All Uniforms All the Time

[LeadHead]

I'm just curious, since every Starfleet and other Star Trek Officer seems to spend nearly all of their time in uniform even when they're off duty. I've had work uniforms before and once the day was over I could hardly wait to change. Sure every once and awhile I'd stay in it for awhile but not nearly as much as they do on the Enterprise, Voyager or DS9. Would any of you just stay in the uniform all the time?

Now obviously this was for simplicity's sake and probably budget reasons too, but how unrealistic do you find it?

 

[Timo]

Well, basically these people are at work all the time, even when not on duty. It's like living in a garrison, really: you just don't have a personal set of clothes, as those would require a separate laundry service that would needlessly complicate garrison life.

In bed, our heroes do generally use personal rather than regulation pajamas, gowns, perfumes, whatnot. But off duty and at their favorite hobbies, they are still basically on constant alert - that is, the alert status of the ship can change at a moment's notice, and Riker will have less than two minutes to get from his trombone to his bridge station.

In ST:GEN, we see what happens when the heroes change clothes for off-duty fun: at alert, they rush to the bridge in their civvies, which makes them look rather ridiculous.

DS9 is a tad different in that there arguably is more to the locale than just the Starfleet garrison: much of the station is civilian-commercial, essentially "outside the garrison", and Sisko seems to treat the crew accommodations as such as well.

Whether a similar setup could work aboard the massive Enterprise-D is arguable. Certainly there could be positive aspects to it. But if our heroes are satisfied with the cut and feel of their uniforms, perhaps they don't bother?

FWIW, LaForge once teased Data about the fact that he organizes his clothes according to color. Since Data has only ever been seen in uniform (unless coerced into other type of clothing), are we to believe that he has civilian clothes he never uses - except perhaps at the holodeck?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[PhoenixIreland]

I always wonderd why they never changed.
I suppose they can get away with it because they're always "on call" so to speak

 

[jcNX01]

I think I remember an interview somewhere with one of the costume designers saying that as the Trek series progressed there was an effort to show more civilian clothes. On TOS, the tight budgets meant that there wasn't any way to add in more costumes. By the time of the later series that had a little more flexibility with their budgets, more and more civilian clothes and variants on uniforms could be seen.

I'm curious to see how this plays out in the new movie. I think we'll see a really wide variety of costumes - uniform and civilian - that hopefully inform the characters even moreso.

J

 

[Timo]

It might be worth noting that in "The Cage", set in the general timeframe of the movie (at least one of them), it was shown that people could walk in civvies on the corridors of the Enterprise.

Then again, these people probably were civilians rather than off-duty Starfleeters, as they didn't salute, acknowledge or apparently even recognize Captain Pike...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[backstept]

in The Cage they also had different duty specific uniforms that they didn't use in the rest of the series, most notably the 'away team jacket'

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

In the Navy, when you're not on duty you're still in a uniform of SOME kind. Even ashore when on a naval TOD, you wear a uniform no matter what you do. When not on a cruise or assigned to a shore base, you can wear whatever you want when off duty. I think that in general this extends to Starfleet crews.

However, I think that it depended strongly on the ship rules themselves. For example, on the Enterprise-D when off duty most wore civvies (c.f. Beverly's drama classes, Riker on the bone later on in the series, Picard on the flute). Some characters (Data, Worf, arguably La Forge) might simply LIKE wearing their uniforms all the time, and with those three they probably pull a LOT of overtime anyway.

On Voyager, they went a ways to show that the crew WOULD change into civvies when off duty, HOWEVER they would ALWAYS wear their combadge (something rarely done on the Enterprise). DS9 took up a similar practice. On NX-01, most were in uniform all the time EXCEPT when off duty and ashore, but that was a different era after all...

Mark

 

[backstept]

^and Data never really needed to be off duty . . . he could work 24/7

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

True, but we KNOW he had off-duty time. How else would he practice his violin, learn to act, dream, and whistle on the holodeck? It's more that his own character kept him in uniform more than anything else. He might be ABLE to work 24/7, but that doesn't mean he'd be obligated to do so.

Mark

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I think I remember an interview somewhere with one of the costume designers saying that as the Trek series progressed there was an effort to show more civilian clothes. On TOS, the tight budgets meant that there wasn't any way to add in more costumes.

