Gersha Phillips: Costuming Section 31 And The Klingons
2 min read
During the Star Trek: Discovery Season Two red carpet event last week, several news organizations, including TrekCore and TrekMovie, conducted interviews with Gersha Phillips, who creates the beautiful costumes on the show.
Phillips explained what work she has done for costuming those involved with Section 31, and Klingons who are not dressed for war.
“We do a couple of uniforms for some security guards and some other beats,” she said. “I can’t remember exactly. I think we did a medical officer of some sort. But basically we just extrapolated from our Starfleet look, and brought it over and sort of gave it a black persona and adapted it to our Section 31 characters. So that’s the uniform look.
“But a lot of the characters in Section 31 are wearing individual clothing. They just wear, I guess, Section 31 streetwear as opposed to wearing a particular uniform. So it’s really cool.
“Some of the Section 31 pieces are some of my favorite things in the series. I just love them. And I think – we buy some things, we make some things, we augment some things, we sort of do a lot of everything to them and I think they turned out really great.
“A lot of directors — or not all the directors, because obviously you have to have a certain like for that type of world, but some of them have said that those are some of their favorite clothes as well, so I think it’s really cool. And everybody’s always saying, ‘What is that? Where did we get that? Where do we get that from?’ so it’s cool.”
Phillips also had to come up with a new look for the Klingons because now that the war is over, they’re dressed differently. “…It was really tricky coming up with Klingons that were not armored,” she said. “And still trying to keep the Klingon feel and the power of Klingons but de-armor them. First, they said fabrics in the script and I was like ‘No.’ I don’t think it can be fabrics, I think it needs to still be leather. So we used a lot of leather but just reworked it in many cool different ways. So it’s been really great.”
Phillips also revealed that she had a favorite costume made for Season Two, although she wouldn’t say which character would be wearing it. “It’s kind of a duo thing,” she said; “starting in Episode 10 and the best part of it, for me, comes later in Episodes 13 and 14.”
Fans will know which one when they see it, said Phillips. “Yes, you will! It’s really a favorite of mine — I think we really knocked that one out of the park; so I’m super-excited for people to see it. And I’m pretty sure it didn’t fall apart too much on camera while we were filming.”
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