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bironicOne of my favorite superficial enjoyments of watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was when we got to see crew members wear outfits other than their uniforms. Not that the uniforms themselves weren't sexy—they were! all long and slimming and with that zipper down the front that would creep lower to expose more neck and chest as temperatures and stress levels rose... *cough* However, we are talking today about the appeal of clothes that differ from the regular uniforms, especially when those clothes only make rare appearances.
Because what happens is you see each crew member week after week in the same outfit, so that it becomes ingrained in your experience of them and your understanding of them, seems to be a part of their identity, their performance, as much a physical trait as their height and hair color, until you don't notice the uniform anymore—and then suddenly, at a party or in a holosuite or in a flashback, they're dressed up in something else, and even watching it 15 or 20 years later when some of the fashions are just embarrassing, it's electrifying.
Tomboy Kira wearing a dress! Captain Sisko in a loose casual shirt, cooking beets! O'Brien in a wetsuit, fresh from his latest kayaking accident! And it gets so much more diverse: There are variants when characters go on leave, lounge around at home, dress for special occasions, put on traditional garb from their cultures/planets, visit holosuites, travel forward or back in time, and go undercover; when we see flashbacks and flash-forwards; and when we enjoy peeks into AUs and mirror universes. And it can get wonderfully deep: The joy and fascination can be about skin and sex appeal, humor, seeing a different side of a familiar character, learning more about a culture or a universe, learning more about a character's past or future, delighting in the characters (or the actors) acting as other characters, mixing genres, or feeling pride when far-away and/or alien fictional characters want to dress like us. (Well, I say "us" as someone who identifies with many of the cultures the show paid homage to.) And more.
All this isn't unique to DS9, of course. I've experienced the same with the other Treks, and Stargate: Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica, and basically any show or movie where the characters have a typical outfit, or even a typical way of dressing, that gets occasionally interrupted. (And then there's a show like Community, which is made of dress-up, yet somehow by putting its characters in wildly new getups basically every other week it manages to retain the thrill. But that is a subject for another time.)
So that is the text block. What I'd like to do in the rest of this post is talk about how DS9 explored different kinds of out-of-uniform dress-up, illustrated with ~80 lovely screen shots, and touch on what I love about them and why.
First, let's establish our baseline: the usual uniforms.
Earlier seasons on the left, later on the right. We'll be focusing for the most part on the characters who wear the Starfleet or Bajoran uniforms: Sisko, Dax, Worf, Bashir and O'Brien, in black jumpsuits with the colored shoulders or inner shirt indicating theirranks areas of specialty, such as engineering, the sciences or command; and Kira and Odo, in red and brown/beige, respectively. Quark and Jake seem to wear different outfits every time they show up, and Garak is always sporting his own tailored creations, so new shirts and such on them don't make as much of an impact unless they're markedly different from their usual styles. The non-resident Cardassians (Dukat, Damar) and Bajoran ministers (Vedeks, Kai Winn), etc. do wear uniforms, but they don't get to play with alternatives nearly as much as our main cast does.
Of course, all the exceptions have exceptions, which we will cover with pleasure.
Now, on to the dress-up.
Shore leave
What I remember first and most vividly about characters being out of uniform on this show is the episode where half the crew takes a trip to Risa, the pleasure planet ("Let He Who Is Without Sin…"). Holy Roddenberry—so much skin! All we see when they're in uniform are their hands, their faces, and some of their necks. One runabout ride later, we're gifted with the sight of Bashir in a tank top (guh) and Jadzia in a bathing suit (yum). Plus Quark in the Ferengi equivalent of a Hawaiian shirt, which is different enough from his normal outfits that we take notice (and giggle). Sexy bared flesh and/or comedy everywhere. And, hey, we learn a little more about alien anatomy, like how far down Trills' spots really go.
Sometimes, the pleasure of off-station-wear arises from something as basic as seeing the characters in different colors than you're used to. Ezri always = black and teal. O'Brien always = black and gold. But when they visit Trill in "The Prodigal Daughter," they wear solid magenta and blue. It's simple, but the effect is strong.
