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Robert 'Bob' Blackman, costume designer, talks about Starfleet uniforms - [Voyager] and non-[Voyager]. Adapted from ST Monthly. Click linked images to see them full-size. |
Various pages in the section STARFLEET UNIFORMS have behind-the-scenes information not in this article.
Robert 'Bob' Blackman has created more Star Trek costumes than anyone else and even he can't say exactly how many there are. Blackman has been the primary costume designer on Star Trek since the third season of [TNG], going on to [DS9], [ST VIII: First Contact], [Voyager] and now [Enterprise]. The history of the Starfleet uniforms, from William Ware Theiss' designs for [TOS] onward, was integral to Blackman's [Enterprise] concepts.
"It was a big, fun thing to do. Where to go, how do you back up? I feel that the [ST..TOS] movies, those uniforms had an echo of [TOS]. When they got to the second movie, they changed the uniforms [to] the black pants and the rusty red jackets with all the trim on them. Once we get to [TNG] [there is an] evolution from that point of the uniforms to [DS9] to [ST VIII: First Contact], in which we changed the [DS9] uniforms into something else that worked for the movie [ST VII: Generations], and I think actually worked better for the series, and then kind of back into [Voyager]. When we redesigned the uniform for [ST VIII: First Contact], we incorporated those uniforms into [DS9] and essentially went into this gray-on-black with what used to be the colour bar as turtleneck shirts underneath. At that point, [Voyager] had started and they were lost in space, so they didn't get to move into the new uniform, because they didn't have any information that there had been a uniform change from Starfleet. SHOW JANET'S NOTE
"So when I got to [Enterprise], I kept looking at [TOS] and I kept looking at the movie, trying to figure out how the heck you could get this to make sense. What I decided to do was to evolve out of what they wear under the NASA EV [EV = extra-vehicular] suits now, because we're only 150 years in the future. Rather than springing forwards into previous Star Trek designs, I went backwards to our present time. I wanted something that had even a more kind of utilitarian look, that was much more rugged and, in a funny way, naive. They're made out of brushed cotton twill. We buy the fabric new. It has to go through enzyme washes, stone washes, then they come back and we have to replace all the zipper pulls with ones that are designed specifically for the series and paint all the metal, the zippers, that has been beat up in the stone washing at the end. So it's a longer, harder process than the other ones were." [Enterprise: Season 1: Broken Bow] |
 [Enterprise: Season 1: Acquisition] |
The title 'Lesson 8 - Dress For Success' is one of the Doctor's social lessons for Seven in [#116 Someone To Watch Over Me]. Font used: Embroidery.
Thanks to Eos Development for the page background from the set 'Cotton Plaids', and to Karen's Korner for the template page number image.
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