Costume designer Suttirat Larlarb discusses the outfits worn by Vivien Lyra Blair as Princess Leia and Simone Kessel as Queen Breha in the Disney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi series, and how the colours/designs hark back to the costumes first seen in Star Wars: A New Hope.
The queen’s first costume serves several roles. Larlarb and director Deborah Chow knew that the future Princess Leia would have been impacted by the royal household she grew up in; her adopted mother would have been a major influence on how she dresses and comports herself, once she takes on her royal responsibilities.
“Queen Breha’s introduction also serves as a visual counterpoint to how we introduce young Leia (Vivian Lyra Blair) in the same episode,” says Larlarb.
For example, in that episode, the Organa household is hosting a royal event, and young Leia, instead of being in her room getting dressed by her staff in a formal outfit, is in her play clothes and climbing trees with her droid. “The scene where the queen stops everything to retrieve her disobedient, playsuit-clad daughter while she is dressed very formally needed to express the distance Leia still has to traverse to become the icon in that white gown we eventually know,” says Larlarb. “I wanted to make sure the references to the future, iconic Princess Leia we meet in ‘A New Hope’ were clear.”
The colors of Queen Breha’s gown are intentionally related: The ivory of the dress recalls Princess Leia’s iconic gown from Lucas’ 1977 “Star Wars” while the blue, Larlarb says, is a nod to “the established colors of [their planet of Alderaan]” yet elevated for the royal event. The motif on the blue lining of her cape also has special significance. “I asked Lucasfilm’s Pablo Hidalgo if there were certain flowers associated with Alderaan, as I wanted to employ this notion that [family] symbols on royal clothing throughout history are often derived from the flora and fauna of the royal realm, and that the queens often express a connection to their homeland by wearing clothes whose textiles incorporate the use of those symbols through embellishment.”
A “Star Wars” manga mentions an Alderaanian flower called the “struggling pearl blossom,” so she pulled from that. She built the dress from a heavy ivory four-ply crepe to control the silhouette and keep it soft and fit, is in her play clothes and climbing trees with her droid. “The scene where the queen stops everything to retrieve her disobedient, playsuit-clad daughter while she is dressed very formally needed to express the distance Leia still has to traverse to become the icon in that white gown we eventually know,” says Larlarb. “I wanted to make sure the references to the future, iconic Princess Leia we meet in ‘A New Hope’ were clear.”
Young Leia’s outfits — her playsuit with rolled-up cuffs and boots — telegraphed her rebellious spirit. “She would rather be in these comfortable play clothes and avoid the pomp and circumstance and the attire of her royal office she’s supposed to be dressed in — the magenta tunic set.”
Furthermore, there needed to be something she could abandon when she runs away from the event. “When Leia rips it off as soon as she can, what’s left is the cream under-tunic and pants for the beginning of her adventure, which become the base of the other layers she dons throughout the season. But it also recalls the main color of the silhouette of the Princess Leia audiences already know from later in the timeline.”
Read more here, and watch Blair in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney+ now.
Images: Kevin Estrada/Lucasfilm Ltd.
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