The Star Wars Connection

"The six films comprising the Star Wars saga are majestically operatic in nature. Not only in the luxurious son et lumière spectacle with a bravura soundtrack swelling under-or even replacing-the dialog, and characters possessing their own leitmotifs, but in the very nature of the multigenerational storyline, akin to nothing in any medium so much as Wagner's Ring cycle. There, too, we have a phantasmagoria involving divine forces, monsters, odd species, supernatural weaponry, and magical beings; an innocent lad and the all-powerful, evil father; the incestuous love of twin siblings; betrayals and rebellion. In its sensibility and theatrics, the analogy need not be further belabored, save to mention the exhilaratingly operatic costuming of Trisha Biggar."

Supers and others who enjoy wearing the great costumes SFO has garbed us in over the years will be interested in Trisha Biggar's Dressing a Galaxy: The Costumes of Star Wars (Abrams, 2005), a lavish coffee-table volume edited by the Spearhead's own Mark Burstein. Released to coincide with a Star Wars exhibition at the Fashion Institue of Design and Merchandizing (FIDM) in L.A., the book is available in trade hardback ($50 list, $32 Amazon) and deluxe limited ($400) editions.

At the FIDM opening, L to R: Trisha Biggar,
Mark Burstein, George Lucas