Fletcher not only devised uniforms for all the
crew, but, as with most military services, there are several classes
of uniforms.
Dress uniforms are worn only on formal
occassions and at Starfleet Headquarters. The best example of this can
be seen in Admiral Kirk’s uniform worn at the beginning of the movie,
with Bill Shatner wearing the crisp loden green and white uniform.
Class A uniforms are double-stitchedand have
gold braid designating rank. Some of them have open necklines or other
variations, as is true in the military services of our century. Rank
designation became a point of confusion because of a decision made
years before on the television series uniform. It was felt that the
traditional four gold stripes of ship captain’s rank was too blatantly
“militaristic”-looking for a 23rd-century paramilitary starship.
Accordingly, the captain was held to a couple of stripes and lower
ranks to even less. It was decided to continue this way for the movie.
But many of the new Star Trek staff (and even Bob Fletcher himself)
kept getting the 20th and 23rd centuries confused.
B uniforms utilize shirts which look similar
to evolved T-shirts. These are white, beige, and pale brown, and use
shoulder boards to indicate rank and service division (through color
designations).
Uniforms worn on the bridge are of three general
classifications. All command officers generally wear the
blue-gray uniforms (Kirk, Spock, Decker, Scotty, McCoy); other
bridge officers like Sulu and Chekov wear beige; crew personnel
who are usually never on the bridge except for emergencies wear brown.
In addition to these uniforms, there are jump
suits in white, brown, beige, gray, and sage green (this color
worn in Earth scenes only). These are a kind of work suit, and have
the only pockets of any Star Trek costumes, since these outfits are
designed to be utilitarian. The jump suits are also designed to fit
like a second skin, moving and bending with the person wearing them.
Bob chose a special heavy-weight spandex, which he admits was hell to
sew, and required the use of a special ballpoint needle to penetrate
the material.
Other costumes included leisure wear,
field jackets (these are worn in the final scenes at the site of
Voyager 6) and space suits.