“Ahsoka” Emmy-Winning Costume Designers Elissa Alcala & Devon Patterson on Carrying on a Cosmic Legacy
The late Shawna Trpcic, costume designer for Ahsoka, was posthumously awarded an Emmy this past weekend at the 76th Creative Arts Emmy Winners for Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes, alongside her assistant costume designer Elissa Alcala and costume supervisor Devon Patterson, who won for the finale, “Part Eight: The Jedi, the Witch, and the Warlord.” It was an emotional win for Alcala and Patterson, who, like Trpcic, are Star Wars fans and highly regarded and now freshly minted Emmy winners.
Ahsoka is the first live-action Star Wars show adapted from one of the franchise’s animated series (Star Wars: Rebels), both of which come from showrunner and creator Dave Filoni. Ahsoka follows the rebel Jedi Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) summoned once again into action by the whispered return of a terrifically powerful adversary, Grand Admiral Thrawn, played by Lars Mikkelsen (who also voiced him in Rebels). The series is set in the aftermath of the fall of the Galactic Empire and tracks Ahsoka, a lone wolf by nature, and the few allies she can trust as they face the growing threats in the galaxy. Alongside her former padawan Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), a capable, if wayward, warrior, her trusty droid Huyang (voiced by David Tennant), and General Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), they find themselves faced with increasingly malevolent forces all spoiling for fight. None more formidable than Baylan Skoll (the late Ray Stevenson) and his protege Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno), who are abetted by an assortment of political apparatchiks, galactic ghouls, ferocious droids, and would-be assassins, all working in concert to aid the return of Thrawn.
We spoke to Alcala and Patterson about Trpcic, so beloved in her field, carrying on her legacy, and what it meant to be an Emmy nominee. This interview was conducted prior their recent Emmy win.
How did it feel to be nominated alongside Shawna, who passed away last October in 2023?
Elissa Alcala: It feels great to be nominated and recognized for a project that everyone, including Shawna, was so passionate about. That feels amazing. Devon and I, and our whole crew, would prefer it if Shauna was still here with us, but we’re going to do our best to hype up our team and go for it because Shawna would be absolutely thrilled that we were nominated and she would be promoting it to the best of her abilities to try to get us that Emmy win.
What were the initial costume conversations like with Shawna, creator Dave Filoni, and the rest of the Ahsoka team?
Elissa Alcala: Shawna was working with Lucasfilm since season two of Mando (The Mandalorian). So, we were already a well-oiled machine when we started Ahsoka. We knew what was expected of us visually. Shawna, Dave [Filoni], and the team had set up the rules of our Star Wars universes, so we just played off of that and continued. Obviously, with this one, we brought in characters we hadn’t seen in Mando and The Book of Boba Fett, so it was about respecting where these characters came from, whether from the animated series or if they were new.
Devon Patterson: I’ve always been a big fan of fantasy sci-fi, so it was a dream and a pleasure to have the opportunity to visit Ahsoka and see how the magic is made. There are a lot of moving parts, especially trying to figure out how to translate sketches into physical working costumes. Specifically for fantasy and sci-fi, you must consider so many things. You have to consider stunts. Are they on a speeder bike? Are they hiking up a hill? What is the terrain of the world that you’re working in? And what do we think would the fabrics and fibers be of that universe? Doing that was a challenge and a pleasure.
There was a hipness to Ahsoka and the costumes, which feels new to the Star Wars universe…
Elissa Alcala: Rosario and all of the actors, in general, definitely brought their own personal swag to it. It was always really important for Shawna that when we would meet with the actor and have our first fittings, we got to hear what the actor wanted for the character. So it was like with Baylon, Ray [Stevenson] came in, he had a whole concept of what he wanted to present with this character, one of them being that he wanted to incorporate this space stone into his costume. All he wanted was a ring, but Shawna said, ” No, no, we’re not just going to have a ring. It’s going to be a part of the whole costume, so we incorporated this space stone with a green hue, and his entire costume took on that hue, and we tied the stone to pieces of the trim. All of the actors collaborated so we could take Dave’s and Shawna’s ideas and bring them together to create these beautiful costumes.
