Behind the Seams: The Costumes of Andor Season 2 - Updated

Cassian Andor — A Rebel Leader

When Rogue One introduced the character nearly ten years ago, no one had any idea we would hear from Cassian Andor again. Helping the character come full circle in Andor Season 2 was a profound moment for Wilkinson and his team.

“For Cassian on Yavin, when he first arrives there, he has what I would describe as his regular Cassian look. It's not the hero that we see in Rogue One. He’s still working his way to that, and so it has a loose, unstructured, casual vibe,” Wilkinson says. “His last costume in episode 12 is our interpretation of his look from Rogue One. So he marches straight from the end of season 2 into the film. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about when we created that costume and saw him walk across the tarmac, and everything around him in Yavin was galvanizing towards this moment. It was wonderful for all of us. He’s walking into his destiny.”

The Rebel Alliance — A Legacy of Human Stories

The rebels we find on Yavin at the beginning of the season are the fractured Maya Pei Brigade. They are helpless after the apparent death of their leader, quickly falling into chaos. The infighting of the early Rebellion is made all the more stark contrasted with the Empire casually discussing mass slaughter while eating finger foods. Ineptitude and ego are the enduring images of the rebels on Yavin that we carry for much of the season. They are not yet the rebel force we know from Rogue One and Star Wars: A New Hope.

“One of my favorite parts of Season 2 was working out how to develop the look on Yavin,” Wilkinson says. “It was wonderful to think about how all of these rebel fighters came from different cultures all over the galaxy and arrived on Yavin. You go from this wonderful diversity of looks of fighters arriving from episodes 7, 8, 9 through to 10, 11, 12 — a year later — and they're starting to be a bit more unified. So we backed into the Rogue One look for Yavin. [We] deconstructed that to show a nice development of them working together, developing their own type of uniform, and becoming more of a unified fighting force for the Resistance.”

The team had a long creative legacy to pull from as they worked backward, adds Wilkinson.

“One of the incredible things about working as a costume designer in Star Wars is that you're standing on the shoulders of such incredible costume designers from John Mollo, Michael Kaplan, Dave Crossman, and Glyn Dillon [who returned for Season 2 as concept artist],” he says. “All of these incredibly talented people have set the language of costuming within Star Wars.”

For Andor, it was essential to find utilitarian solutions for characters’ day-to-day lives. “We've always seen the tarmac and the control rooms on Yavin. But we've never actually seen where these people live,” he says. “So we created the village of Yavin, where people live, shop, and hang out.” Through Bix and others, we see character looks interpreted through the color palette and textures the team created for Yavin. “We want it to feel incredibly real. Our characters are all humans, and so there's no ornamentation or fuss on their costumes,” Wilkinson notes. “They're all incredibly stripped back. Hopefully, there's always one or two things about the way they're dressed that the audience can identify with from their world or from global culture and history — something to attach onto that gives them meaning, so these characters don’t just feel like sci-fi action figures but real, relatable characters that — like you and I — have their good days and their bad days, their struggles and their triumphs.”

Mon Mothma — A Senator No Longer

In the tail end of the season, after years of meticulous and secretive maneuvering, Mon fully crosses the threshold of openly defying the Empire. She can no longer exist in the world of opulence and fake smiles that has long been her battleground. With the last domino toppled, Wilkinson and the team knew they needed to morph Senator Mothma into the Rebel leader we already know.

“We wanted to suggest that it’s quite jarring to go from this architectural urban look (in Coruscant) to the look when you're living on a hidden base in a jungle,” Wilkinson says.

“We wanted to bridge that gap with the clothes. Our interpretation of her Rogue One look with her pleated robes has an element of her Coruscant looks. It's quite tailored and sleek, but it’s out of a much more home-spun, rustic fabric appropriate for Yavin. A year has passed, so she's had time to adapt her look. [She’s not] some intergalactic, super-star senator. She needs to be with the people, collaborate, and wear clothes for a jungle setting.”

Mon’s final form is simplified yet still chic, a classic silhouette for her new role. “When she takes off her council robes in Yavin, she has an extremely simple and more relaxed look underneath,” Wilkinson says. “She has a long top, trousers, and boots — that to me are a signal of her future. She’s sitting down with people at the breakfast table and not putting herself on a pedestal. She’s really rolling up her sleeves and working out how to move forward with the Rebel Alliance.”

