Starfleet uniforms
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the fictional Star Trek universe, enlisted personnel and officers in the United Earth Starfleet and, later, the United Federation of Planets' Starfleet wear a variety of uniforms.
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[edit] Star Trek
[edit] Television uniforms
Throughout The Original Series, male officers on the USS Enterprise wear a colored shirt with a stylized arrowhead on the left breast, black pants, and black boots; female officers wear a uniform skirt and boots, although they occasionally wear the "male" uniform. The skirts' shortness is commented upon in "Trials and Tribble-ations" (DS9). Rank is indicated by gold solid or dotted braids on the sleeves.
The shirt color indicates crew members' branch. In the pilot episodes, both the command and operations personnel wear gold while science and medical personnel wear blue (TOS: "The Cage", "Where No Man Has Gone Before"). When Star Trek went into regular production, the department colors were altered: command and helm personnel wear gold shirts, engineering and security personnel wear red, and science and medical personnel wear blue (TOS: "The Man Trap"). The frequent death of red-uniformed security officers led to the coining of the term redshirt.
Insignia within the arrowhead logo also indicate the wearer's branch: a star indicates command, a small round symbol indicates science and medical, and an angular spiral indicates engineering.
In the first pilot, "The Cage", the uniforms also include grey coats worn on away missions. On occasion, Captain James T. Kirk wears a green wraparound tunic (TOS: "The Trouble With Tribbles"). Such tunics are shown with both the rank stripes on the sleeves (TOS: "The Trouble With Tribbles") or on the shoulders[citation needed], and always feature the assignment patch near the waist as a belt fastener.
Officers assigned to other starships or starbases wear the same uniforms, but with the arrowhead replaced by different logos or "assignment patches" representing the ship or base on which they are stationed (TOS: "Court Martial", "The Doomsday Machine", et al.).
On certain occasions, the characters wear dress uniforms (TOS: "Journey to Babel", "Court Martial") that are made of a shinier fabric and are decorated with gold piping and colored badges that vary depending on rank. As with Kirk's wraparound tunic, command dress uniforms are green rather than gold (TOS: "Court Martial").
The uniforms on Star Trek were designed by staff costume designer William Ware Theiss.
[edit] Film uniforms
[edit] The Motion Picture
The original plans for Star Trek: Phase Two involved retaining the TOS uniforms, but when the project became Star Trek: The Motion Picture, they were replaced by a new design[1]. The film has multiple uniform styles, including one-piece jumpsuits, matching shirt and pants, and tunics either with buttons or a sash around the waist. All uniform variants include shoes built into the pantlegs. Some uniforms have short sleeves, while others are long-sleeved, with either standing, v-neck, or turnover collars. Uniforms come in gray, white, gray and white, blue, brown, and beige.
All TMP uniforms include the arrowhead insignia from TOS, now adopted as the Starfleet emblem, on the left chest. Rank is indicated by braids on long sleeves or on shoulder boards.
Security guards wear white uniforms with brown helmets and breastplates. Engineers wear thick white spacesuits with large, black, ribbed collars.
[edit] Later films
The uniforms were redesigned for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The second movie-era uniform consists of a burgundy single-breasted jacket with a colored strip over the right shoulder designating division, attached to which is a rank pin. A white, gold, grey, dark green, light green, dark blue, light blue or red colored turtleneck under the jacket indicates division. The turtleneck color matches piping on black trousers or skirt. Characters also wear a black belt with a buckle shaped like the Starfleet arrowhead. The arrowhead worn on the left chest is also a redesign.
Security and engineering personnel wear armor and spacesuits, respectively, similar to those worn in The Motion Picture, although security guards wear a red, turtlenecked uniform underneath (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country). There is also a field jacket for away missions with several large pockets, arm patches, white ribbing and a large white turnover collar. Starfleet cadets in The Wrath of Khan wear a one-piece red jumpsuit with tan shoulders and upper chest; this uniform is later worn by enlisted personnel, with the addition of a name tag (Star Trek VI).
Uniforms similar to this style are still in use at least as late as the 2340s, although without the turtleneck or belt (TNG: "Yesterday's Enterprise", "Dark Page", "Family, "Violations"). The TNG episode "Cause and Effect" shows that they were in use as early as 2278.
