The Star Wars franchise features some of the most iconic costumes to ever grace the screen; from Darth Vader to Din Djarin, many of them are now rightly considered nothing short of iconic.
Ahsoka adds some incredible new efforts to this Galaxy Far, Far Away with characters such as Ahsoka Tano, Baylan Skoll, Grand Admiral Thrawn, and even costumes originally seen in animated TV shows The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels.
Elissa Alcala (Assistant Costume Designer), Devon Patterson (Costume Supervisor), and the late Shawna Trpcic (Costume Designer) are all Emmy-nominated - "Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes" for their work on Ahsoka. Earlier this month, we were fortunate enough to sit down with Elissa and Devon to learn more about how they approached the Disney+ series.
As well as sharing plenty of fascinating insights into Shawna's creative process, they break down the creation of costumes worn by the heroes and villains listed above, along with The Great Mothers, Marrok, Thrawn's undead Stormtroopers, and more.
We also hear from Elissa and Devon about making costumes suitable for action scenes and the surprising hidden details on Baylan Skoll and The Great Mothers' robes.
You can check out the full interview with the Ahsoka costume designers below.
I'm a huge, huge fan of this show and I wanted to start by asking about Shawna Trpcic and what you both learned from working with her that maybe you'll carry forward in your respective careers.
Devon: Well, Shawna's big thing was making sure to get people into [The Costume Designers Guild]. She literally wanted to pass the information on to everybody in terms of making sure that we had people who understood the craft, who wanted to be in this business and to give them an opportunity. And I would say the biggest takeaway that I have from Shawna is to pull people up behind you.
Elissa: Yeah, [it's] the same thing. Shawna definitely hand-selected the team, but in a way that she brought in people she knew were passionate about what it was that she did or what we did, and for the project itself. But the other thing that she did, that I really liked was, she believed in what she liked to say was an equal playing field. That we were all equals, and that we were all sort of a part of this project. That we could all throw ideas at each other, that there was no hierarchy. She didn't sit at the top, she was equal with us. She wanted to collaborate with us and work with us as artists, and she called us her artists. It meant a lot to a lot of our crew. This was a true collaboration between her and her crew, and between Dave [Filoni] and everyone.
There are some phenomenal costumes throughout this series and I wanted to start with Ahsoka's and the white costume she wears when she comes back from the World Between Worlds. Could you talk about the evolution of a look for her many people have compared to going from Gandalf the Grey to Gandalf the White?
Elissa: I mean, that was definitely an inspiration and something we had as an actual meme that Shawna printed out and put up on a wall. That was definitely a huge collaboration between Dave, Shawna, Doug [Chiang], and Rosario [Dawson] who all kind of gave their input. Rosario especially wanted the costume to evolve with her. And so she was very involved in the lines and the way that they changed, and the bodice and how she could move a little bit differently. And then, with that, too, Shawna definitely still wanted to incorporate bits and pieces resembling the grey costume. So we did have a new cape that was hand woven. [It was] reminiscent of the grey, but the white then evolved into more details, and the more it evolved, everyone had a huge part in it.
Devon: Yes, I would say that exactly.
When we go into those flashbacks, we see Ahsoka and Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker in their Clone Wars costumes which people will be familiar with from the animated shows. How challenging was it to translate those from animation to live-action and to do so in a way that's going to make fans happy?
Elissa: From day one, Shawna always loved the fans and she was always very grateful to the fans. We consider the fans when we are making things as well. We always talk about them as we're actually making them. But with going from animated to live-action, there is definitely this idea of, 'Well, how can we take inspiration from the costume and what can we pull from the animation into the live-action that is still practical?' So, how do we make it practical? You can't go from an animated character to live-action and make it exact, because there are certain things in animation that just aren't practical for a living human body.
We definitely wanted to make sure that we always paid respect to the animated characters seeing as how Shawna was such a huge fan of Rebels and The Clone Wars. So was a good chunk of our crew. We definitely made sure that we had, if it wasn't an exact reproduction of what it was in the animation, we wanted to pay respect and do honour to the Fans. I think we managed to do that.
Devon: Whenever [Shawna] did something she always had the fans in mind. It was like, 'How would the fans relate to this?' Shawna adored the fans, and wanted to make sure that the fans were happy. I mean, that was one of Shawna's big things, because she always got so much love from them, especially when she would go to any of the events like Comic-Con or D23. And they would always give her inspiration. And so, as she looked at everything, she's like, 'What's gonna make the fans happy? How do we make this work?' So it stays true to the animation, but also stays true to the universe, and stays true to the fans."