Cassian as Ronni Googe — War Correspondent

For the third arc, Cassian adopts a new persona to return to Ghorman on another mission, and journalist Ronni Googe is far grittier than his Varian Skye appearance.

“[Ronni Googe’s costume] is like a field journalist, someone who goes to the front line in a war or a distressed situation. It’s a beautiful long trench coat that we created for him, he has linens with great Star Wars-y details—so he sort of blends in with the other reporters that are coming to document this situation that's arising in Ghorman,” Wilkinson says. “When he breaks into the Senate, he has a different wardrobe, which is more Coruscant-y, more tailored with corporate vibes. It’s much more of a Washington-style, high-level political journalist. So that helps him gain entrance to the Senate.”

During the extraction of Mon Mothma, there’s a moment where Cassian drapes his coat over Mon's shoulders to help her blend in. In this moment where she can no longer operate as a Senator, she puts on the coat of a Rebel.

“She covers up her sort of iconic pale white wardrobe and puts on his cool trench coat,” Wilkinson says. “They have a great sequence when they escape through Coruscant together, and it's one of my favorite moments in the season.”

Syril Karn - Imperial or Ghor?

In the first season, Syril is a disgruntled low-level worker trying to rise through the ranks and cozy up to Imperial forces. By Season 2, he finds himself on an espionage fact-finding mission, a double agent spying for the Empire. He gleefully and deceptively ingratiates himself with the Ghorman Front for Dedra Meero and the ISB, but he’s not privy to the full extent of the Empire’s plans for the planet and ultimately he’s little more than a pawn.

“That is an interesting journey for Syril because he starts to sympathize with the people on Ghorman and questions the Imperial motives for the planet,” Wilkinson says. “Costume-wise, it was wonderful to help Kyle [Soller], the actor, feel the influence of his environment. He was wonderful at thinking about the different beats of what the character is feeling at any moment.”

Throughout the series, we see Syril's incredibly meticulous approach to life. Fashion then seems like a natural extension of Syril’s interests.

“Here's a person that is perhaps not the most expressive, open character. But we likened it to the first time you ever travel to Europe. You arrive somewhere, and everything seems so culturally rich,” Wilkinson adds. “They have a sense of tradition and pride about their history. And so I like to think that as Syril lived on Ghorman, he was affected by the clothing there. He wanted a little bit of Ghorman flavor for himself. He has a long, rich, dark brown woolen coat, and he styles it up with beautiful velvet scarves and a beret. In a way, he's found his people. It’s like ‘finally, people who appreciate the difference between a collar that's one centimeter higher.’”

Early on, Wilkinson and showrunner Tony Gilroy discussed creating a signature look for Ghorman, an iconic piece that was synonymous with the culture. They landed on the Ghorman trench coat. “It's what everyone sees when they're hustling down the street. It's the sort of thing that if you had traveled back home from a trip to Ghorman, people would say, 'Oh my gosh! Is that a Ghorman trench coat?’”

“The last time we see Syril, he actually has gone so far as to buy the Ghorman trench coat. It has lovely detailing through the cuffs and collar. Syril has a beautiful cape detail on the back because we knew he would be involved in a big stunt sequence with Cassian. So, we wanted a great silhouette that would move beautifully."

Cassian as Varian Skye - The Designer

In the second Arc, Cassian is tasked with assessing the state of the Ghorman Front. To get the job done, he takes on the name Varian Skye and dons a “fresh blue suit, Coruscanti shirt, [and] polished shoes.” In Cassian’s own words, when he tells Bix about the mission, “I was a fashion designer. I was very, very pretty.”

“I was a very proud costume designer for the creation of Varian Skye. He has to pretend to be sourcing fabrics and getting ideas together for his next collection since Ghorman is a planet that produces beautiful fabrics. It's so the polar opposite of Cassian’s regular, rough, gritty look,” observes Wilkinson. “[The costume] is very polished and tailored and Diego wore those clothes beautifully. He is such a consummate actor. We put different clothes on him in the fitting room, and he fixes the way he stands and walks. It gives him ideas about his body language for the different personas he's adopting. We had a wonderful time collaborating on these costumes together.”