(In doing this picspam, actually, I noticed how often O'Brien gets put in blue when he's not in uniform. Bashir tends to get rich blues and purples, Kira reds and greens for everyday or pinks and lavenders for dressy, Sisko dark reds and patterns... It'd make for an interesting analysis someday, if people haven't already done it and/or written it off as the costumes department shooting for something simple.)
At home
It's always fun to get a glimpse of characters out of uniform in their quarters; seeing what they choose to wear when they're relaxing, by themselves or around their families. It also can give you some insight into their cultural background. I always think of Sisko with his loosely African-inspired casual wear when he hangs out with his son or cooks dinner for his crew—one of the ways in which the show both underscored the character's heritage/ancestry and reminded viewers of the significance of having cast an African-American in this positive leading role.
Not that it's all profound. Sometimes it's just fun to see characters dressed "down" rather than dressed up, like in their uniform undershirts…
…or in their adorable little PJs.
Special occasions
Dress-up for special occasions happens at parties, on holidays, and at various ceremonies. Here's where we get to enjoy dresses, silk shirts, lots of color and other random fanciness that is presumably contemporary to the part of the 24th century when the show takes place.
I guess we can count dress uniforms here, too, because they do offer varying degrees of divergence from the standard uniforms, from only a hint of gold and shifted pips across the shoulder on a longer tunic (seen at Sisko's promotion ceremony), to stuffy white and gold jackets that follow the basic Starfleet design (seen in "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges"), to completely different shapes and colors (i.e. Kira's lavender uniform).
If seeing characters in their hang-around-the-house-wear is fun in part because we get to see them more relaxed, then dress uniforms can be fun in part because they go hand in hand with characters behaving more formally. Or trying to.
Home planets/traditional garb
When characters travel to their home planets (or to others' home planets), they often dress differently. Like seeing them at home and at traditional events, this is an opportunity to learn more about their cultures while we continue to enjoy the different outfits. Kira, for example, tends to go for short sleeves/sleeveless shirts and earth tones when she visits places outside the capital, highlighting Bajorans' ties to the land (and suggesting that the planet is warmer than the station). Sisko just dresses in kitchen whites and/or like hotness when he chills out at his dad's restaurant in New Orleans.
Of course, the series often sucked at making coherent statements about culture through wardrobe (*cough O'Brien*), like putting alien characters in white t-shirts and plain robes for major ceremonies as though their budget and/or creative energy petered out, but the potential is still there.
They did have such fun with dressing characters in both modern and traditional Klingon garb, though. Bat'leth challenges, weddings, characters who just liked to wear Klingon stuff, you name it.
Holosuites, sports & leisure
Ah, sports and games. Opportunities for characters to wear sweats, wetsuits, martial arts-reminiscent outfits and extremely humiliating Spandex. Cue the admiring of svelte figures, even without a gratuitous display of skin. Also the less superficial enjoyment of seeing characters get passionate about their hobbies.
The baseball episode ("Take Me Out to the Holosuite") is a favorite. It's a treat to see the characters drop their fictional future clothes and don uniforms that are familiar to viewers in our own time period. Like you could run into them on the street. It's great to see Sisko and Jake get so excited about their favorite sport and to spread some of that enthusiasm among the crew. Even Odo gets to dress up for this one, hurrah. Not least, it's funny to see Ferengi and Vulcans in baseball caps.
The holosuites provide lots of other opportunities to admire characters, human or otherwise, in an array of outfits as they don costumes to suit different time periods and genres, sometimes while pretending to be other people. There's the perennial favorite of Bashir and Garak playing at 007, mixing a little spy in with our sci fi as we learn more about Bashir's ideas of suaveness and heroism. There are the (initially cute but eventually tiresome) jaunts to Vic's lounge, all cocktail dresses and bow ties and the occasional heist plot. Princesses, Vikings, all sorts of fun ways for our team to dress up and play pretend.
(This kind of dress-up and a few others below intersect with the characters' fondness for historical roleplay, too, which is why a lot of these scenes showed up in my vid Born Too Late last year as well.)
