Dressing The Acolyte: The Stranger and an Assassin Hunt the Jedi of the High Republic — Updated

Master Vernestra Rwoh

Master Vernestra Rwoh (Rebecca Henderson) has been glimpsed in the white Jedi Temple robes on Coruscant and the rugged mission attire for her trip to Khofar. And today you get your first look at another outfit from her elegant wardrobe: her high senate robes.

Not yet seen on screen, the costume was one of Bryan’s favorites to design, with a weighted cloak fashioned from fabric the designer acquired in Spain. “It is a very luxurious wool, and it has a basket weave with gold and silver threads,” Bryan notes. It’s also quite heavy, which helped inform the design choice of a wide band across the front to distribute the weight.

Perhaps it’s also a subconscious nod to the character’s journey this season. “Unconsciously, she has a lot of weight on her shoulders,” Bryan notes. “She has a lot to carry. She knows things. She knows that there's a lot of — the word I would use is a lot of duplicity — in what the Jedi did in the name of protecting the Force. She's basically trying to manage and do damage control with the Senate.”

Accentuating the garment, Bryan added the symbols of the Jedi Order in the High Republic. Even among politicians, it’s clear where Vernestra’s allegiance lies. ”It's kind of a feminine throwback to a Jedi's leather belt that has the symbol.”

Osha Aniseya

Osha (Amandla Stenberg) has also worn several different looks throughout the season, including the borrowed garments of her sister, Mae. But when we first met her, she was working on a Neimoidian freighter doing the rather dangerous work-for-hire of a meknek.

Bryan’s costume merged elements of a flight suit and a mechanic’s coverall, with extra care to fashion a hip holster for Pip. “She has a vest made of suede and the rest is a kind of khaki material,” Bryan says, with greeblies and other elements inspired by rank badges and other elements seen in the original Star Wars movies. The color palette was inspired by real-world events transpiring not long before the original film’s debut. “I went all the way back to looking at fabrics that were used in the Vietnam [War] era. That green khaki color is where that comes from,” she says.

And later in the season, Osha and Bazil both don civilian fatigues that pay homage to a Star Wars fashion staple: the poncho. “I had to come up with something that she could wear that would take her through all of the events and adventures and battles that she's going to come through,” Bryan says. “The poncho has a kangaroo pocket. It is quilted. It is, I think, really cool.”

Mae Aniseya

Mae (Amandla Stenberg), the assassin at the heart of the series, is a warrior constantly on the move. Bryan and her team took great care to reflect that in Mae’s costume, which mixes chainmail, bamboo, and a patchwork quilt of a purple cloak into a look that feels both salvaged and utilitarian. “The first time that you see Mae, she's walking into this town and she is mysteriously clothed,” Bryan says. “She's been on the run, so everything is kind of pieced together…it’s got holes and some tatters because she's been through a lot. She's on a mission.”

Consciously created to appear as the polar opposite of the pristine Jedi robes of the period, Mae’s cloak in particular was handcrafted from numerous swatches of artisan cottons and gauzes, strategically stitched together then dyed a uniform purple, a nod to her past. “I use purple because it's a memory color for her,” Bryan says. “The cloak is many, many segments of fabric arranged and patched together to make a whole cloak. And I think it gives a sense to this kind of vagabond character as she's on her journey to kill these Jedi.”

Mae’s belt is also a riff on the Jedi uniform, but this one conceals a deadly secret. “At first it may look decorative to you,” Bryan says, but the eyelets lining the front of the belt are actually the handles of four of her throwing knives, a clever way to conceal her daggers close at hand. “They are in her boot, too,” Bryan says. “She has an unending supply.”

Nods to our own Earth-bound warriors can be found peppered throughout Mae’s costume. “I looked at great warrior tribes and cultures of the past, all the way back from Asia minor, East Africa, North Africa, and the Roman and Byzantine Empires. It needs to look like it's put together from these different historical eras of warriors, but not specific to any one culture. For Mae, I drew on samurai. That's where you see the bamboo strips across the top,” Bryan says, which were molded from real bamboo stalks and cast in a flexible silicone rubber. “For the pewter metal section, you would think of a Byzantine [knight] or a Roman gladiator's plate armor. The chainmail is not something that you frequently see in the Star Wars galaxy, but it's historically important because warriors and gladiators used that material for protection. And then everything else is kind of put together with elements that she found along the way.”

Mother Aniseya

To connect to Mae and Osha’s past, Mother Aniseya (Jodie Turner-Smith) and the rest of the coven wear striking purple robes for the Ascension ceremony. With a long braid of locs that act as a crown, Mother Aniseya is the regal ruler of her community. “Jodie Turner-Smith really brought an elegance to the character and a costume that I designed,” Bryan says. “In producing and designing, sometimes you have to design clothing before an actor is cast. So, I had this idea well before Jodie came on board for The Acolyte. But I have to tell you, once she came into the fitting room, everything just coalesced into the look.”

Perhaps most notably, the center panel of Aniseya’s gown was a small remnant of fabric that Bryan found in a shop on one of her first days on the production. The netted fabric covered in tiny cowrie shells and bugle beads will be a challenge for cosplayers looking to replicate the look in screen-accurate detail.