Cassian and Bix — Hiding in Plain Sight

A year after our crew is forced to leave Mina-Rau, Cassian and Bix are trying to have a life in their safehouse in between missions, but the paranoia and the trauma run through everything. Their attempt at a simple life, but with great pains underneath, is captured in their attire.

“[Episode 4] is quite a sad episode,” Wilkinson says. “[Bix and Cassian] are negotiating what their future might be together. And so they are in very deep blues, grays, and browns. They're [also] trying to blend into their world in Coruscant. But it’s not your shiny, senatorial layer of Coruscant. It’s down in the lower depths where regular people live. It’s something that we’ve hinted at in Season 1. But we were able to go deeper into that whole look and the whole aesthetic. It has quite a gritty urban feel to it.”

Luthen Rael — A War on Two Fronts

The enigmatic Luthen Rael returns, commanding the screen every second he is on it. From his likely lethal observation of Tay Kolma at the Chandrilan wedding to his rendezvous with his various operatives, he is always on no matter the environment. He pushes forward for the rebellion as two distinct people — a jovial, worldly party-goer, and an accelerationist running out of time.

“Luthen, for me, embodies the wonderful costume challenges of Andor,” Wilkinson says. “All of our characters have many different versions of their personas. And indeed with Luthen, we have what we call Gallery Luthen where he is the art dealer and he's hob knobbing with all of the high society of Coruscant — pretending to be incredibly affable and sophisticated and his wardrobe is beautifully tailored with lovely combinations of fabrics and textures that speak to his worldliness.”

Then we have what we call Natural Luthen. Which is when he's on mission, and doesn't want to be confused with his gallery persona. We see much more earthy colors. It's more practical. Utilitarian. We've created a beautiful big chocolate-y brown cape for him that is very sculptural and Stellan wears it beautifully 'cause he's so tall and slim. When we see him picking up Cassian from Ghorman, that look is sort of a riff of his vibe from Season 1.”

Cassian Andor - TIE Fighter Pilot

When we reunite with Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) at the remote Imperial testing facility, he’s a more poised and relatively experienced rebel compared to his accomplice, Niya. While Niya shakes with nervousness, we see a calm and collected Cassian, already in disguise. He’s able to instill confidence in her for the risk she’s taking to help the cause, and that carries us along as the mission gets underway. That is until Cassian learns that the ship he’s set to hijack is not the one he was expecting.

“We created a special look for [Cassian] based on the classic TIE fighter look but with a red shoulder detail that showed that this wasn’t your average TIE fighter,” Wilkinson says. “This was something new [for] a new prototype.”

“It’s all that we see Cassian in for the first three episodes. So we put lots of love into all the details. We also scaled down the classic TIE fighter helmet to be better proportioned to Diego’s frame. We had, I think, 10 different versions of [the costume] because he starts nice and fresh. And then what he goes through in the first three episodes. It really gets a big beating down. It’s covered in mud, and it’s ripped by the end. It was fun to chart those different points on his journey.”

Dedra Meero - Off the Clock

In Season 1, we only ever saw Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) in the context of her mundane yet brutal work as an Imperial bureaucrat. In Season 2, while those elements remain at the forefront of her character, in the first few episodes we follow up on her personal life — including her relationship with Syril Karn (Kyle Soller).

“What a thrill this season to think about what Dedra wears when she’s not dressed in her ISB uniform. That was a gift from Tony Gilroy,” Wilkinson says. “Denise and I really talked a lot about this. We get to see Dedra in her apartment. It’s so important to see that other side of her.

“She gets home. She’s probably super relieved to take off the armor of the ISB highly-tailored uniform. But, in a way, she just sort of changes into another version of that. The colors are the same. She slips into clothes that are more comfortable, but also in a structured and formal way. She keeps that rigidity even in her private life. She believes so much in her morality and ethics that I think she can’t ever let that slip. Her mentality is very black and white. I think she only wears ivory and black this whole season.”