Even more attention gets drawn to the holosuite outfits when they're shown out and about in the normal station environment instead of in whatever context they're intended for. Stuff like Dax and Kira descending the stairs at Quark's Bar in their pointy princess hats or RAF pilots Bashir and O'Brien strolling down the Promenade on either side of Odo in his usual uniform.
Time travel
Along the same lines as the holosuites, there are the couple of episodes where characters actually travel to an earlier century and dress up to blend in. I still love the dark layers and hoodies Bashir and Sisko trade their uniforms for in the ghetto in "Past Tense" as well as the feathers and elaborate hairstyles Dax employs to convince the upper crust to help her. Further fun when Kira (again in red and sage) and O'Brien (again in blue) transport through the decades in search of their lost teammates. The Band-Aid over Kira's nose gives us a cute little homage to the classic sight of Spock with his terry cloth headband in Star Trek IV.
The other time travel ep, "Trials and Tribble-ations," indulges in some fond self-reference, so not only do we get to see the characters wearing the outfits of an earlier era, we get to see them in the uniforms of an earlier Trek. Geekgasm! I love that the characters love the whole thing, too, teasing and checking each other out in the "antique" gear and talking about how awesome it all is because they are all also TOS fans. (Or, in Worf's case, talking about how stupid they feel. Oh, well.)
Sometimes the time traveling is done on our part, in the form of flashbacks. This isn't characters pretending to be somewhere else, or trying to fit in somewhere new; it's a glimpse at how they used to dress and what they and their lives used to be like. In flashbacks we see Sisko with his wife on a beach, colorful and young, and Odo, Kira and Dukat on Terok Nor during the Occupation, in simple, somber garments reflecting the tough times and their comparative lack of agency.
I don't quite know how to categorize "Wrongs Darker than Death or Night" or "Things Past"; maybe a hybrid flashback-vision, where the characters find themselves in the past but can't interact with anything and haven't consciously chosen their era-appropriate clothes. Anyway, there's Kira in another lovely dress suitable for her mother's generation... if you're dressed by a frisky Cardassian soldier who wants to raise you from the ranks of the working class. And there are Odo, Sisko, Garak and Dax in a holding cell during the Occupation, again wearing muted colors to suit the environment and the tone.
In addition to the flashbacks, once in a while we get some flash-forward scenes. To be honest I don't remember the context for seeing older Bashir and older Dax above, but there they are, in what are depressingly bland future versions of the Starfleet uniform. And still teal, so I guess 30 years later they've never been promoted.
Anyway, in "Children of Time" we see one version of how the crew's descendents might look and dress, which doesn't really count for our purposes except that Odo is there, still alive and looking kindly and awesome. He has purposely aged his appearance and shifted into much less severe clothing than he always sported back on the station, showing how he's loosened up and learned more about "solids" over the decades. In his case, as a shapeshifter, the clothes literally are the man.
Undercover
Oh, Star Trek. You have a long and affectionate history of having your characters undergo plastic surgery so they can pass as other alien races while on undercover missions. DS9 is no exception. Characters get different clothes as dictated by whichever race they're mimicking, but here the most fascinating part of the dress-up is the makeup. Odo, O'Brien and Sisko with the foreheads, teeth and hair of Klingons; Dax with a Bajoran's ridged nose and her spots missing. Kira, forced to wear the face and neck ridges of the race she hates above all others; Dukat, altered on request to resemble a member of the race he helped oppress.
Stereotype-based cross-dressing for the purpose of undermining gender-discriminatory corporate agendas, always fun. I suppose we are glad that Quark as a woman actually gets to wear clothes. The dress might offer more insight into Ferengi culture except that we are told countless other times that traditional female garb is... no garb at all... and also because the Ferengi tend to be used for comic relief.
When Kira goes undercover on Cardassia Prime in the last season, she gets to wear a Starfleet uniform. (I assume she is given a commission in order to do so? Don't remember.) It's still a uniform, and it's a uniform we're intimately familiar with, but it's not a uniform she's accustomed to wearing nor one we're accustomed to seeing on her, which makes it special.
Speaking of characters wearing uniforms that aren't usually theirs, turns out the light, caftan-like outfits Ezri and Sisko wear at the beginning of season seven are Starfleet issue. Hence the teal stripe on hers and the maroon stripe on his, I suppose.