One costume the fans were going over with a fine toothcomb was Thrawn's uniform. On the surface, it looks as you would expect. But then, when you start looking closer, there are little defects, and we see it's a bit scuffed up. Can you both talk us through the process of creating that design and telling a story with the costume?
Elissa: So with Thrawn and everyone that's on that ship, they've been on this planet for a long time and they don't necessarily have access to new uniforms or a way to necessarily fix it. Fans know how meticulous Thrawn is and he's all about presentation. So we had to show that this costume had gone through this period of time, but we also had to show it in a way that would show that Thrawn took care of his costume. His costume may have started getting some holes in it, because it's made from a fabric that would have gotten holes in it over time and, depending on the weather, and how it was stored. But Thrawn would have taken the time to fix his costume. You see those little details of how he would have come in and then fixed it so that was the story.
Thrawn is surrounded by his Stormtroopers as well and we see they're undead and broken, held together with the red ribbons which are such a cool visual. What was it like to work on Stormtroopers in a way we haven't seen in Star Wars before?
Devon: Well, I will say that Shawna really wanted to reference Kintsugi. The gold that you see is the Kintsugi method. And Shawna really did her research because she wanted to find something that was unique. She was like, 'Well, you know, they're broken. But this method joins [the armour] together and brings some depth into it.' And in relation to the red fabric, that's the touch of the witches. If you notice, the witches are all in red, and so it's they are keeping them together. It shows you Thrawn's power, but the witches are helping him to maintain his Stormtroopers through life, and technically through death.
You mentioned the witches there, so how much fun was it to bring the Great Mothers to life? They're such unique characters and those costumes, I think, really jump off the screen as well.
Elissa: They were so much fun, and we actually got to have three separate teams workiny on them. Not as competition or anything like that. But we actually got to have three distinct tailoring groups that worked on each of them. And again Shawna collaborated with each group. And she'd be like, 'Okay, let's try this here' or 'What do you feel about this?' Or our tailor would be able to come back and say, 'Well, what do you think if I maybe did this instead of this?' She would always respond, 'Yes, let's try it.'
All three of them then had to work together to make sure that there was consistency in the costumes, and that they did have sort of similarities because they are the three Great Mothers, and so they had to be different, but at the same time, the same. I know our teams also had a lot of fun working on them and getting to collaborate and talk about how they were building them and coming up with new methods of how they were going to do things.
Devon: And Shawna did a lot of research. She had a lot of images that she presented to the teams in terms of her research to say, 'Hey, we want them to be able to flow,' because David Filoni, one of his favourite words, is flow. So he wants things to be able to move. And so she also went into that with, 'We need to make sure that as the witches move, their dresses move, to make it as ethereal to a certain degree as possible.' They couldn't be brand spanking new. They needed to be aged as well because of their years and being on that particular planet. And basically, what's happening on the surface of that planet.
Elissa: We always had a a fan in our fitting room that we could plug in, and then Shawna would take the fan and move it around to make sure that our costumes flowed and then she would usually video record it or Dave would be there and would get to see it. So yeah, we had fans in the fitting room!
It's been a long time since we've seen Ezra and he gets a completely different kind of style from what we saw in Star Wars Rebels. What did you enjoy about coming up with a new look for him?
Elissa: Ezra was really important for us, because, like you said, it's a brand new costume, and the fans had their memory of what Ezra was before he disappeared. We don't have anything that's semi-reminiscent of his old costume or his old look. But we still needed to make sure that it was Ezra. He put the costume together himself from the materials that he found on this planet. They needed to look like they were from the planet and still needed to look like something Ezra himself would put together and would consider all of the pieces. So he would have some armour because he's on a planet where, you know, there are enemies there and he doesn't know if he's gonna have to get in a scrap of some kind. But they were going to be found. Pieces that he found amongst the locals and are found amongst the plant life. I think it was important for us to have this look of being Jedi without them being just Jedi robes. So, definitely inspired by Jedi, because Ezra would have thought about that as he was making his clothes. But then making sure they were comfortable too.
When it comes to creating costumes that are suitable for action scenes, does that make things more difficult in terms of how you realize them from the concept art to actually getting them on the actors?
