Posted 1:26 PM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Headless Body in Topless Dress

Star Trek Costumes
at the Smithsonian
June, 1992

I have been so busy that I haven't been able to post for days, despite the rich banquet of blog fodder in the news. Haven't been able to scan anything, either. So here's one that's a little different. In 1992 the Smithsonian Institution had an exhibit of Star Trek stuff. I longed to go to it, but it was several hundred miles away. And then I got called to go to a job interview in the area. W00t!...I was so there.

They had designs and models and props -- I got to sit in the Captain's chair! And they had these costumes. One of the things I love about Star Trek is its beautiful use of color, and the costumes -- the women's costumes particularly -- were certainly colorful (in more than one sense of the word).

Front and center we have the "sensor web" dress worn by Diana Muldaur in the pretentiously-titled "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" (Memory Alpha tells us that it's from a 17th century poem by a guy I never heard of.)

The pink number in the background was worn by Leslie Parrish in the cryptically-titled "Who Mourns for Adonais?" (which Memory Alpha tells us is taken from Shelley's Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, two guys I have heard of). Here's a better picture of the dress. Be sure to check out the Star Trek fashions page at that site.

If I remember correctly, in The Trouble with Tribbles (the book, tilted after the episode of the same name), David Gerrold said that only the weight of the cape kept that top in place. I'm thinkin' there had to have been some glue or tape involved as well.

Leslie, just as an addendum, went on to appear six years later as the "special guest star" in the unintentionally-hilarious Giant Spider Invasion, which was eventually thoroughly thrashed by Mystery Science Theater 3000. That's now found on Vol. 10 of Rhino's MST3K releases. You can see Leslie run around in her underwear, screaming, if you're into that sort of thing. She's not dressed as prettily as she is in "Adonais", though.

Partially hidden in back is the dress worn by Diana Ewing in the straightforwardly-titled "The Cloud Minders". My best friend from high school and her brother had a nickname for that character. It involved coconuts. I leave the rest to your imagination.

I don't recognize the dark dress on the far left and yes, that does bother me. Even a bunch o' googling could not turn up a female wearing it. Maybe she was only in the episode fleetingly (or in the dress fleetingly).

The lack of heads on these mannequins is a little disturbing. It looks like a Star Trek convention in the Land of Androids got a kinda out of hand. Or head.

UPDATE: Whoa, Nelly. Here's a crew who have drunk deeply of the raktajino. I will point out that the genocidal Organian Peace Treaty calls for planets to be claimed by whichever power can develop them most "efficiently". Talk about colonialism! Won't someone think of the Velaran crystal lifeforms??

Labels: Foto Friday