Sunday December 4, 2005 was Fan Day at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchanding in Los Angeles, which is hosting Dressing the Galaxy, an exhibit displaying the costumes created and used in all six Star Wars films. It'd been several years since I trucked it down to San Diego for the last Star Wars exhibit in Southern California, the Magic of Myth tour, so I was pretty excited to check this out. If you saw a dude holding a paper and pen at all times and wearing a shirt with the words "Know Your Roots" beneath a blown-up Nintendo controller, yep, that was me.

The very first display in the exhibition is classic. Literally. There they were, the heroes of the classic trilogy in several of their incarnations: the ice princess, the slave girl, the Jedi, the pilot, and the smuggler. I stayed here a good amount of time, carefully taking in all the details, from Obi-Wan's scuffed boots to the magic of Leia's gravity-defying steely brassiere. Unexpectedly, the original trilogy costumes looked a bit flimsy close up, but I guess that shouldn't have been a surprise. Nonetheless, neither time nor economy of fabric could take away from the simple majesty of Alec Guiness' desert robe or Mark Hamill's black Jedi tunic and cloak.

However, there was simply no comparison between the quality and texture of the costumes from the original trilogy and the prequels. Even the materials used for the prequels' simple Jedi robes were evidently finer and more intricate, to say nothing of the gaudy and voluminous outfits of the senators, queens, and opera goers. And who knew Sith black-on-black could be so complex?

I felt sorry for the museum security. The tired workers had to constantly ward off fans (including yours truly) who got too close to the costumes, as we kept setting off proximity alarms. My sympathies of course were with fans as they pretended to be as "clumsy as they are stupid" while, ahem, unintentionally snapping flash photography of Vader and the Emperor in the exhibit's darkest room. You have to admire a guy who can say, "Oops, the flash went off accidentally" three times in a row with a straight face.

Outside, the festivities continued. Fans could climb into a life-size X-Wing in which they could have their picture taken, while the 501st, the Rebel Legion, the Orange County Star Wars Society, and San Diego Fan Force made a strong showing. Fans were dressed in everything from Jedi to TIE pilots, with even a rare Mara Jade in the mix. Ultimately, though, the costume contest was won by Kathy Skirmont, who wore an incredibly elaborate Episode II Padmé-as-senator costume that could've gone on display alongside Trisha Biggar's work inside the museum. According to Skirmont, she completed the costume over a period of two years, and it showed.

While kids knocked each other senseless with foam lightsabers in the courtyard out back, I got to chat with "Millennium Falcon" owners Bill and Sandy Deacon of Road Squadron, who, legend has it, transformed their old 1974 Chevrolet Chevelle into the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy after someone remarked, "What a piece of junk!" With a satellite dish on the hood, a cockpit-shaped side mirror, and the circular grills on the trunk, I was about ready to put up my Mitsubishi Eclipse in a winner-take-all game of sabacc.

That reminds me of one of my few complaints about the exhibit: no Lando. Lando is one of my favorite Star Wars characters, dead-locked with Luke and Obi-Wan. I would've even settled for a General Lando costume, though I was really hoping to see a mannequin wearing his fresh Cloud City duds. Who knows, maybe it was no scoundrels allowed. Of course, I got in...

At five bucks, the exhibit's a steal. There are no words to explain the exhilaration of seeing the yellow bloodstripes on Han's pants up close, scrutinizing Darth Vader's glove at a hand-span's distance for signs of indestructibility, or sneaking a peek at the backside of Leia's slave girl outfit (thank you Aggie and Nilo). There's lots more at the exhibition, including the many guises of Palpatine/Darth Sidious, his Imperial Royal Guards, and even Chewie sporting his bandoleer like a beauty pageant sash. Make the trip, folks, it's worth it. ~ Abel G. Peña

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