Let’s get to the specific episode you’re nominated for, the finale. Can you walk me through shaping “The Jedi, The Witch, and the Warlord” and you approached it?
Elissa Alcala: I think the reason the episode was put up for consideration for an Emmy was it had the most amount of our costumes across the board, whether it was our Night Troopers or Ahsoka the White or our witches and also all of the New Republic, so we had Hera and our pilots, there were just so many costumes, and I think it showcased our huge expanse of what we made for the whole show.
Devon Patterson: I would agree, especially the witches, who were a labor of love. A lot went into them, and Shawna had, outside of the initial sketches, done her own research. Anybody will tell you that Dave is about movement—whatever you do, it has to move, it has to flow, it has to be ethereal and otherwordly. You can say a lot of costumes reflected that in this episode.
I’m curious how much input you have for characters like droids, Dark Troopers, and other iterations of iconic creations that have existed within the Star Wars universe for decades.
Elissa Alcala: So obviously, with Storm Troopers, that’s an established costume that’s been around forever, but we do get sketches from Doug [Chiang, production designer] and Dave, and based on those sketches, they had put in different colors and wrappings, and we had to figure out how we were going to accomplish that look on the Troopers. What we ended up doing was taking our Storm Troopers, and we took each set of armor, anywhere from 10-15 pieces that go into putting on a full Storm Trooper costume, and we Kintsugi’d them by drilling holes and lines into them, and gold leafed them. Then, on top of that, we took the fabric that Shawna picked for the witches, and we aged them, cut them up into strips, and not only Kintsugi’d them, but we wrapped each piece with this red fabric. It was a huge process, I think we had 50-something odd Troopers we did this for. In the last episode, you see all of those pieces come together.
Devon Patterson: None of those Storm Troopers were alike; where they were Kintsugi’d, they were all varied. Shawna wanted each Storm Trooper to have its own personality. That’s what made that so much fun. It was a lot of hard work, but there was joy in seeing the individuality once everybody was dressed. The Captain of the Troopers is the first time we’ve ever seen a character like Enoch, so Shawna put her spin on him to take it over that edge and give the fans a wow moment. These are things we do to elevate everything. Shawna was always about taking it to the next level.
Was there a character either of you particularly loved designing for?
Elissa Alcala: It’s a hard question. I think we all enjoyed bringing these new baddies to life, like Baylon, Shin, and the witches. The character Shawna and Dave had me work on, I helped do all of the patches you see, like on Sabine’s jackets or the pilot’s helmets, and I helped create that artwork. Usually, that’s something the art department would do, but everyone was so busy, so Shawna said, “Well, E can do it—plus, it’s going on a costume.” It was really cool, and now, to see cos players making my patches on helmets is very rewarding.
Devon Patterson: I tend to like going to the Dark Side. I’m one of the few people who will admit that I root for the baddies. I loved all three of the witches, the way they came out, the process of getting them all down was amazing. The sourcing of all the fabrics, the dying, seeing it come to life, and watching the witches walk out onto the set for the first time was thrilling. One of Shawna’s favorite moments was when we did Ezra’s look from Rebels, and seeing Dave’s face when he saw Ezra live and in 3D, I remember Shawna being so proud that Dave was so happy and was able to bring Ezra to life. It helps that the crew, without them, none of this is possible. They put a thousand percent into the show, and many of them are diehard Star Wars fans. They have a vested interest in making sure that the fans will appreciate and love everything we do. And God bless Shawna, too, she and the crew really put a thousand percent into the show. When people love what they do and are vested in what they do, it shows. We do it for the fans as well because we know they appreciate what we do when we do it well.
Elissa: Shawna was herself a huge Star Wars fan. Her family loves Star Wars, and her son was the one who actually helped her get the job when she came aboard Mando in season two. She knew she had to bring on a team that was just as passionate about Star Wars as she was.
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(L-R): Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi) with Night Troopers in Lucasfilm’s STAR WARS: AHSOKA, exclusively on Disney+. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved
