Let me first start this off with I never thought I would ever make a Star Fleet uniform. Why? They never really drew me in. They were simple, not that that’s a bad thing, but just not something I was never compelled to make.
That is until Annie Wu and the new Star Trek movies came into my life.
Look at these designs?! They are fantastic, interesting, and the perfect combination of nerd and couture I had hoped and dreamed of!
Deb found this picture and came to me saying “This would be so much fun!” I agreed but countered with “I’m going to have to study more Star Trek as my prior knowledge extended to Picard, Data, and Jordie la forge” (or as i still refer to him reading rainbow in space). That’s it. Class M planet you say, what’s that? I needed some help.
Garrick had the perfect solution. Watch the new movie again. I know, I know. TOS fans, before you freak out, let me explain something. I like pretty things and am enthralled by them, like a cat to jingly keys. If you want me to appreciate something, draw me in first then I’ll seek out more. Garrick conveniently remembered that I had spent most of the time in the first movie trying to find the seam lines on Spock’s eye brow prosthetics only to find out after the movie he had actually shaved them. Needless to say, I didn’t remember much from that. Conveniently the next movie was coming out soon (we had planned these awhile ago) so I watched the first movie and actually paid attention. I liked it. A lot. The costumes were perfectly tailored, the actors paid great homage to the originals. I was a fan.
This is not meant to be a movie review so if you disagree that’s cool! Just feeling sharing my opinion on the matter. I feel like as a prop/costume maker I look at movies differently. Star Trek is probably one of the ones I like the most that almost no one else around me agrees with me on. Hear me out. Into Darkness. DEM UNIFORMS!!! I am in love. The seam lines, the tailoring, the small details on their pants. I am 100% head over heels in love with the design of this movie. I could watch it on loop over and over again just to look at the costumes. All I wanted to do for a month after this was sew Start Fleet uniforms and I was very vocal about it. Especially when i was in the garage sanding something. I would whine the whole time, “This is eating into time I could be spending sew uniforms for STAR FLEET!”
So I did just that!
I really had to free hand the patterns with this one as the designs are based off of a lot of couture designs. She had mentions Alexander McQueen (swoon) and a few others, so I didn’t have definite designs to base it off of.
I took a long sleeved shirt I had and made a rough pattern. I did the sleeves jersey style as that is more accommodating to the ladies especially when using a stretchy material. I also wanted the seam lines on the shoulders to stand out. Little, precise details with this one. I wanted to combine what I loved form the movie costumes with Annie Wu’s design.
Once I cut out the blue and the black pieces (all free handed patterns) I sewed the body together and sewed the sleeves up. Now I had my adventure in cap sleeves! I had never sewn those before. I googled it made them a little more dramatic so they would stand out like in the picture and attached the sleeves. I then decided to give the bottom an asymmetrical hem because it just looked right. Spock’s sitting down in the picture so I kind threw this in because I wanted to and it just felt right.
Now for the leggings. These took way longer to sew than I want to admit. Fast-forward a few days of unnecessary re-sizing and we get to the shin designs. Way more tedious than I thought. I way underestimated these leggings. I measured and cut out the design I wanted on the shin (measured while I was wearing them so I knew how they would lay), top stitched it up and then started on the tedium. I had to pick in between the actual stitches to thread the elastic through the opening. Then I had to go back and hand stitch those spots so I didn’t bust the whole thing apart when I put it on. Tedious but satisfying. I was totally pleased with the end result.
Next was to try it all on! I had ordered silicone ears from Reel Magic and had googled the crap out of youtube videos on how to cover your eyebrows. Bless the drag community, they have taught me so much! Here’s the video I referenced, he shows you two techniques. I chose the glue stick route as I found it easier than the other and I can get glue sticks almost anywhere in a pinch.
I glued my eye brows and glued my ears, cut my wig, and I was a Vulcan!
Paul and G decided they wanted to play at the last minute so I quickly sewed up a red shirt design for Garrick and I tried to tie in some Voyager styling with Annie’s Wu’s designs and came up with this. I was pleased for making it out of scrap material I had in the closet. He had the right pants and boots that echoed the movies already, this was meant to be! Deb and Paul made a quick Orion Slave boy costume for Paul. I then got to torture him with and airbrush for an hour. Much delight was taken in spraying him at high PSI behind the ear and arm pit. 😀
Final touches were the gold bangles Deb and I found at Target for our sleeve rank, Deb and Paul got me a phaser that G ended up using because he bought me a Tricorder! What a good red shirt!
I want to do a proper shoot for this once it’s not a bagillion degrees here in Phoenix. I want to do something by red rocks so it looks like it’s on another planet. For now here are some fun ones from Phoenix Comic Con this year. These were our casual costumes…we need to learn the real definition of casual…
