Via Starwars.com:
WHETHER ON JAKKU OR TATOOINE, NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF A GOOD HEAD WRAP.
We are now in the thick of summer, and if you’re not covered up properly, you’re not going to enjoy the record heat in some areas of the sector. One can imagine that a hard lesson learned by cast and crew on the set of Star Wars movies must be that, at least once, you’ll have to prepare yourself for a desert scene (or five). Under the blistering heat of the Tunisian sun in A New Hope, crew members often took to wrapping shirts around their heads to block the sun and cool down. But for the actors and those who would follow in their footsteps, being on set was something of a different story. That story happened to be one told, in part, by the costumes they wore.
While the Outer Rim is littered with various planets of varying climates, the two that standout as the most miserable are Tatooine and Jakku. Their deserts differ in small ways, but for the most part, there are only so many ways one can look at a miserable hotspot in a nearly forgotten, lawless area. Both trilogies and The Force Awakens have taken us to these planets to witness what the heat can do to the minds of a bunch of lawless, rowdy settlers. For the heroes of Star Wars, surviving these climates — regardless of shelter type — requires carefully selected clothing and fabric so that (both in world and out) the actors can remain as cool as possible.
In an interview with Clothes on Film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens costume designer Michael Kaplan discussed what was on his mind with Rey, taking her heat-ridden situation and how she handles it, into serious consideration. “My job is to delineate characters based on information in the script … I took all the clues of her character (she is poor, she works as a scavenger, her work requires agility, climbing, she lives in a hot and bright desert climate, where the nights are probably cool, there are possibly sand storms, she rides a speeder),” said Kaplan. “The light colors are appropriate for the desert heat.” Needless to say, the sandy tones, off-whites and light greys that Luke, Anakin, and Rey all sport at the beginning of their journeys is there to protect them from the sun’s unforgiving heat as they all do the same exact thing: work to live, and live to work. It goes without saying that if you can bear to deal with light colors, mixing them up in a manner that reminds you of these three characters might help keep you cooler.
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