The key challenges were the sheer volume of costumes required by the story and the short time frame in which all of Lucas' ideas had to become a physical reality. In less than a year, Biggar and her core staff of 40 people painstakingly designed and assembled over one thousand costumes -- ranging from a host of elaborate, rich and embossed outfits to simple, yet carefully detailed slave costumes. "Our costume/prop department even manufactured all the accessories including helmets, headdresses and belt buckles," says Biggar who supervised the process. "They did an incredible job."
McCaig began creating costume concepts at a very early stage of pre-production. "There wasn't even a script yet," he recalls. "George would visit and describe scenes and characters so we could begin working on some designs."
While giving McCaig and Biggar considerable freedom in coming up with their designs and costumes, Lucas was nonetheless very involved in the shaping of these worlds of fashion. "George is really the ultimate costume designer," says McCaig. "He took what he wanted and guided us where he wanted to go."
Echoes Biggar: "George was very involved throughout the entire process. He would regularly call meetings to discuss all aspects of fabrics, colors and shapes." After McCaig completed his designs and sketches, Biggar took his work and turned it into reality while adding her own ideas and designs.
The richness, variety and intricacy of the Episode I costumes can be seen on many of the story's characters, but none more so than Queen Amidala, played by Natalie Portman.
The Queen wears eight costumes. Far fewer were originally planned, but Lucas' desire to expand the saga's fashion universe led to an almost three-fold increase. "George wanted the Queen to have a different outfit every time we see her," Biggar says. Each of the Queen's outfits has its own special look and design. Perhaps the most complex is the Queen's Throne Room dress, which is illuminated by a series of lights around the hem. Work on the dress, which took almost eight weeks to complete, began with the manufacturing of an undergarment, designed almost like an upside-down ice cream cone; this facilitated a perfect fit for Natalie Portman. The undergarment was made with numerous small panels of canvas reinforced around the bottom to keep the bell shape.
The dress had several layers to take the weight of its lights and wires running to the batteries that powered the lights. While velvet was originally considered, camera lighting requirements necessitated a change to silk. In keeping with the cultural/historical basis of many of the costumes, the dress has what Biggar calls "a sort of Chinese Imperial feel" through its scale and silhouette.
The Queen's costumes inspired Biggar and her team to seek out fabrics from all over the world. They even created a few of their own. "We had fabrics woven, painted, dyed -- we've done everything you could do to a piece of fabric," recalls Biggar.
The Queen's first travel dress was completely handmade and utilizes a spider-web type of fabric that took one person, working five days a week for ten hours each day, over a month to make. The dress started out being stitched onto a special, very thin fabric backing. This fabric was then placed in water, causing the backing to completely melt, leaving the stitching that had been placed on top. Each panel of the dress was stitched onto another panel without any seams. The result: an intricate and delicate addition to the fashion universe of Episode I.
Biggar and her team also used several antique pieces. For the Queen's second foreign residence gown, Biggar found a piece from around 1910, but of whose origin she is unsure. "We think it was a dress," she comments, "but it was in so many pieces we weren't sure what it was." Biggar transformed the piece's motifs into intricate embroidery.
The Queen's battle dress was also time and work intensive -- it took one person over a month to complete. The costume was made from silkworm pods from India that were woven into a silk net. The pods were removed at the top of the costume, then individually stitched back on to create the proper shoulder shape. The Queen's Senate appearance gown, with three layers, is even more intricate. The underdress, which is in orange short silk with a green weave -- a seventy year old fabric -- is pleated; these pleats catch the light of the outfit's colors whenever the character moves.