Leida Mothma and Stekan Sculdun - The Chandrillian Bride and Groom

One of the most exciting challenges that Wilkinson and the team tackled was leaning into the culture of Chandrila, the home planet of Mon Mothma. Season 1 sets up the marriage between Mon’s daughter, Leida Mothma, and Stekan Sculdun as a political maneuver to help Mon cover up for funding the rebel activities. Season 2 picks up at the start of the three-day ceremony, resplendent with outfit changes and hundreds of guests, giving Wilkinson and the team ample opportunity to fill out quirks and cultural details.

“I knew [Chandrila] had to be incredibly refined and ritualized. Tony mentioned in the script that it’s sort of Japan meets Scandinavia,so that’s a kernel of an idea,” Wilkinson says. “I looked into many different influences—Asian cultures, Korea, Japan. I did mood boards for Tony that had a very specific color palette, lots of pale, subtle colors, neutrals — colors that we don’t really see anywhere else in our season. Lots of beautiful shimmery textures and fragile fabrics. I tried to capture a timelessness — both ancient and futuristic feeling.”

The formal feeling and air of tradition was important to the team.

“You have these two young people coming together in a very ritualized fashion — it’s these practices [that] are being developed for centuries, millennia on Chandrila,” Wilkinson says. “We worked with a choreographer for the wedding ceremony, and so I took into account those movements when I was thinking about the costumes — the shapes that they would create as they raised their arms or walked down a corridor.”

Mon Mothma - Mother of the Bride

You can’t discuss costumes in Andor without dedicating substantial time to Mon Mothma’s (Genevieve O'Reilly) closet. During the three-day wedding event alone, Mon goes through six costume changes, the creation of which helped Wilkinson define the direction of the Chandrilan aesthetic overall.

“With Mon Mothma, there’s always that wonderful balance between what’s going on behind the public face. To hint that in her costumes, we always had mini layers going on so that she can reveal and conceal.”

While each of Mon Mothma’s costumes helped bring different aspects of the Chandrilan culture to life, her final ensemble for the arc, a sumptuous layered golden dress, received particular attention.

“At the end of episode 3, we see [Mon] losing herself. A lot of thought went into making sure we could really capture on-screen subliminally what Mon Mothma was going through at that moment,” Wilkinson says. “The pressure has been so much on her. She can hardly bear it, and so she tries to lose herself in the moment. And being swept up in this music, the dance, and the emotions of this incredible situation she finds herself in. With the choreographer, we talked a lot about circular movements and swirling and raising arms. And using the fabrics for the camera to find her through the chaos of movement and fabric within that sequence as everything descends into chaos."

Bix Caleen - Mina-Rau Refugee

When we return to our favorite Ferrix fugitives — Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona), Wilmon Paak (Muhannad Bhaier), and Brasso (Joplin Sibtain) — they are keeping a low profile as mechanics on the agricultural planet of Mina-Rau, ingratiating themselves with the locals in the farming community.

“We looked at workwear from all around the world — Japanese and American — [we] fused all the best elements and used natural fibers that had a lovely rustic quality. For Bix, she has a two-part work apron she can put all her tools into. It was great working with Adria and creating a different spin on her classic look from Season 1. We created a silhouette for her that is reminiscent of her Ferrix vibe. We thought that Bix would have reinterpreted her character in a new context.”

Director Orson Krennic - A New Cape

The main antagonist of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) fittingly returns in Season 2, as the show catches up to the events on the timeline. When we’re first reunited with Krennic here, he’s leading a boardroom meeting and making plans to extract resources from the planet Ghorman, regardless of the cost — both financial and otherwise.

“It was really enjoyable for me to reinterpret Orson Krennic,” Wilkinson says. “He’s a character that we saw a lot of in Rogue One. I took his iconic elements [like] his silhouette, which projects his incredibly high rank within the Imperial forces. In our story, it was more appropriate for it to be a day interior cape as opposed to the more tactical fabric of his field outdoor cape in Rogue One.”

When we see Krennic again at Sculdun’s party, we learn, unsurprisingly, that he keeps his general ostentatious air during social hours as well. He adds another layer of pizzazz with his special evening cape, part of the ISB dress uniform. “We actually made Orson Krennic's evening cape out of a wonderful satin fabric that had a fantastic flow to it,” Wilkinson says. “I remember when Ben Mendelsohn first tried that on, he said, ‘I feel like Elvis.’”