Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” showrunner Alex Kurtzman has been vocal about his love for luxury fashion designer Alexander McQueen. It was one name that came up in conversations with the show’s costume designer, Avery Plewes, when they were brainstorming ideas for the series’ wedding episode.
The series takes place in the 32nd century after the events of “Star Trek: Discovery,” with Starfleet relaunching the titular educational institution outside San Francisco after the Federation’s absence on Earth for more than 120 years.
Episode 7 of the series, titled “Ko’Zeine,” sees the Khioians carry out a “traditional wedding ritual” as they kidnap Darem (George Hawkins) and force him to marry his childhood friend and new queen, Kaira (Jaelynn Thora Brooks).
Plewes settled on the idea that the bride and groom should wear similar colors. The Khioians are humanoids, but also a semi-aquatic species that exist on both land and in aquatic states.
“My starting point on the show is always starting with an alien texture and palette,” Plewes says. “With this, it was fish-inspired because Khioians have a scaly texture, and how grand and outrageous you can make it!”
Kaira’s dress had a scaly texture and “looked alive.” Using a chroming technique to make the fabrics look metallic, Plewes used thousands ofeathers (something McQueen often used in his couture designs) and different tones of the same color. “Once they were on the dress, we hand-cut them, so they were smaller,” she says.
John Medland/Paramount+
Aside from McQueen, her inspiration also came from a deeply personal space: her parents. They were both artists; her mother would “always paint in layers,” she says.
Plewes embedded layering into Kaira’s skirt using two different fabrics to add texture and create a multi-tonal look. She also applied that technique to Darmen’s jacket, which was made from panels of different fabrics, stacked on top of one another.
“When the light hits, you get a different dimension, and light always needs somewhere to land with texture on camera for it to look cinematic,” she says. “I had this moment when I was assembling that episode in the 11th hour. This episode is really a love letter to my artist family. I realized I do what my parents both do — just with fabric, not oil paint.”
With the guests, Plewes largely opted for off the-rack items that were then altered. Initially, she couldn’t find something she liked for Quinn (Alexa Yaphe). Then she came across a Top Man jacket, which became something of an experimental piece.
Her textile artist, Bonnie McCabe, had been testing a new tool that creates a puffy texture when heated. Plewes found old rhinestone clover fabric that was then added onto the jacket. She then applied the chroming technique that she had used on the feathers to completely transform the off-the-rack jacket into something that looked alien-like and futuristic.
Production designer Matthew Davies was tasked with building a new planet and introducing this world to audiences. Khionia was a waterless planet and in a moon-locked state. “It’s in a fixed orbit, so it always gets the magic hour sunlight,” Davies says. “It makes it perfect for weddings and gorgeous photography.”
He combined virtual production using a 60-foot LED volume stage with practical designs to create environments. In keeping with the aquatic theme, Davies used architectural language that related to the Khionian anatomy: Everything in that world looked like fish bones. For the ceremony, the wedding pagoda was made of silk. Davies says, “We pushed air through it, so it billows like fish gills.”
The use of virtual production walls made it easier to work with any reflective material on the costumes and even in his production design. Davies says the LED walls could easily pick up ambient lighting and surrounding color hues to make it feel natural and more embedded into the environment.
He also took advantage of that elsewhere on the USS Athena, lighting the newly designed bridge with rings of chrome lighting: “I introduce a lot of reflective surfaces, a lot of mirrors and shiny metallic finishes that create a ripple of light.
