Star Wars for females

Enter Star Wars on the HubPages search engine and you will find a good number of articles about this popular series. In a more specialised field, there a quite a few offering Star Wars costume supplies. Aside from the annual celebration of Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you), there are many other occasions such as sci-fi or comic conventions where a Star Wars costume can be useful, so what can Party Girl at Props n Frocks add to the mix?

Well for a start, as a Party Girl, we’re a bit irritated that, rather like that other epic tale originally in three parts, Lord of the Rings, there is a lack of female characters. In the original films it was Princess Leia – full stop. She got to change costume occasionally, but she’s best known for the white robe and ‘danish pastry’ hairstyle (which was the costume on offer) or the metal bikini slave-wear for Jabba the Hutt (not an outfit that was originally offered in the official costume collections, although there is now one available on the market and many have improvised their own in the meantime).

Of course things moved on – variations now available include a sexy and crop-top Leia and, with the series of three prequel films, Leia’s predecessor Queen (later Padme and Ambassador) Amidala became available as a costume choice. Despite the phenomenal number of gowns worn by the Queen in ‘Phantom Menace’, only one made it to the costume stores – the red/black ‘lights’ dress, and the subsequent episode offered a feisty fighter Padme outfit. You were almost spoilt for choice!

Subsequent additions to the Star Wars universe such as the Jedi animated series,video games and the online gaming and 'wiki'portals have broadened the selection of official costumes - Ahsoka the young Jedi and the Ventress Sith outfit – if you can find it, for instance.

In a trend being mirrored in other fields such as horror, there are some female versions of Star Wars male characters on the market. These include sexy stormtroopers and X-wing pilots and, possibly more questionable for the purists, a variation on Darth Vader which does away with the trademark helmet and uses a printed skirt!

Of course there’s nothing to stop you donning the Jedi robe if all else fails, or using one of the new unisex Angry Birds Star Wars costumes recently on the market, but it is hard not to get the impression that Star Wars is just another version of male-orientated universe. Perhaps now that Disney is taking over the franchise and intending to produce a film every year, the new productions will offer a greater variety of female role-models to work with. For a start, we have a potential new Disney Princess, but many will doubt that the likes of Snow White and Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) can compare with the complexity of the original Leia.

In the meantime, what's a would-be galactic girl to do? Obviously there is a wide Star Wars fan-base and if you are prepared to put in the effort, you can find a number of websites run by enthusiasts which can help you with ideas. These can be a liitle exotic - with some latex prosthetics and a bit of body-paint, you too can be a Twi'lek, the tentacle-skulled humanoids seen as singers or slaves in some of the films - but you may not really have the time and budget to get that involved. Alternatively there's Aura Sing, the albino bounty-hunter glimpsed watching Anakin's pod-race in 'Phantom'. Undoubtedly a striking figure but again, perhaps requiring more effort than most are prepared to put in.

Here at Props & Frocks we would offer the following suggestions:

a) You could 'borrow' from other sci-fi space series'. Other franchises such as Star Trek have offered a range of space-wear. Admittedly much of it is uniform based, so not too fantasy-orientated (which you might prefer), and you can always claim you are a victim of a wormhole or space anomoly which has dragged you into the Star Wars-verse!

b) Away from the licensed costumes, there are a wide range of 'generic' space-styles available. Unfortunately, in some cases this might involve variations on the short and skimpy styles and not everyone is comfortable with these, or feels inclined to try to carry them off. You can always attempt a mix-n-match and could creatively use one of the increasing range of 'morphsuit-style' outfits to devise a less unclothed look. If you want to get way from the humanoid look and create a creature species, you can mix and match in other ways - we had great success using the body of a shaggy dog costume combined with a bug-eyed overhead mask for a giant fly. Created quite a buzz.

c) If, on the other hand, you're mega-creative and up for anything then the sky (or universe) is the limit and you create your own alien creature with wild wigs, make-up, body paint, contact lenses, prosthetics, the lot. Here at Props and Frocks we are here to help and, if you bring us your ideas, we can help you achieve your desired look. Come to us and be a Star in the SW universe.