AUs, mirror universes and possession
In other words, scenarios where the characters aren't quite themselves.
Like in "Facets," where crew members take turns giving their bodies over to Dax's past hosts. When Odo does it, he actually fuses his features with Curzon's and shifts into an outfit that we presume Curzon would have worn. He's the only one who's able to retain his own consciousness during the ritual, too. Pretty cool. Odo doesn't get to do cool shapeshifter things enough.
Or like in holosuite-based AUs where our crew aren't play-acting but instead have had their bodies co-opted by fictional characters. Same faces, different clothes and personalities. The clothes and hairstyles (and eye patches) don't tell us anything about our characters, but they do help establish the universe and provide fun for all! In "Our Man Bashir," Bashir and Garak are there along with us to enjoy seeing their friends and colleagues wearing out-of-character outfits and personalities. While they're not fighting for their lives, anyway.
"Far Beyond the Stars" is one of my favorite episodes from the whole series, for many reasons. Relevant to today's discussion is all the different costumes and personas we get for everyone in the AU. They help set us in a specific era, which is again one within our own history to give us a little added enjoyment and resonance.
Another dress-up-related reason I love this episode is that we get to see the actors who play alien characters out of their typical makeup: Odo, Worf, Quark, Nog, Dukat, Weyoun, Martok. As in the holosuite AU, the dress-up here is of a meta kind that we enjoy while the characters don't know it's happening.
A sideways version of the AU comes in visions from the Prophets or Pah-Wraiths, where, when the vision ends, the character we're used to is able to remember what happened.
(Although, okay, I may have included this shot mostly because I love Casey Biggs/Damar out of makeup.)
And then there are mirror universes! Everyone's favorite. These mix all sorts of dress-up categories. The characters are themselves, only they're not—they're alternate versions of themselves. Part of the transformation is made visually apparent in their outfits, hair and makeup. Or to put it another way, the clothes can serve as an efficient shorthand for indicating how a character in this universe is different from the one we know.
In "Crossover" and "Through the Looking-Glass" and whatnot, the Intendant's unforgettable catsuit immediately tells us that we're dealing with a more sexualized, seductive and powerful version of Major Kira. Mirror!Ezri's hair and leather-ish shirt imply she's more of a tough punk than we're used to. Bashir's got loose, long hair, stubble and an attitude. Not sure that his brown shirt says much other than "really not a lieutenant commander or a doctor," but it sure is nice to look at on him.
When Sisko volunteers/is coerced to aid the mirror resistance, he ditches his uniform to fit in, but it's also a symbol of how he's ditching Starfleet principles and his usual way of dealing with people.
As with Bashir and Garak in the 007 holosuite program that went wrong, each time we visit or have a visitor from a mirror universe, we've got at least one our!universe character there to notice, remark on, and share our outsiders' view of the differences, wardrobe-wise and otherwise.
Mostly, though, they're awfully pretty. And often sexy. And kinky. And a little bit evil.
And they always seem to have more fun.
As you know.
In conclusion:
Try it on, Bashir. You know you want to.
Image credits: I took many of the above screencaps from my DVDs. Other images came from: Memory Alpha, StarTrek.com, rindastartrekds9.wordpress.com, t0.gstatic.com, trekinscifi.com, eponymous_rose on LJ, freewebs.com/laurelgirl120, ontd_ds9 on LJ, Ex Astris Scientia, Doc Oho Reviews, PopSugar.com, afortmadeofbooks.blogspot.com, ds9.trekcore.com and OVguide.com.
Written for the "dressup" square on my Bingo card.
Because what happens is you see each crew member week after week in the same outfit, so that it becomes ingrained in your experience of them and your understanding of them, seems to be a part of their identity, their performance, as much a physical trait as their height and hair color, until you don't notice the uniform anymore—and then suddenly, at a party or in a holosuite or in a flashback, they're dressed up in something else, and even watching it 15 or 20 years later when some of the fashions are just embarrassing, it's electrifying.