[edit] Star Trek: The Next Generation
The Starfleet officers and crewmembers seen in The Next Generation wear a jumpsuit with a starfleet communicator badge on the left chest and rank insignia on the right side of the collar. The uniforms' sleeves and abdominal area are colored to indicate the individual's branch, with red indicating command; gold for engineering, security, and operations; and blue for science and medical (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint"). Beverly Crusher sometimes wears a blue overcoat above her standard uniform (TNG: "The Naked Now").
Both male and female characters wear a micro-skirt version of the uniform in the show's first season (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint").
In the show's early seasons, the uniforms were made of Spandex, the feel of which annoyed the cast members, who persuaded the costumers to gradually replace them with wool uniforms[2]. The wool uniforms, which all main cast members wear from the third season onward, lack colored piping on the shoulders and have a raised collar.
The TNG dress uniform, which continued to be used in Deep Space Nine, is a colored wraparound robe of a solid division color, save for black shoulders. The edges of the robes are piped in silver for field officers and in gold for flag officers.
TNG's and later series' costumes were designed by Robert Blackman.
[edit] Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
[edit] Initial uniform
Despite starting during the same time period as TNG's sixth season, Deep Space Nine introduces a new type of Starfleet uniform. The DS9 uniforms are entirely black save for the shoulders and upper chest, which use the same color designations as TNG, save that medical officers wear teal. The station's crew still wear TNG style dress uniforms (DS9: "Move Along Home"), and both TNG- and DS9-style uniforms appear side by side in TNG's "Birthright, Part I" and DS9's "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost". The DS9 uniforms also appear in Star Trek: Generations, in which Enterprise crew members wear both uniforms varieties.
[edit] Later seasons and TNG movies
Star Trek: First Contact introduces a new uniform style later adopted in DS9 (DS9: "Rapture"). This uniform features a colored turtleneck undertunic (with the same departmental color scheme as in earlier episodes) covered by a black jacket, the shoulders and upper chest of which are made of thick, grey material. The communicator badge is worn on the jacket, while rank pips are worn on the undertunic's collar. The pants are black.
[edit] Ancillary uniform
Starfleet personnel fighting in ground battles appear in the episodes "...Nor the Battle to the Strong" and "The Siege of AR-558". They wear one-piece black uniforms with divisional stripes across the chest.
[edit] Star Trek: Voyager
The crew in Voyager use the same uniforms seen in the (contemporaneous) early seasons of Deep Space Nine throughout the show's run. Stuck in the Delta Quadrant and out of contact with Starfleet, the Voyager crew never makes the switch to the updated uniform seen in later DS9 episodes[3].
[edit] Star Trek: Enterprise
In Enterprise, field officers and crewmembers wear duty uniforms consisting of a dark long-sleeved undershirt and blue jumpsuit with colored piping around the shoulders. There is also a a desert uniform with khaki pants and white shirt. Both uniforms have a United Earth Starfleet patch (featuring the stylized arrowhead emblem) on the right upper arm, and an Enterprise emblem patch on the left upper arm.
Division colors follow the TOS scheme, with command and flight control (helm) officers wearing gold piping, engineering and security officers wearing red piping, and science, medical and communication officers wearing light blue piping. Throughout the series, men and women wear the same type of uniform. Unlike the other series' uniforms, standard uniforms on Enterprise include zip-up pockets.
On certain occasions, Enterprise characters wear dress uniforms similar to the blue jumpsuit, decorated with the same pattern of colored piping, but lacking the zip-up pockets and combined with a white long-sleeved undershirt and, in some cases depending on rank, a white tie.
Rank insignia on duty uniforms are worn on right side of shoulders only, but rank insignia on dress uniforms are worn on both sides.
Also, there are two different kinds of field jackets worn on away missions. They have zippered pockets and the same colored pipings as the jumpsuits, as well as a cold weather gear, pressure suits, spacesuits, an EV undersuit, and a royal blue undergarment with slight differences on male and female garments.
[edit] See also
- Spike's Star Trek Page: Starfleet Uniforms - Images of the shows' various uniforms
- Starfleet ranks and insignia
[edit] References
- ^ Star Trek Phase II, Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
- ^ Is it true that you got back ache from your costume? - BBC's Interview with actor Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard)
- ^ How did you try and make Voyager different? - BBC's Interview with costume designer Bob Blackman