The Stranger (Qimir)

As his alias Qimir (Manny Jacinto), we first met the Stranger in borrowed clothes likely stolen from the apothecary’s rightful shopkeeper. To create his Khofar forest look, Bryan looked to other legacy dark siders — Darth Vader, Darth Maul, and Kylo Ren — for inspiration as well as Japanese samurai warriors. “Designing the Stranger was a really great experience for me. It's really embedded in Star Wars mythology and some of the visual cues of somebody who is a threat to these [Jedi] characters.”

Filmmakers wanted the costume to act as a shroud, making it difficult to see his true form beneath the flowing layers, while also working as a functional garment for Jacinto’s fight choreography. “The materials and his costume really had to be agile and very, very athletic,” Bryan says. “If you're a cosplayer and you're going to reproduce this, the cloak is made of leather, his vest is leather and his pants are styled after the Japanese warrior pants.”

And, yes, the giant backpack that Qimir has slung over his shoulder on the way into the Khofar forest was intentionally oversized. “In case you're wondering, when we saw Qimir traveling, his backpack was so huge because you had to have a place to put his helmet,” she says with a laugh.

While Neal Scanlan’s team fabricated the sneering helmet, Bryan took on the cortosis gauntlet seen on the Stranger’s forearm. “We went through many versions of that,” Bryan says. “It had to look like something that you'd never seen. It was all hand-sculpted with some 3D elements in it. It has a very corrosive and rusted look. I was fascinated with being able to do something like that, which is basically not clothing as we know it, but was a very integral part of his costume. It's one of my favorite costumes from the series because it's so out of the box, and it's so different from all the pieces that came along with that work.”

Master Indara

As the first Jedi Master viewers meet in the series, Master Indara (Carrie-Anne Moss) wears the classic brown hooded robes that introduced Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: A New Hope and became the go-to Jedi garment. “Knowing that Master Indara was going to be the first Jedi that you saw in The Acolyte, I really wanted to still keep that essence of how we've seen them, that significant and memorable brown mission cloak,” Bryan says. “How she's hooded — I think it was a really great shot. Anyone who is a Star Wars fan, which for me is everybody on the planet, knows that that is a Jedi.”

Beyond the classic guardians of peace seen in previous Star Wars films, Bryan drew inspiration from Princess Leia Organa, using the same ivory color for Indara’s costume beneath the cloak as a nod to Leia’s long white gown in the original trilogy. Knowing that Moss was in for some high-flying stunts, her tunics and other layers are built with action and fight choreography in mind. “In designing costumes, not only does it need to look good, it has to function in filmmaking,” Bryan says. “It has to fit the choreography and the fighting and the lightsaber work.”

Building upon the layers of her Jedi mission attire, Bryan and her team constructed a leather doublet, a vest-like garment. With topstitching that mimicked the fine pleating of her under tunic, the doublet was styled from stiff material to provide additional support for the actor. “It gave her some upward posture and had to accommodate the choreography that we had to do,” Bryan says. “When you’re looking at Master Indara, take note of her boots and take note of the micro pleating.”

Master Sol

In stark contrast, when we first meet Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae), he’s dressed in his white temple robes, teaching a class of younglings on Coruscant. “Master Sol is your classic Jedi,” Bryan says. To usher his costume into this new era of the Jedi Order in its prime, Bryan and her team used new fabrics to layer his ensemble. “It still is Jedi, but a mix. We do have the traditional surplice neckline,” Bryan says, crisscrossing at the front of the garment, held in place with a Jedi belt, etched with the symbol of the era, and the clip to hold his lightsaber. For Bryan, it was essential to seek out fabrics that felt they could withstand the test of time, garments that would be issued to a Master and worn for years to come. “I layered his tunics and tabards,” she says. “I used new materials, new fabrics with different textures and weaves that are just a little bit more rugged and heavy.”

Even the color palette is a fresh spin on the browns and creams of the prequel era. “The colors are a fresh take on Jedi on Coruscant,” Bryan says. “The over jackets and tabards were done in a sort of a turmeric or mustard color, and I did variations within that. So when you see them as a group, you'll see different tones. It's basically to differentiate characters and give a little bit of hierarchy within the Jedi costumes.”

Jecki Lon

Some Jedi Padawans of the era, like Sol’s Padawan Jecki Lon (Dafne Keen), wear colorful sashes beneath their belts to signify their status as students. The pop of color, first seen in the Star Wars: The High Republic books and comics, stands out in addition to a classic Jedi tabard style that conforms more closely to costumes of the past. The hair and makeup department worked to craft a Padawan braid for the half Theelin, half human’s short blond locks.

“You'll notice that she's wearing her green under sash, which goes beneath her leather belt,” Bryan says, a color that mirrors the vibrant hue of her lightsaber blade. “For the green under sash, I used the wool felt fabric because it gives her some structure. And in terms of just plain practicality, it is going to stay firm and really stand out against the leather belt.”

Yord Fandar

Another standout among the Jedi Order is Jedi Knight Yord Fandar (Charlie Barnett).

“Yord is a very fastidious character,” Bryan notes, from his locs to the delicate drape of his white temple robes. “His cloak I designed with inspiration from Roman senators' togas. This is a guy that really takes a deep interest in how he looks, so he has more flair to his Jedi costume than I think we've seen previously.”

That called for a different kind of fabric from the other members of the Order seen in the series. “The silk and wool fabric that I used for Yord's costume is a little bit different than the one that I used for Master Sol because I had to get that lustrous drape of his cowl,” Bryan says.

Meet Mae, Master Indara, Master Sol, Jecki, and Yord when The Acolyte premieres on Disney+ June 4.