The military history behind the Star Wars costumes

The costume designer for Star Wars, John Mollo, died recently, at the age of 86. Even though he didn't have any previous costume design experience, he was hired by director George Lucas to design the costumes for the 1977 Star Wars film because of expertise in military history.

"Since he was a little kid, he watched movies and fell in love with costumes," says Laela French, the director of archives for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, "And military costumes really grabbed his attention." Before becoming a costume designer, Mollo wrote for historical publications and served as a consultant for historical films. Star Wars was his first foray into science fiction, which was fine with Lucas, since that wasn't the look he was going for.

14th November 2017