps one of the more striking designs of the film. Zam's outfit is a purple jumpsuit made of a neoprene fabric, adorned with bulky leather and metallic tubing over the front. To add a bit of femininity, the jumpsuit is worn with skirt (that appears metallic, but was actually made of leather pieces too), as well as a helmet fitted with a suede and silk veil. Shame that in the actual film, her costume is obscured by all that neon lighting.
