For The Uniform: The Kelvin Timeline

For The Uniform

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Time is broken, according to Q. So why not break it some more? Over the years we’ve seen alternate glimpses of our Starfleet heroes. From Terran Counterparts who’s lives moved in rapidly different directions, to small changes as Worf zapped through parallel worlds to alternate futures threatening to destroy all of humanity. Looking back at what could have been, we’re blatantly copying Marvel’s ongoing What If series to look at how Star Trek could have changed with a few small differences and to start, we’re putting our focus on the Maquis…

Throughout the history of sci fi on screen, there are few costumes as identifiably iconic as the original Star Trek uniforms. Simple and bright, the three quarter length trousers with bold coloured jumpers still stand out against the more subdued styles seen in other productions. In an era where science fiction was aiming to have more ‘realism’ and focus on darker tropes, even Star Trek itself fell to blues and black shades for it’s Starfleet style.

That was until Star Trek was relaunched. Dipping back into the original series for inspiration, JJ Abrams would lead the production of a revival based on the original series with an updated story to restart the franchise with a clean slate. And part of that was the daunting task of reimagining and redesigning an entire world that had become a cornerstone of sci fi history. Alongside the redesign of the Enterprise itself, one of the most difficult tasks that has faced any costume designer in the Star Trek franchise came with the launch of whats now known as the Kelvin Timeline movies.

Controversially among some Star Trek fans, JJ Abrams was determined to hire as few former Trek production crew as possible. While some would see that as a negative, Abrams knew the franchise came with a long history that had began to feel repetitive and he wanted to ensure his film had a fresh perspective. For costuming, that meant chasing Michael Kaplan; a designer who’d worked on a lot of high profile films, getting his start in the original Bladerunner. Kaplan had an attention to detail that Abrams found impressive and even though Kaplan was only passively aware of Star Trek through pop culture references, that work ethics impressed the new director.

In Se7en, for example, Brad Pitt’s character only wears ill fitting suits while Morgan Freeman’s scenes have him in a very fitted, more classic style. That was intentionally conceptualised to reflect Pitt’s character – Detective Mills – always looked like the small town policeman who wanted to impress and fit in; he would wear what he thought looked professional, but still with a sense of naivety. Something never mentioned on screen, but when listening to dialogue fits the character perfectly.

RE-DESIGNING THE FUTURE

For Star Trek, Kaplan didn’t venture that far into character breakdowns, but brought his experience and detailed style to the table. And he started at the beginning; The Original Series. “I wasn’t trying to duplicate that look.” Kaplain explained when interviewed for the Star Trek Costumes Book, “But I wanted it to be a take off point for the same world people grew up with and liked so much.”

As the movie rebooted the Star Trek world by launching it into an alternate universe, Kaplan knew he wanted the design to stay rooted in the 60’s and began researching designers of the era to help find inspiration. The base idea was to create a new, updated version of the original series uniforms that would look great on current high resolution cinematic screens. The hardest task of this was the print. With the simple direction of “Let’s make this high resolution!”, Kaplan decided that the uniforms would be patterned, choosing the Starfleet delta to print over a glossy sports fabric. From a distance, you’d see the base colour. Up close you’d spot the extra detailing as if it had always been there. After settling on the exact shade for each department, reminiscent of the gold, red and blue of the original uniforms, he outlined a pattern of offset delta’s which were then printed in slightly different shades from the main fabric in a subtle 3D ink; a process that took a lot of testing and sampling to finally get right.

Retaining the original series colours meant that, unlike the original venture into film, department colouring was less complex. Command was once again gold, sciences in the classic blue, and operations in red – all mirroring the prime universe costumes of the same era. The multi-layered colouring and texture made the fabrics more vibrant than the 1960’s velour, however it wasn’t quite enough for Kaplan who’d add brighter shades into the mix to make those colours pop for the Into Darkness sequel.

Much like the original series, male leads wore a shirt while female leads wore a short sleeved dress; though this was shown to be an optional variant preferred by Zoe Saldana’s Uhura and not standard dress. One of the most welcomed updates to both versions was making it double layered. While the original was a plain shirt with black collar, the new version was a wide collared outer shirt coloured to department resting over a black high collared shirt to present the original style in a new way. This was accented with charcoal biker trousers and (very expensive!) DKNY boots.

The biggest change in transitioning the 1960’s design into the modern world came with rank and insignia. In the original era, a swirled braid would be used on the cuffs with ‘dots and dashes’ signifying rank. Going with a cleaner look, that was replaced with printed straight silver stripes around the cuff; thick stripes replacing the swirled braid, and thin stripes in place of the dashes.

New Starfleet emblems were also introduced, this time made from polished chrome instead of a gold patch. The new pins were much smaller than the original emblems with curved edges and machined department logos

GROUNDED

Following Bob Fletchers theme of adding more visual variety, Kaplan had the opportunity to grow his own cluster styles to represent the fleet.

“In the original show, when the Enterprise’s crew travelled to other worlds and explored, they would do so in their uniforms and not change.” Kaplan explained in an interview for what would become the Star Trek Costumes book, “I wanted to do something a little different there and make some costumes specific for their travels.”

