Let me tell you, as a costume designer, landing the gig for the final season of Star Trek: Discovery was like winning the cosmic lottery! 🚀 I mean, I went from stitching together stories for sitcoms on Hulu and Disney+ to literally building entire civilizations from scratch for the 32nd century. It was a monumental, breathtaking, and utterly insane leap! The sheer scale of it all still makes my head spin. When they called me, fresh off How I Met Your Father, and said, "Hey, wanna design the future?" I practically teleported to the set. It felt like destiny, a glorious full-circle moment after my time on Picard. I walked into a 65-person costume department—a small army of the most talented artisans on Earth (and probably a few off-world). The logistics alone were enough to make a Vulcan sweat! But thanks to the visionary showrunners Michelle Paradise and Alex Kurtzman, who had scripts ready eons in advance, we had a roadmap to the stars. By the time I started, I already knew we were facing the Breen, planning a royal wedding, and chasing futuristic outlaws across the galaxy. It was a designer's dream come true!

Dressing the Stars: A Collaborative Cosmic Ballet ✨

Working with the Discovery cast was an absolute joyride! This isn't some cookie-cutter crew where everyone wears the same spandex. Oh no! We're talking a magnificent array of different species, body types, and personalities. They are a phenomenally collaborative bunch. After five seasons, they are professionals. They know what it means to wear neoprene for 14 hours, they understand breathability (or lack thereof), and they have a deep, intuitive connection to their characters. Fittings weren't just measurements; they were creative summits. An actor would say, "My character needs to move their arm like this during a plasma burst," and we'd problem-solve together. Seeing their faces light up when they saw the initial renderings or read a script—that energy is pure rocket fuel for a designer. They made the process a vibrant, living thing.

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The Breen: Reimagining an Iconic Menace 👾

Alright, let's talk about the big one: The Breen. This was the Everest of our season. We knew it was "The Season of the Breen," and we had to create a small army of these enigmatic soldiers. The challenge was twofold:

  1. Logistical Beast: How do you mass-produce these complex, fully-encapsulated suits for various body types on a TV schedule?

  2. Aesthetic Evolution: How do you honor the iconic, bulky design from Deep Space Nine while slimming it down for the sleek 32nd-century aesthetic?

I spent days studying auction photos of the original costume, isolating its key hallmarks. My mission was evolution, not erasure. Here’s what we changed and why:

Original DS9 Breen Our 32nd-Century Update Reasoning
Bulky, undefined silhouette Sleek, architectural, and tactical Reflects advanced materials and a more militaristic precision.
Prominent helmet "beak" Streamlined and integrated The beak seemed non-functional; we pushed it in to create a more severe, modern profile while keeping a hint of the snout.
Chunky backpack Slimmed, architectural pack Became the clear housing for the core refrigeration tech, with visible tubing connecting to the helmet.
Simple helmet lines Plated, dimensional armor Used advanced 3D printing to break the classic green stripe into layered plates, adding depth and a futuristic soldier feel.
Opaque grilles Functional venting grilles Reimagined as part of the active cooling system, hinting at the technology within.

The core DNA is all there—the grille, the tubing, the distinctive helmet shape—but it's been put through a futuristic filter. They are less like mysterious sacks and more like terrifyingly efficient spec-ops soldiers. And that refrigeration technology? That became a crucial storytelling thread...

Moll & L'ak: Futuristic Bonnie and Clyde on the Run 🏍️💨

Enter our villainous couple, Moll and L'ak. The brief was "futuristic Bonnie and Clyde with a biker gang edge." Working with Eve Harlow (Moll) was a riot. She was skeptical at first! I had to coax her into the fitting room, promising her it would work. The genius tailor, Ritta Koleva (who also made T'Rina's wedding dress!), crafted a harnessed, woven, tactical masterpiece that Eve eventually adored. It was all about lived-in, rough-and-tumble cool.

But L'ak's costume was where we planted a massive clue. We knew he was a Breen defector. His entire aesthetic is derived from that culture. His jacket is cut on the same severe diagonal lines as Breen armor. The seams, the pockets—all slanted. And the key? The tubing. We used NASA-inspired cooling tube technology woven into his suit. It's the same refrigeration principle as the full Breen suits, just adapted for someone on the run. It looks black, but we layered and weathered it with six different colors; in certain light, it reads as a deep green to complement his skin tone. Every stitch told the story of his origins.

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The Royal Wedding of the Future: Saru & T'Rina 👰🤵

Now, for the event of the millennium! Designing the wedding was my "pinch-me" moment. We called it "the royal wedding of the future," and we treated it as such.

For President T'Rina: We dove deep into Vulcan nuptial history! We looked at T'Pring's costumes and found inspiration in T'Pol's veil from Enterprise. The goal was a 32nd-century lace. How? We took the Ni'Var symbol and laser-cut it into leather, creating a formal, structured lace specific to Tara Rosling's body map. The base fabric was a textured raffia basket weave. Her veil was an architectural marvel, inspired by 1950s Grace Kelly but made utterly alien. We kept her strong Vulcan shoulder line, making her look every bit the regal leader.

For Ambassador Saru: Doug Jones is a literal treasure. His costume was a beautiful cultural fusion—Vulcan strength meeting Kelpien elegance. We used monochromatic blues to accentuate his incredible height, with a darker shade to sculpt his form. The draped collars were inspired by Japanese folding techniques. The material? Heavy, shaved mohair dyed and foiled. It weighed about 40 pounds! Doug paraded in it like it was feathers, calling it the most beautiful thing he'd ever worn. The man is a saint.

The guests were a playground of imagination! We had a man with a geometric, eyeless headpiece, all sorts of wild millinery, and hidden Easter eggs galore. It was a blast creating this intergalactic high society.

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The Final Leap: Admiral Burnham and Beyond ⭐

And then, the finale's coda—jumping further into the future than ever before. Designing Admiral Burnham's uniform was about honoring legacy while pushing forward. The silhouette is familiar, but the construction is new. We stacked and piped the sewing to create incredible depth and dimension, making the uniform feel built, not just sewn. I sprinkled in my favorite Trek homages:

  • Burnham's uniform: A nod to the belted majesty of The Wrath of Khan era.

  • Her son's uniform: Inspired by the sleek jumpsuits of The Next Generation, my personal favorite.

It was a love letter to Trek history, a celebration of Discovery's journey, and a glimpse into a future full of hope and new aesthetics.

Looking back, this wasn't just a job; it was a transformative, galactic-scale artistic expedition. From the icy menace of the Breen to the warm, woven textures of a wedding, every stitch was part of building a believable, beautiful, and bold future. My heart is forever with the USS Discovery. What a ride! 🖖