William Weiss Theiss when designing the costumes for Phase II planned to add several variants to the TOS uniforms including a shirt-sleeved fatigue similar to Bones for all the departments (this will be seen in the upcoming episode for the fan series Phase II). There were also plans in the aborted series to show the crew in more off-duty situations to truly give a sense of what life aboard a starship was like.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The fact that the characters wore their uniforms all the time was indeed absurd.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Since in TOS most "civilian" clothes were ugly jumpsuits and black turtlenecks maybe it was for the best.

 

[Jack Bauer]

The fact that the characters wore their uniforms all the time was indeed absurd.

That's one thing I really loved about Enterprise. It had the crew wear egular civilian clothes off duty especially in the first 2 seasons.

 

[Krieg1981]

I'm just curious, since every Starfleet and other Star Trek Officer seems to spend nearly all of their time in uniform even when they're off duty. I've had work uniforms before and once the day was over I could hardly wait to change. Sure every once and awhile I'd stay in it for awhile but not nearly as much as they do on the Enterprise, Voyager or DS9. Would any of you just stay in the uniform all the time?

Now obviously this was for simplicity's sake and probably budget reasons too, but how unrealistic do you find it?

When I used to get off work, I didn't have the energy to change my clothes! Working on cars all day and conning a starship are two different things, I guess!

 

[Krieg1981]

Favorite Bumperstickers:
"The Bible was written by the same people who said the world was flat."
"If at first you don't succeed, you must be installing windows."
"Friends don't let Friends vote Republican."
"Christianity: Intolerance since 32AD."

Mr Leadhead; Amen brother. On all counts.

 

[The Wormhole]

Civilian clothes in Star Trek are ugly. Starfleet uniforms are the only decent clothes around.

 

[ambelamba]

I'm just curious, since every Starfleet and other Star Trek Officer seems to spend nearly all of their time in uniform even when they're off duty. I've had work uniforms before and once the day was over I could hardly wait to change. Sure every once and awhile I'd stay in it for awhile but not nearly as much as they do on the Enterprise, Voyager or DS9. Would any of you just stay in the uniform all the time?

Now obviously this was for simplicity's sake and probably budget reasons too, but how unrealistic do you find it?

It's all about the budget. Complain to the accountants at Paramount.

 

[Timewalker]

FWIW, LaForge once teased Data about the fact that he organizes his clothes according to color. Since Data has only ever been seen in uniform (unless coerced into other type of clothing), are we to believe that he has civilian clothes he never uses - except perhaps at the holodeck?

Timo Saloniemi

Data has that visor (like a tennis visor, not like Geordi's device) he wears for poker games.

I think I remember an interview somewhere with one of the costume designers saying that as the Trek series progressed there was an effort to show more civilian clothes. On TOS, the tight budgets meant that there wasn't any way to add in more costumes. By the time of the later series that had a little more flexibility with their budgets, more and more civilian clothes and variants on uniforms could be seen.

I'm curious to see how this plays out in the new movie. I think we'll see a really wide variety of costumes - uniform and civilian - that hopefully inform the characters even moreso.

J

In "The Tholian Web" we got to see Uhura's off-duty attire -- a gorgeous African-motif gown, complete with jewelry and civilian shoes. And in "The Trouble With Tribbles" we see that Kirk has two different uniform shirts, because he wears both of them. In fact, he dashes into the turbolift wearing one shirt, he's wearing a different shirt while he's in the lift, and when he dashes onto the Bridge, he's back in his original shirt!

If you get the chance to read Chekov's Enterprise, you should. It's an account by Walter Koenig of what it was like to make Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and he talks quite a bit about the aggravations they had with the costumes on that movie. For one thing, the boots and pants were all sewn together as a single unit -- so if one part didn't fit, either the entire thing would have to be remade or the actor just had to make do. According to Koenig, the boots were quite uncomfortable. Also, a big movie with a big budget meant that the producers could finally indulge themselves. Koenig relates the frustrations of having to go for costume fittings for scenes that had already been shot and deemed "in the can" -- therefore making the fittings pointless.

But one of the funniest costume gaffs I've ever seen (please tell me it was a mistake!) was in a first-season TNG episode. There's a male crewman appearing in a corridor, wearing a Starfleet-issue miniskirt style of uniform...

 

[Pegaritaville]

Civilian clothes in Star Trek are ugly. Starfleet uniforms are the only decent clothes around.

That was my reasoning. Apparently, all designers were offed sometime prior to the 22nd century. By the time the 24th century rolled around, fashion just didn't matter: Unless you were fond of butt-ugly vests, there just wasn't a lot out there.

 

[pookha]

uhura from tholian web