Tomboy Kira wearing a dress! Captain Sisko in a loose casual shirt, cooking beets! O'Brien in a wetsuit, fresh from his latest kayaking accident! And it gets so much more diverse: There are variants when characters go on leave, lounge around at home, dress for special occasions, put on traditional garb from their cultures/planets, visit holosuites, travel forward or back in time, and go undercover; when we see flashbacks and flash-forwards; and when we enjoy peeks into AUs and mirror universes. And it can get wonderfully deep: The joy and fascination can be about skin and sex appeal, humor, seeing a different side of a familiar character, learning more about a culture or a universe, learning more about a character's past or future, delighting in the characters (or the actors) acting as other characters, mixing genres, or feeling pride when far-away and/or alien fictional characters want to dress like us. (Well, I say "us" as someone who identifies with many of the cultures the show paid homage to.) And more.
All this isn't unique to DS9, of course. I've experienced the same with the other Treks, and Stargate: Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica, and basically any show or movie where the characters have a typical outfit, or even a typical way of dressing, that gets occasionally interrupted. (And then there's a show like Community, which is made of dress-up, yet somehow by putting its characters in wildly new getups basically every other week it manages to retain the thrill. But that is a subject for another time.)
So that is the text block. What I'd like to do in the rest of this post is talk about how DS9 explored different kinds of out-of-uniform dress-up, illustrated with ~80 lovely screen shots, and touch on what I love about them and why.
First, let's establish our baseline: the usual uniforms.
Earlier seasons on the left, later on the right. We'll be focusing for the most part on the characters who wear the Starfleet or Bajoran uniforms: Sisko, Dax, Worf, Bashir and O'Brien, in black jumpsuits with the colored shoulders or inner shirt indicating their
Of course, all the exceptions have exceptions, which we will cover with pleasure.
Now, on to the dress-up.
Shore leave
What I remember first and most vividly about characters being out of uniform on this show is the episode where half the crew takes a trip to Risa, the pleasure planet ("Let He Who Is Without Sin…"). Holy Roddenberry—so much skin! All we see when they're in uniform are their hands, their faces, and some of their necks. One runabout ride later, we're gifted with the sight of Bashir in a tank top (guh) and Jadzia in a bathing suit (yum). Plus Quark in the Ferengi equivalent of a Hawaiian shirt, which is different enough from his normal outfits that we take notice (and giggle). Sexy bared flesh and/or comedy everywhere. And, hey, we learn a little more about alien anatomy, like how far down Trills' spots really go.
Sometimes, the pleasure of off-station-wear arises from something as basic as seeing the characters in different colors than you're used to. Ezri always = black and teal. O'Brien always = black and gold. But when they visit Trill in "The Prodigal Daughter," they wear solid magenta and blue. It's simple, but the effect is strong.
(In doing this picspam, actually, I noticed how often O'Brien gets put in blue when he's not in uniform. Bashir tends to get rich blues and purples, Kira reds and greens for everyday or pinks and lavenders for dressy, Sisko dark reds and patterns... It'd make for an interesting analysis someday, if people haven't already done it and/or written it off as the costumes department shooting for something simple.)
At home
It's always fun to get a glimpse of characters out of uniform in their quarters; seeing what they choose to wear when they're relaxing, by themselves or around their families. It also can give you some insight into their cultural background. I always think of Sisko with his loosely African-inspired casual wear when he hangs out with his son or cooks dinner for his crew—one of the ways in which the show both underscored the character's heritage/ancestry and reminded viewers of the significance of having cast an African-American in this positive leading role.
Not that it's all profound. Sometimes it's just fun to see characters dressed "down" rather than dressed up, like in their uniform undershirts…
…or in their adorable little PJs.
Special occasions
Dress-up for special occasions happens at parties, on holidays, and at various ceremonies. Here's where we get to enjoy dresses, silk shirts, lots of color and other random fanciness that is presumably contemporary to the part of the 24th century when the show takes place.
I guess we can count dress uniforms here, too, because they do offer varying degrees of divergence from the standard uniforms, from only a hint of gold and shifted pips across the shoulder on a longer tunic (seen at Sisko's promotion ceremony), to stuffy white and gold jackets that follow the basic Starfleet design (seen in "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges"), to completely different shapes and colors (i.e. Kira's lavender uniform).
