Before Jedi, Carrie Fisher complained to Lucas that she didn’t get to wear any interesting costumes in the first two Star Wars movies. Be careful what you wish for. When Jabba the Hutt captures Leia in Jedi, he tries to humiliate her by forcing her to wear a skinpy bikini that’s apparently made of brass. But Fisher’s princess is so badass that she makes the slave outfit look sexy and empowering – especially when she uses the long chain-link leash attached to it to strangle Jabba.
The bikini was the creation of costume designer Aggie Guerard Rogers, who was insipired by the scantily-clad fantasy heroines drawn by artist Frank Frazetta. Fisher found the barely-there top was prone to wardrobe malfunctions, and it was just as revealing in back. “If you stood behind me, you could see straight to Florida,” she recalled in a 2003 interview. The bra top was made of hard plastic. To Fisher, it felt like “what supermodels will eventually wear in the seventh ring of hell.”
The costume was on display for just two and a half minutes of screen time, yet it had a tremendous impact. It inspired countless fanboy fantasies, earned its own website, and became the favorite costume of female fans at sci-fi/fantasy/comic book conventions. For many moviegoers, it offered the single most memorable image from Jedi, and perhaps the whole original trilogy. In short, it was an element of the first three movies that was impossible to top.
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