Gersha Phillips: The Costumes of Star Trek: Section 31

Star Trek has been a pillar of sci-fi storytelling for generations, with its optimistic formula of a Starfleet crew exploring strange, new worlds rehashed in different ways but still remaining faithful to its core. Picard was an attempt at slowly branching out, introducing a less episodic format focusing on the titular character’s final(?) journey while still having some character comebacks to anchor the show into nostalgia. Section 31 wanted to push the boundary of Star Trek storytelling and deliver something fresh and new: a spy tale in the Trek universe. At the center of it all is superstar Michelle Yeoh reprising her fan-favorite role as Emperor Philippa Georgiou, who is joined by a new ragtag team on a mission to fix a sin of her past life. Director Olatunde Osunsanmi delivered a thrilling tale that has the right balance of humor, high stakes, and fun action, but the real highlight of Section 31 lies within its spectacle of garments. Costume designer Gersha Phillips explained the design process for creating the new, iconic looks for Georgiou and her group of misfits along with the mysterious new villain, San.

Section 31 began with a lore-defining flashback, unfolding Philippa Georgiou’s origin story as she becomes the Terran Emperor. The coronation is a beautiful, majestic moment–annihilating the character’s feeling of loss through gaining absolute power that is symbolized by the golden cape billowing in the wind. “Finding the right fabric was really important. Tunde really wanted it to have this sort of movement in the wind, so I chose panné velvet … it looked even better on camera than it does in person.” Then Phillips revealed an unexpected wardrobe malfunction while filming the scene: “I remember Tunde texting me and saying the cape caught on fire … he is a complete prankster, so I thought he was joking. We had to cut a chunk off and patch it over lunch. It’s quite hilarious!”

Fast forward to present day, the Baraam, the luxury entertainment space station run by Georgiou under the alias Madame Veronique du Franc is where Gersha Phillips was able to blossom her creations–showcasing luxurious fabrics, vibrant colors, and gorgeous silhouettes. “We were trying to do stuff that we hadn’t really seen that much while still using the same manufacturing ways of building. There’s a lot of cloak-and-dagger sort of maneuvers going on [in the Baraam], so all the people are dressed with a little bit of that in mind,” said the costume designer, adding that every character had to be designed without reservation–whether it was a protagonist or in the background–in order to achieve the visual richness that the Baraam required.

Notoriously, Star Trek’s iconography has been defined by the Starfleet uniforms, which Phillips assumed that was going to be the first design she was going to work on soon after starting on Section 31. However, the filmmakers wanted to represent each character’s unique personality through their looks–giving each one an identity by color and silhouette. She said, “Melle’s look was all about her seductiveness … we really wanted her to look fabulous. It was an interesting challenge because the fabric, liquid organza, has this crazy shine to it. It does this sort of weird shifty thing, so trying to keep the warp straight was not easy. Rachel was the most Starfleet when she was not in disguise, but when she was we gave her some really great transformations. We kept Alok mostly in black because we just felt that it gave him a certain gravitas that he needed, keeping him grounded. Quasi had some interesting looks, [the orange and black suit bringing back a bit of a Starfleet uniform style from Picard]. For Fuzz, we tried to dress him with a little extra flair since he thought of himself better than he was, always showing off.” And to complete the team, Zeph’s mechanical suit, which was designed by Glenn Hetrick’s Alchemy Studios.

Philippa Georgiou’s costume as the proprietress of the Baraam is electrifying–the blend of luxury and practicality allowed Michelle Yeoh to bring a new level of beauty and lethalness. When Alok meets Madame du Franc for the first time, she is as mysterious as ever–wearing a chainmail mask made by a German jeweler that Phillips revealed was so heavy that it could not be taken on and off easily, resulting in the VFX team ultimately morphing the transition. That reveal of Yeoh as the iconic Mirror character is impactful, and every subsequent moment in the Baraam showcases Georgiou’s arsenal as she dives right into her first fight with the masked foe. Gersha Phillips recalled that “Michelle wanted to look like a butterfly,” and that the couture house Balenciaga was the perfect match for Georgiou’s Baraam outfit: “I took my sketches and looked at their archives, picked my favorites, and then put it all together. In the first set of designs there was too much fabric for Michelle … The fabric can be there, but it can’t be overwhelming. We knew we wanted it to be sexy, and the first one was sexy in a different way, but I thought it should have some skin in the front; we should see her neckline. They sent me something they’ve made before, I added the long sleeves and the shoulders, and that was the right one. It was really fascinating to see how the couture houses make their things.” Few more elements were included in the costume to sort of add drama and weaponize Georgiou–the cape per Osunsanmi’s request, the extendable sleeves and a choker (Yeoh’s idea) that could be turned into a dagger. A total of five outfits were made, three for Yeoh and two for the stunt performer to cover the full range of grace and action.

Although the Baraam dress was incredibly iconic, it was not going to be practical enough when it came to get down and dirty for the team’s impossible mission. Phillips knew they needed to go back to black, bringing the Terran vibe with a tactical costume that would work on camera and for advertising purposes (Balenciaga is a luxury brand, and they didn’t want pictures of their creation on merchandise). However, Georgiou’s return to her luxury station was a showstopper–a combination of a Balenciaga dress (wore by Beyoncé) and Phillips’ black velvet outfit which showcased the pointed-up shoulders: “We brought those two outfits together, and when I took that dress out of the box in Toronto I squealed with excitement because it was just so beautiful. Even in the fitting in Paris, it was stunning on Michelle,” the costume designer shared.

On the other hand, San, Georgiou’s lover, servant, and sworn enemy is the main villain of Section 31. His first appearance in the present day is as mysterious as it gets–his masked disguise had to be battle-ready, head to toe. Phillips said, “It was scripted that he was wearing a balaclava-esque covering, so I first designed him without a hard shell helmet … a little bit of armor, but definitely not as much as we did. I submitted those designs, but [the filmmakers] wanted to take it further. I got a picture of a helmet from a character from Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy, so I had my illustrator do a lot of iterations of helmets that were in that vein. Then we started working on the body. I did this sort of scarification in the leather, in the armor. My team cut out foam from all these little pieces and then we stuck them on plates and covered them with leather … that’s how we came up with that vibe. It’s quite laborious, but it looks amazing. Then we painted it with blue, black, and a little bit of gray–giving it a little bit of texture, I think so it doesn’t just disappear into black.” She added, “James [Hiroyuki Liao] who plays him was really excited about it … I don’t think he’d been in the process of having a costume built before. It was a treasure to work with him and watch him do his whole routine in our fitting rooms every day. Michelle does a version of it, but not as intense as James’ [laughs]!”

Gersha Phillips ended the interview sharing her own thoughts about Section 31 and the need for expansion in the Trek universe: “If we’re just going to regurgitate The Original Series, what’s the point? It has to evolve and go forward. If you can find something that grounds it in reality, then you can push from there. That’s always been my mandate.” She confessed that she is extremely excited about the next Star Trek series, Starfleet Academy: “It was fun to work with our new designer Avery Plewes. Alex [Kurtzman] wanted to do something different and younger. Trying to make a uniform feel hip and cool and appeal to the young audience was quite interesting. The Star Trek world is an exciting world to be in. It’s definitely keeping us on our toes.”

Make sure to watch Section 31, streaming only on Paramount+.