If seeing characters in their hang-around-the-house-wear is fun in part because we get to see them more relaxed, then dress uniforms can be fun in part because they go hand in hand with characters behaving more formally. Or trying to.
Home planets/traditional garb
When characters travel to their home planets (or to others' home planets), they often dress differently. Like seeing them at home and at traditional events, this is an opportunity to learn more about their cultures while we continue to enjoy the different outfits. Kira, for example, tends to go for short sleeves/sleeveless shirts and earth tones when she visits places outside the capital, highlighting Bajorans' ties to the land (and suggesting that the planet is warmer than the station). Sisko just dresses in kitchen whites and/or like hotness when he chills out at his dad's restaurant in New Orleans.
Of course, the series often sucked at making coherent statements about culture through wardrobe (*cough O'Brien*), like putting alien characters in white t-shirts and plain robes for major ceremonies as though their budget and/or creative energy petered out, but the potential is still there.
They did have such fun with dressing characters in both modern and traditional Klingon garb, though. Bat'leth challenges, weddings, characters who just liked to wear Klingon stuff, you name it.
Holosuites, sports & leisure
Ah, sports and games. Opportunities for characters to wear sweats, wetsuits, martial arts-reminiscent outfits and extremely humiliating Spandex. Cue the admiring of svelte figures, even without a gratuitous display of skin. Also the less superficial enjoyment of seeing characters get passionate about their hobbies.
The baseball episode ("Take Me Out to the Holosuite") is a favorite. It's a treat to see the characters drop their fictional future clothes and don uniforms that are familiar to viewers in our own time period. Like you could run into them on the street. It's great to see Sisko and Jake get so excited about their favorite sport and to spread some of that enthusiasm among the crew. Even Odo gets to dress up for this one, hurrah. Not least, it's funny to see Ferengi and Vulcans in baseball caps.
The holosuites provide lots of other opportunities to admire characters, human or otherwise, in an array of outfits as they don costumes to suit different time periods and genres, sometimes while pretending to be other people. There's the perennial favorite of Bashir and Garak playing at 007, mixing a little spy in with our sci fi as we learn more about Bashir's ideas of suaveness and heroism. There are the (initially cute but eventually tiresome) jaunts to Vic's lounge, all cocktail dresses and bow ties and the occasional heist plot. Princesses, Vikings, all sorts of fun ways for our team to dress up and play pretend.
(This kind of dress-up and a few others below intersect with the characters' fondness for historical roleplay, too, which is why a lot of these scenes showed up in my vid Born Too Late last year as well.)
Even more attention gets drawn to the holosuite outfits when they're shown out and about in the normal station environment instead of in whatever context they're intended for. Stuff like Dax and Kira descending the stairs at Quark's Bar in their pointy princess hats or RAF pilots Bashir and O'Brien strolling down the Promenade on either side of Odo in his usual uniform.
Time travel
Along the same lines as the holosuites, there are the couple of episodes where characters actually travel to an earlier century and dress up to blend in. I still love the dark layers and hoodies Bashir and Sisko trade their uniforms for in the ghetto in "Past Tense" as well as the feathers and elaborate hairstyles Dax employs to convince the upper crust to help her. Further fun when Kira (again in red and sage) and O'Brien (again in blue) transport through the decades in search of their lost teammates. The Band-Aid over Kira's nose gives us a cute little homage to the classic sight of Spock with his terry cloth headband in Star Trek IV.
The other time travel ep, "Trials and Tribble-ations," indulges in some fond self-reference, so not only do we get to see the characters wearing the outfits of an earlier era, we get to see them in the uniforms of an earlier Trek. Geekgasm! I love that the characters love the whole thing, too, teasing and checking each other out in the "antique" gear and talking about how awesome it all is because they are all also TOS fans. (Or, in Worf's case, talking about how stupid they feel. Oh, well.)
