Star Trek Discovery Season 5 - Costume Creation - Star Trek: Discovery Costume Designer Anthony Tran shares the inspiration behind Season 5's most memorable looks and discusses the fabric, dying techniques, and creativity required to bring them to life.
All seasons of Star Trek: Discovery are streaming exclusively on Paramount+.
All seasons of Star Trek: Discovery are streaming exclusively on Paramount+.
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00:00♪♪
00:09Being the costume designer of Star Trek Discovery Season 5
00:13has been great. It's been a little bit of a roller coaster.
00:15There's always a lot going on.
00:16Every episode, they go somewhere new,
00:18and so getting to kind of create new worlds in Trek
00:20is always exciting.
00:22So talking about Kamau, our first episode,
00:24it's inspired by Tuareg and desert kind of Bedouin tribes,
00:28but also looking at the hill tribes
00:30that are kind of in the remote parts of Asia,
00:32being inspired by their textiles
00:33that are usually hand-worked and embroidered,
00:35but knowing that this was future-forward,
00:37doing that with printing instead.
00:39So the fabric started off as one color.
00:41We then pulled some of the color out,
00:43dyed in a darker color
00:45so it feels very, very mottled and aged,
00:47and actually then screen-printed on top of that
00:49a darker color just to give it a lot of depth.
00:51Our textile artists actually went in
00:53and painted sand into everything.
00:55The concept of these,
00:57knowing that they were going to have their hoods up a lot
00:59and that there might be something kind of dragging
01:01was an interesting thing that I pitched to them early on.
01:03We tried to use things that were as light as possible
01:05because practically speaking, in the desert,
01:07you'd want fabrics that were lighter,
01:09but also fabrics that would pick up wind
01:11as they were on these sand runners.
01:16Welcome.
01:18Kalsara is eager to meet you.
01:20So in episode three, we go to planet Trill again
01:22and we meet Kalsara.
01:23The idea of this kind of timeless being
01:25that's been around forever
01:26is what that looks like in relationship to the Trill
01:28that we've seen before.
01:29So we used kind of the same raw silk,
01:31but we aged it.
01:32It's all natural raw silk
01:34that once washed kind of starts to pill,
01:36so we purposely went back in and kind of scuffed into that.
01:39All this beading is hand-sewn on and applied,
01:42and it's all kind of meant to be kind of organic and sinewy,
01:45nothing that's feeling too regular or too much of a pattern,
01:47but we put it all as kind of texture and inside the seams.
01:50It all was meant to kind of echo her hair
01:52and the makeup and all that
01:54to make it feel like she was kind of this ghostly being.
01:57And if you look closely,
01:59those are all meant to be Trill spots
02:01that we kind of drop shadow painted in.
02:05So looking at episode 506, we're in Halemno,
02:07and the concept of Halemno was that there is no status.
02:10And so the idea came about then
02:12to kind of put everyone in shades of brown.
02:14So knowing that it was a pre-war planet
02:15and being inspired by the Bronze Age
02:17and cavemen and all that,
02:18all the fabrics we tried to use were natural fiber,
02:20so it's a lot of cottons, linen, silks.
02:22So in terms of some of the dye techniques we're using,
02:24there is shibori.
02:26So we basically first hand-sew it,
02:28block off some areas, dye it,
02:30and then pull the threads out,
02:31and that's how some of these resist areas kind of remain,
02:34which we use both on Tilly and on Burnham.
02:36All these are basically hand-braided,
02:38like you would braid hair.
02:39So this is four out of probably
02:41about 60 or 70 costumes that we built.
02:45I loved the costumes for Halemno.
02:47I thought they were so cool.
02:49Anthony is so lovely.
02:51He's just really creative,
02:52and I love to see where he gets his inspiration from.
02:55You look beautiful.
02:59When Michelle told me that the Breen were
03:02kind of our main villains,
03:03I knew what those costumes were,
03:04and so a little bit of trepidation
03:06in terms of how do you invent something
03:08that is so specific in its style lines,
03:10and I think that Halemno also being so, so specific,
03:12and I think something that the fans know very, very well.
03:15I sat with it probably for a good two months
03:17before we touched it,
03:18trying to just kind of figure out
03:20how we were gonna make things feel sleeker and cleaner
03:22for a costume that was so bulky in its original inception.
03:25The general silhouette of the costume we preserved,
03:27which was kind of this diagonal foam kind of costume,
03:30this Y bandolier we also preserved
03:32with all the textures.
03:33We just kind of updated things to make them different.
03:36First, the concept came about
03:37that the Breen needed refrigeration suits,
03:39and that was kind of the basis of what that costume was,
03:42so that kind of became the root inspiration
03:43for the base suit that all of our Breen have,
03:45and this kind of mesh-woven detail
03:48where tubes run through.
03:49And the tubing that kind of runs through all that,
03:51that kind of continues that refrigeration,
03:53that kind of cooling technology.
03:54And then in terms of the vest itself,
03:56it's all made out of neoprene and foam and stacked,
04:00and all of our fabric and stuff is pleather
04:02that has then been painted over
04:04to kind of look like it's been oxidized,
04:06and then it's screen-printed on top,
04:08and that's all raised and hand-foiled.
04:10All of these shoulders are movable.
04:14They're magneted,
04:15so they return back to their place,
04:16but they all flex.
04:17So we tried to be as stunt-friendly as possible.