Devon: Well, not so much because we understand which fabrics have stretch in them and which don't. So we try to find things that do have some stretch that could work, or sometimes if there's just a fabric that we feel really works for a character. For the most part, we did try to find fabrics that had stretch to them, that were durable, and that looked like they could hold up. As we know, most people in Star Wars don't really change clothes. So we have to make sure that they're wearing something that could literally last through the test of time. And actually there are some durable fabrics out there that work well for us.
Elissa: The other thing, Shawna wasn't just a collaborator within our own department. She was a collaborator with all departments. So one of the things that was really important for her, that she understood that these costumes not only had to flow, but they had to be able to move and we are a stunt-heavy show. In the very beginning, from day one we were meeting with stunts, and we had a binder for them of all of the costumes that were going to need stunts. We had the sketches in there and we sat down with our stunt team. We're like, 'Hey, this is what we need to do. We want your input of how you think we need to rig this costume so you guys can have the correct movement.'
Or just asking, 'Do you know what it is they're going to be doing? What sort of tumbles and what sort of kicks? What do we need to consider as we are building this costume?' So stunts were very involved in our process. One of the favourite things that we always had with any of our actors, not just our stunt performers, but our actors as well, is when they would come in for fittings, we would do what was called the squat test to make sure that they could move in their costume. So movement was a really big, important aspect that Shawna considered from day one, and we built costumes with that in mind.
We've talked about some returning fan favourites but also get three new characters here with Baylan Skoll, Shin Hati, and Marrok. Can you both talk about their respective costumes and what you wanted to do with them?
Devon: Well, for Marrok, Shawna had cast iron as her inspiration for him because she felt it was strong and durable, just like that character, even though he does well..,we all know what happens to him in the show. It took a series of processes to get that character to look that way. And that was a collaboration. With multiple speciality custom-made teams to try to get that finish on that armour to look that way, and she was very happy with the way it came out.
Elissa: We knew who the stunt performer was pretty much gonna be from day one and it was Paul Darnell. We were able to involve him and the choreographer in the build of that, because obviously he has to be able to see through that helmet. And so we were able to work with the stunt performers as well and they were able to give an input from process to process to process. We were able to make sure that that costume worked immaculately when it was time for it to be worn on screen.
For Shin and Baylan, those costumes were two that we had sketches from pretty much from day one from both Dave and Doug. Dave really wanted the two of them to look like they were travellers that they had been wearing these costumes for who knows how long but that they should look like they have wear and tear in them because they've been in battles. We don't know where they came from, but their costumes should tell this story and give this backstory because we don't get backstory for them. Their costumes should hint at their backstory. For Shawna it was really important for her to tell a story, and she was able to do that with the different fabric choices that she had.
There are so many different fabrics involved in those costumes that add texture. Ray [Stevenson] came in for his fitting and he was like, 'I want to incorporate this space stone that I found and I want it in my costume.' Of course, Shawna was like, Oh, my gosh, yes, let's do it!' And she then took from Ray, what was only supposed to have a ring with the stone in it - that's all he asked for - and we incorporated this green colour of the stone throughout the costume. So he's got it on his armour. He's got this green tint to it and in his clothing, there are green marks as well. We actually took the stone and we had one of our custom-made tailors do a Viking knot, and throughout the Viking knot there are pieces of the little stone, and throughout his costume, it's mainly on his vest, but it's also on trim pieces and stuff. So Shawna always, even if fans don't get to see it and even if you don't see it on screen, it was really important for her to tell the full story of these characters in their clothing, and the actor knew it was there, so it would help them as well really get into character.
I know fans love finding hidden details on costumes, but do both of you have a favourite hidden detail on any of the costumes that perhaps we wouldn't see at first glance?
Elissa: Something I think is cool and I don't actually think you see on any of the witches is all three of them have what we called their witch's pouch. Shawna was like, 'Oh, this is where all of the little gadgets that they would need to cast spells if they were to pull something out is' on their costume. So all of them have these little pieces that are fabric that's wrapped and has string on it, and there's stuff hanging from it, and all of them have it on their costume somewhere, and they're all in different places.
Those were really important for Shawna to do, because she's like, 'They're witches. They gotta have something that they could be able to pull out and say, "Oh, let me just cast a spell really quick."' Even though that's not necessarily how their powers work, Shawna said, 'They would have something that would store things they might need.' We do have these little pouches I think you can see on some of them, but they're in various places. One of them has it on the hood. One of them has it on the belt, and I don't remember where the third one is, but all three of them have one.
Devon: It would have been Baylan's costume for me. That would have been my hidden feature.
All episodes of Ahsoka are now streaming on Disney+.