Sometimes the time traveling is done on our part, in the form of flashbacks. This isn't characters pretending to be somewhere else, or trying to fit in somewhere new; it's a glimpse at how they used to dress and what they and their lives used to be like. In flashbacks we see Sisko with his wife on a beach, colorful and young, and Odo, Kira and Dukat on Terok Nor during the Occupation, in simple, somber garments reflecting the tough times and their comparative lack of agency.
I don't quite know how to categorize "Wrongs Darker than Death or Night" or "Things Past"; maybe a hybrid flashback-vision, where the characters find themselves in the past but can't interact with anything and haven't consciously chosen their era-appropriate clothes. Anyway, there's Kira in another lovely dress suitable for her mother's generation... if you're dressed by a frisky Cardassian soldier who wants to raise you from the ranks of the working class. And there are Odo, Sisko, Garak and Dax in a holding cell during the Occupation, again wearing muted colors to suit the environment and the tone.
In addition to the flashbacks, once in a while we get some flash-forward scenes. To be honest I don't remember the context for seeing older Bashir and older Dax above, but there they are, in what are depressingly bland future versions of the Starfleet uniform. And still teal, so I guess 30 years later they've never been promoted.
Anyway, in "Children of Time" we see one version of how the crew's descendents might look and dress, which doesn't really count for our purposes except that Odo is there, still alive and looking kindly and awesome. He has purposely aged his appearance and shifted into much less severe clothing than he always sported back on the station, showing how he's loosened up and learned more about "solids" over the decades. In his case, as a shapeshifter, the clothes literally are the man.
Undercover
Oh, Star Trek. You have a long and affectionate history of having your characters undergo plastic surgery so they can pass as other alien races while on undercover missions. DS9 is no exception. Characters get different clothes as dictated by whichever race they're mimicking, but here the most fascinating part of the dress-up is the makeup. Odo, O'Brien and Sisko with the foreheads, teeth and hair of Klingons; Dax with a Bajoran's ridged nose and her spots missing. Kira, forced to wear the face and neck ridges of the race she hates above all others; Dukat, altered on request to resemble a member of the race he helped oppress.
Stereotype-based cross-dressing for the purpose of undermining gender-discriminatory corporate agendas, always fun. I suppose we are glad that Quark as a woman actually gets to wear clothes. The dress might offer more insight into Ferengi culture except that we are told countless other times that traditional female garb is... no garb at all... and also because the Ferengi tend to be used for comic relief.
When Kira goes undercover on Cardassia Prime in the last season, she gets to wear a Starfleet uniform. (I assume she is given a commission in order to do so? Don't remember.) It's still a uniform, and it's a uniform we're intimately familiar with, but it's not a uniform she's accustomed to wearing nor one we're accustomed to seeing on her, which makes it special.
Speaking of characters wearing uniforms that aren't usually theirs, turns out the light, caftan-like outfits Ezri and Sisko wear at the beginning of season seven are Starfleet issue. Hence the teal stripe on hers and the maroon stripe on his, I suppose.
AUs, mirror universes and possession
In other words, scenarios where the characters aren't quite themselves.
Like in "Facets," where crew members take turns giving their bodies over to Dax's past hosts. When Odo does it, he actually fuses his features with Curzon's and shifts into an outfit that we presume Curzon would have worn. He's the only one who's able to retain his own consciousness during the ritual, too. Pretty cool. Odo doesn't get to do cool shapeshifter things enough.
Or like in holosuite-based AUs where our crew aren't play-acting but instead have had their bodies co-opted by fictional characters. Same faces, different clothes and personalities. The clothes and hairstyles (and eye patches) don't tell us anything about our characters, but they do help establish the universe and provide fun for all! In "Our Man Bashir," Bashir and Garak are there along with us to enjoy seeing their friends and colleagues wearing out-of-character outfits and personalities. While they're not fighting for their lives, anyway.
"Far Beyond the Stars" is one of my favorite episodes from the whole series, for many reasons. Relevant to today's discussion is all the different costumes and personas we get for everyone in the AU. They help set us in a specific era, which is again one within our own history to give us a little added enjoyment and resonance.