04:21The medic comes about later,
04:23and the idea was kind of inspired
04:25by, like, an Undertaker, creepy doctor kind of vibe.
04:29It's the same Breen neck
04:30that we've kind of chromed and painted jet black,
04:33and then this is a leather that we also kind of painted,
04:36super, super slick.
04:37If there was splatter or residue or blood,
04:39practically they could wipe off very easily,
04:41but it also just felt a little bit kind of creepy
04:43and stood away from the rest of the costume.
04:45Primarch!
04:48The Primarch's color is gold,
04:50so we foil on top of the regular Breen fabric a gold
04:54and then also used gold trim
04:56but kind of aged it down so it wasn't too shiny.
04:58We made him this cape.
04:59This is all leather that has been printed on top of
05:02and raised in the same kind of Breen grid,
05:04and then we gave him a much stronger shoulder
05:06that's inspired by medieval knights,
05:08and they're actually for movement and stunt.
05:10It's all on a hinge.
05:12Primarch, don't.
05:14Ow!
05:17Is it vain to say that I really liked my own costume?
05:21I put that outfit on,
05:23and all of a sudden, no one can mess with me.
05:27Ma and Locke, who in the script were described
05:29as kind of a futuristic Bonnie and Clyde,
05:31and so referencing kind of biker gangs
05:33as kind of the root inspiration.
05:35The idea is they're both couriers,
05:36and they're probably jet-setting around space
05:38and meeting different people and getting into trouble,
05:40and so all their costumes and things were really broke down,
05:43and so we started with this kind of harness that we made.
05:45That started off brand new, and we started breaking into it,
05:47the same thing with the shirt that we printed on top of,
05:49the gloves and all that,
05:50so it felt that they'd really kind of been in it.
05:52Locke, knowing that he was a Breen from the beginning
05:54and trying to nod to that,
05:56we look at the tubing that we also used in our Breen
05:58as kind of the idea of this kind of coolant refrigeration thing.
06:01All of his seams are all kind of diagonal,
06:03which again was meant to kind of give a subtle nod to the Breen,
06:06as was this kind of grid texture,
06:08and then the leather jacket itself
06:09is all kind of stacked to feel kind of like plates,
06:12moving plates.
06:15Hello and welcome.
06:17I'm Hyrell, one of the sworn order
06:19who tend to the Eternal Gallery and Archive.
06:21So talking about our archivist look,
06:23the overall look is inspired partially by 1960s Balenciaga trapeze
06:28meets kind of graduation gown.
06:30So there's almost 20 yards of raw silk
06:33that's in each of these costumes,
06:35so they're oddly kind of heavy.
06:37All this fabric we had custom pleated,
06:39like almost 200 yards of fabric that was all custom pleated,
06:42and then these shoulders that are all leather that's molded.
06:47All of these are laser cut shapes
06:50glued on top of the silk
06:52and all of that then goes through a heat press
06:54and presses it flat,
06:55so all of it pushes forward
06:57and kind of creates this quilting without stitching,
06:59that kind of future forward quilting.
07:01And then our text artist went in and they airbrushed in
07:04to kind of pull out all the dimension of all of our shapes.
07:07How fun to have a book visit me in the library for a change.
07:12So in previous seasons,
07:13Books had this kind of hero coat
07:15that he gives to Burnham at the end of season four.
07:17So when he comes back to season five,
07:20we were tasked with creating a new coat for him.
07:22So this coat is all leather
07:24that started off brown,
07:26but they've since painted almost like layers and layers of color in it
07:30and aged it down to make it feel like he's really, really worn it
07:32and he's been around.
07:33And if we turn it around, actually,
07:36it has all these kind of back plates.
07:38So this is all quilted leather.
07:40Cordy goes inside it.
07:41They sew it all down and then they pull the cords out.
07:47May I present the newlyweds.
07:49The wedding scene.
07:51Please.
07:52The outfits for both Tarina and Saru are breathtaking.
07:56I think six new costume pieces were custom made
07:59for me over the course of this season alone.
08:02And then the wedding dress is just like insane.
08:05I got to kind of have a sneak peek at the wedding dress
08:08and I was completely floored.
08:10It's a huge testament to our entire costume team.
08:13So when we finally came to the wedding,
08:15I kind of just looked and saw
08:17what Vulcan weddings had existed in canon.
08:19So on the original series,
08:20Topring had a silver wedding dress
08:23and it had these very specific kind of lines down the front.
08:26And so that kind of became the root inspiration for Tarina.
08:29It's the Vulcan shoulder that, you know,
08:31we're doing on the show and a very streamlined kind of dress.
08:33And we kept those lines, but we laser cut leather.
08:36Then that's all hand applied, sewn and glued onto this dress.
08:39Then on top of it, there was this hood and skirt combination.
08:43All that got attached to the base dress,
08:45which has an understructure under it
08:47to make sure it could support the entire thing.
08:49I think it's a team of seven to create this exquisite piece
08:52that's going to be worn for one scene.
08:54Saru's wedding costume,
08:56we took the idea of the silhouettes of the Kelpians,
08:58which is kind of frock coat inspired.
09:00And we tried to kind of vulcanize it a little bit
09:02as though it was a union of cultures,
09:04so he has a much stronger shoulder.
09:06To be able to play Saru in such a fabulous looking outfit,
09:10it's a real treat and I owe that to Anthony.
09:30♪