With the “Star Wars” universe as the DNA for Disney+’s “Andor,” costume designer Michael Wilkinson was able to honor a legacy as he leaned into a new world.
For Diego Luna’s Cassian, Wilkinson draped it in warm, earthy tones with textured fabrics.
When the public first meets him, he is dressed in “beautiful sailcloth from old leather jackets with iconic details such as a high neckline and a hood”. Towards the end, the silhouettes become slimmer and more streamlined.
“He has a beautiful long linen coat that we custom made for him that moves beautifully during all the action sequences. It’s a mature silhouette.”
To equip Genevieve O’Reilly’s Mon Mothma, he looked to prominent people, including senior senators and members of the United Nations, keeping power dressing in mind. “I imagined what the futuristic off-planet version of that would look like,” he says. “I leaned into the pale neutrals.”
Her blue senate robe with gold lining is “extraordinarily architectural and quite austere,” says Wilkinson. “With her, there was a lot of adventurous tailoring and an exploration of silhouettes and layering that we put into her costumes, which reflect her turned-on sophisticated sense of aesthetic.”
Clothes for Mon Mothma’s more personal “mask slipping” moments hint at another side of her personality. Wilkinson relaxed her silhouette when Tay Kolma (Ben Miles) came to visit, for example, giving her outfit a flowing look.
“It almost feels like a robe,” he says. “That private look is quite a contrast to her senatorial robes.”
He was able to investigate a duality for Stellan Skarsgård’s Luthen Rael, an antiques dealer and the leader of an incipient rebellion seeking to bring down the Galactic Empire. “Luthen had this beautiful layering of velvety textures and high-end fabrics,” he says.
The jewelry was custom made, as Wilkinson was “inspired by rings made of brushed titanium and rare metals.”
When supporting a growing rebel alliance, Rael wears a linen poncho.
“He’s a man of action when he’s off,” says Wilkinson. “We are going from jewel tones to an earthy look with natural fabrics such as linen and cotton.”
The stark white costumes worn at the Narkina 5 Imperial Prison Complex proved to be a design challenge. Stark white, they had to feel like they were mass-produced and disposable.
“It was one costume worn by hundreds and seen in three episodes. I knew I wanted the outfits to be bright white with a strong image,” says Wilkinson. “So I used a hot press to fuse the orange images onto this white papery fabric that we discovered had a high-tech feel.”