Another dress-up-related reason I love this episode is that we get to see the actors who play alien characters out of their typical makeup: Odo, Worf, Quark, Nog, Dukat, Weyoun, Martok. As in the holosuite AU, the dress-up here is of a meta kind that we enjoy while the characters don't know it's happening.
A sideways version of the AU comes in visions from the Prophets or Pah-Wraiths, where, when the vision ends, the character we're used to is able to remember what happened.
(Although, okay, I may have included this shot mostly because I love Casey Biggs/Damar out of makeup.)
And then there are mirror universes! Everyone's favorite. These mix all sorts of dress-up categories. The characters are themselves, only they're not—they're alternate versions of themselves. Part of the transformation is made visually apparent in their outfits, hair and makeup. Or to put it another way, the clothes can serve as an efficient shorthand for indicating how a character in this universe is different from the one we know.
In "Crossover" and "Through the Looking-Glass" and whatnot, the Intendant's unforgettable catsuit immediately tells us that we're dealing with a more sexualized, seductive and powerful version of Major Kira. Mirror!Ezri's hair and leather-ish shirt imply she's more of a tough punk than we're used to. Bashir's got loose, long hair, stubble and an attitude. Not sure that his brown shirt says much other than "really not a lieutenant commander or a doctor," but it sure is nice to look at on him.
When Sisko volunteers/is coerced to aid the mirror resistance, he ditches his uniform to fit in, but it's also a symbol of how he's ditching Starfleet principles and his usual way of dealing with people.
As with Bashir and Garak in the 007 holosuite program that went wrong, each time we visit or have a visitor from a mirror universe, we've got at least one our!universe character there to notice, remark on, and share our outsiders' view of the differences, wardrobe-wise and otherwise.
Mostly, though, they're awfully pretty. And often sexy. And kinky. And a little bit evil.
And they always seem to have more fun.
As you know.
In conclusion:
Try it on, Bashir. You know you want to.
Image credits: I took many of the above screencaps from my DVDs. Other images came from: Memory Alpha, StarTrek.com, rindastartrekds9.wordpress.com, t0.gstatic.com, trekinscifi.com, eponymous_rose on LJ, freewebs.com/laurelgirl120, ontd_ds9 on LJ, Ex Astris Scientia, Doc Oho Reviews, PopSugar.com, afortmadeofbooks.blogspot.com, ds9.trekcore.com and OVguide.com.
Written for the "dressup" square on my Bingo card.
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Date: Jul. 10th, 2012 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 10th, 2012 12:44 am (UTC)How about time for a favorite episode here or there? Or an episode you don't remember?
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Date: Jul. 10th, 2012 12:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 10th, 2012 01:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 10th, 2012 09:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 10th, 2012 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 10th, 2012 10:17 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: Jul. 10th, 2012 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 10th, 2012 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 10th, 2012 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 10th, 2012 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 10th, 2012 11:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 10th, 2012 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 12th, 2012 07:32 pm (UTC)It is sad that the focus of this post means that it must miss out on Jake Sisko's outfits. His evolution of personal style has kept me on the edge of my seat. Is he inheriting his father's fashion sense? Adopting the style of *gasp* his Ferengi friend? Will he ever escape the primary colors and high waistline that seem to be current Human vogue?
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Date: Jul. 12th, 2012 10:55 pm (UTC)Re: your first paragraph: Yes, yes, yes to everything!
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Date: Jul. 13th, 2012 12:41 am (UTC)I blame the latest in Human fashion for Jake's early outfits and his father's dreadful beach outfit. (Back then, Benjamin was young and trying to be cool and impress the ladies. Curzon had few opinions on clothing, otherwise Dax would be mocking Benjamin for his past outfits to this day. And Dax's continued association with the Ferengi suggests that becoming Jadzia has not changed her oblivousness to fashion.)
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Date: Jul. 21st, 2012 05:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 21st, 2012 12:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sep. 7th, 2012 07:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 2nd, 2012 04:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 3rd, 2012 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 3rd, 2012 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Nov. 26th, 2012 08:42 am (UTC)(BTW, Born Too Late might be one of my top five vids of all time, I watch it regularly!)
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Date: Nov. 26th, 2012 12:43 pm (UTC)Glad you liked the post and still like the vid!