Each scenario from the first two Kelvin films Kaplan worked on has it’s own version of the Starfleet uniform. While in service on a Starship like the Enterprise, the crew had their iconic bold shirts. Elsewhere things were a lot more suited to their function. Much like the colour coding from the Wrath of Khan era, cadets in the Kelvin timeline would be shown in red, but instead of an undershirt colour, they’d be dressed in a full two piece suit with panelling on the upper torso and a Starfleet emblem on the left side of a high collar.

Officers would wear a similar outfit with more subtle detailing framing the shoulder, a gold pin without a unit division logo and made from a dark grey wool. The design would be tweaked slightly for Into Darkness where further outfits were introduced.

The most prominent was a new dress uniform. Made from a light grey upholster fabric, the dress uniform was brighter and longer than the ground uniforms with a stronger texture and less detail. Ranks were denoted on the shoulder using pieces of a metal watch strap and for the first time for a primary cast uniform, came with an optional hat. The standard pins were also worn as normal, however Kirk’s came with a ring round the delta similar to the style used in The Motion Picture; his in a brushed chrome while Admirals wore the same style in gold.

Also drawing from Fletchers design, Admirals had their own grey and white version of the uniform matching Kirk’s Admirals Uniform early in TMP. Into Darkness also introduced textured overalls used for officers in transit on board a shuttlecraft, while Beyond – which didn’t employ Kaplan for the production – introduced a utility uniform for officers serving on Starbase Yorktown.

BEYOND (k2263)

A new director in Justin Lin brought new crewmembers to Star Trek Beyond and for costuming, Lin brought along one of his regular favourites: Sanja Milkovic Hays. Known for overseeing the costume department on many Fast and the Furious films, which Lin had worked alongside her, Hays had a large backlog of experience working on a variety of films all with a diverse style. These styles included the modernised vampires of Blade, the dramatic period drama Sleepy Hollow and the imaginative Beowolf. She also had a strong sci fi CV from working on films such as Hyperspace, Total Recall and even previous experience in Star Trek.

Before joining the production crew of Beyond, Hays was responsible for designing a new dress uniform introduced in Star Trek insurrection; the bold white formal uniform that became standard in the late 24th century era of the franchise.

“Justin wanted to keep the feeling of the uniforms as close to the original Star Trek as possible.” Hays told Mandy.com when discussing her career in the industry, “Keeping that in mind, I redesigned them by updating the lines, used new fabrics and technology and added long sleeves on the women uniforms so that they also had ranks.”

The new uniforms were distinctly different than the previous two Kelvin films. Where Kaplan opted for his textured detailing, Hays rebuilt the uniforms with clean, sharp lines to create a more formal image, reflecting a more matured crew in the third instalment.

Made from a double knit cotton blend similar to the Season three uniforms in the original series, Hays adopted a textureless pattern that displayed top stitching along the edges and a slightly off-coloured side panel to give the appearance of shadow. The collars were higher, with a crossed collar over black turtle-neck giving a more unique throwback to the original style while presenting something new. Each outfit again retained the three department colours and rank styles, this time over a fold-over style cuff.

There was again a delineation between men’s and women’s styles. While male actors were given the plain shirt and tucked in military cut charcoal trousers, women on the cast were dressed in a variety of styles; one being a fitted version of the shirt, another being a version mirroring the classic dress for Uhura and in the middle there was a fitted blouse with elements of both styles. And to the joy of many, where the 2009 style lost sleeves for the dresses, and thus had no where to show ranks, the Beyond style by Hays ensured sleeves – and therefore officer ranks – were prominently displayed.

“It was a ‘60s throwback to the costumes, but also making them slightly new.” Cast member Karl Urban said, praising Hays work, “I had massive envy for Chris Pine’s survival suit.”

Worn only by Chris Pine and the late Anton Yelchin, the Survival Suit was one of the most complex uniforms to appear in the film franchise. Inspired by other, non Trek, futuristic design the survival suit was a two piece biker-style outfit with extra padding and panels. Much like Kaplans logic, Hays aimed to fill another need often overlooked in Star Trek due to budget restraints by having a specific armoured suit hidden within escape pods.

Hays also introduced a utility uniform for Starbase Yorktown made from the same fabrics as the regular Starship uniforms. The utility uniforms were a two-toned grey set of trousers and jacket with a layer of department coloured panelling over the back and shoulders matching the day to day uniforms of the crew; blue, red and gold for each department and flag officers shown in black.

Made out of the same fabrics as the shipboard uniforms, Yorktowns utility outfit came with a double-layered collar and intriguingly a life signs device built into the left cuff. While using the same style of Starfleet emblem as regular outfits, the ranks weren’t shown on the sleeve, but by bars on each side of the raised collar. The rank bars were crafted from Apple smart watches and decorated with a much smaller 3D printed Starfleet Delta.

The Defiant Does Delta edition of What If first featured in our ‘Make It Snow’ edition of Comms released in December 2021. The edition in full, along with other editions before the emagizines hiatus, can be found in our Comms Archive for all SFCQ2 members.

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