The costumes in the upcoming Star Trek: Discovery series are as baffling as they are beautiful. I imagine the artistic director found out that people liked to make replica star trek costumes and took it as a challenge. “We’ll not be having that,” they said. “We’ll have no pajama shirts or polyester jumpsuits in our show. Look upon what we have created, oh cosplayers, and despair.”
What? that doesn’t look too bad to you? Just some fitted sipper jackets and slacks? Look closer.
That is a tight-fitting one-sided collar with a slightly off-center zipper. Why? Why would they do this? There is no reason. They have to make all of their actors wear their hair on the opposite side just to balance out the asymmetry. It’s madness.
That’s just a collar, though. We can handle that, right? Well what about the gold stripes everywhere?
Those are raised gold stripes, perfectly parallel in long lines along curves. Not embroidered, either, from the looks of it, probably silicone. That’s totally something the average cosplayer can make themselves and not have it look like a four-year-old’s finger painting.
Then there’s the shiny, gold side panels. They’re the real middle finger to costumers.
Look closely, those are tiny tessellated federation swoops made of highly reflective gold material. From the looks of it, probably a custom silicone or latex print.
Assholes.
What about the aliens, though. You thought the old Klingons were hard enough to cosplay? Have a look at our new breed:
They wear full head prosthetics, hand prosthetics, and intricately sculpted body armor that looks like it belongs in Dungeons and Dragons more than Star Trek.
Don’t get me wrong. I like the costumes. I love them, actually. I think they’re a lot of fun and are full of interesting detail. They tell me stories about the people that wear them and they’re excellently crafted. The costumes also speak to the fact that the producers willing to break with the established designs from previous series, giving hope that Discovery will have the chance to be something new and interesting. I’m looking forward to failing to be able to recreate them.
There is one part of the uniforms that I have been able to recreate, though.
More about that on Monday.
All images propery of CBS.
