Deanna Troi's costuming

[Karzak]

I quite liked how she looked wearing the standard blue uniform.

Also, I think it's rather amazing that all these years later, people still obsess over this question. Nobody seems to care whether Picard should have looked better in his standard uniform or the suede jacket variant, nor if Worf was better suited with the old-school gold sash vs. the bicycle chain baldric. It's true, yes, Troi had a huge wardrobe over the seven years, but jeez. There was more to her character than just her outfits.

 

[Orphalesion]

I hated her in the standard uniform.

However, it was not because of the uniform, which fit her adequately and looked better than the light lavender jumpsuit (but not better than the maroon one or the Cyan dress)

I hated her in it, because around the same time Marina Sirits seems to have started dying her hair light brown and thy changed her makeup which led to the loss of the pale skin/black hair look and made her seem more mundane/less alien.
Why did she dye her air light brown? Was she graying?

Also the hairpiece she wore in Season 6 was the ugliest she wore in the entire run of TNG, I think Marina Sirtis likened it to a country singer's hairdo.

It's such a shame we didn't see her in the uniform while she still had the pale skin/black hair look going on, it would have been awesome.

 

[T'Girl]

There was more to her character than just her outfits.

Yes, she stood around and stated the obvious.

 

[Lance]

I think the unitards etc would have made a lot more sense if she'd been established as being a civilian counsellor in the beginning rather than being a Lieutenant Commander.

If she's in Starfleet, then make her dress like Starfleet, I say.

 

[Squiggy]

There was more to her character than just her outfits.

Yes, she stood around and stated the obvious.

I sense...contempt.

 

[borgboy]

I like a lot of her outfits. The basic uniform looked great on her. I liked the minidress a lot and wish they'd kept that as a unisex option.
I like the dark red jumpsuit too, and it looked almost like a uniform so it didn't look so out of place on the bridge the way some of her dresses did.
I understand the idea of her dressing more casually to put patients at ease, but that doesn't really seem appropriate on the bridge. On a side note, I liked her role on the bridge, and would've liked to see another counselor on another show in that role as advisor to the captain. I don't recall Ezri Dax really serving that same role in DS9 and I think I recall on Voyager it was stated that all their counselors died in the first episode.
I definitely prefer her with dark hair, she just doesn't look like herself when she lightened her hair in the movies.

 

[Orphalesion]

She already got the light hair in Season 6. The dark hair would have looked sooo hot with the black/teal uniform!

I know her hair wasn't completely black before but it was very, very dark and then suddenly got chestnut....wtf?

Season 3. Very dark hair, would have looked awesome with the standard uniform.

Season 6, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR HAIR?????? That chestnut bites with the teal of the medical uniform imho. Also the ugliest hairpiece they forced on her. Uglier than the first season bun if you ask me. Even Sirtis hated this one.

 

[borgboy]

She looks best with very dark hair. I can live with the slightly lighter hair by the end of the series, but I really dislike the very light straight hair she had in Nemesis, she didn't look like Troi. Too much of a change, and it took away from the exotic alien look she started out with.

 

[Orphalesion]

Same here. Hated the bright brown/straight hair look. I had always assumed Betazoids just naturally had large quantities of dark, very curly hair and then.....she looked completely human in the movies...
I know out of universe Marina Sirtis just refused to wear a hairpiece for the movies apparently (don't really understand why they allowed her this, after all, Brent Spiner, for instance, couldn't just decide to not have Data's golden skin anymore I presume, and skin paint is way more uncomfortable than a hairpiece or a wig if you ask me)
In universe however I rationalized that as Troi got older her human genes kicked in more and caused her hair hair to become thinner, lighter and straighter.
Your hair can change drastically during life, red hair apparently can fade with age and I myself got suddenly naturally curly hair during my teen years, but since then it has grown straight again....it is a mystery.....

 

[Lance]

Same here. Hated the bright brown/straight hair look. I had always assumed Betazoids just naturally had large quantities of dark, very curly hair and then.....she looked completely human in the movies...
I know out of universe Marina Sirtis just refused to wear a hairpiece for the movies apparently (don't really understand why they allowed her this, after all, Brent Spiner, for instance, couldn't just decide to not have Data's golden skin anymore I presume, and skin paint is way more uncomfortable than a hairpiece or a wig if you ask me)
In universe however I rationalized that as Troi got older her human genes kicked in more and caused her hair hair to become thinner, lighter and straighter.
Your hair can change drastically during life, red hair apparently can fade with age and I myself got suddenly naturally curly hair during my teen years, but since then it has grown straight again....it is a mystery.....

My hair was naturally blonde for the first ten years of my life... and then it turned chocolate brown during my teens for no reason. I liked the blonde better.

And yeah I agree with you, Troi's early black hair really gave her an exotic look that kind of got airbrushed away as time went on. Those screencaps you posted up thread really show the change.

I do seem to remember Sirtis saying, perhaps with her tongue planted firmly in her cheek, that the only time she had her real hair on the TV series was in the "Farpoint" pilot...

 

[Orphalesion]

Actually for what it's worth a showed a friend of mine who studies psychology pictures of Deanna Troi's causal attire (the jumpsuits and the dress) and asked my friend if that was appropriate attire for a therapist.

Unsurprisingly....no, apparently not my friend claimed that Troi's appearance was too overly sexual for dealing with people with mental problems. She (my friend) said some people might feel intimidated by it, others freaked out and there would be the constant danger of a patient evolving an obsession with her and her appearance (which is arguably what happened with Barclay if you think about it).

Now the 24th century might be a lot more desensitized to people openly displaying their sexuality and I'm not a friend of the idea that a woman, or anybody, must hide her beauty to be taken seriously in her chosen field, but if we take into account that she does work with unstable people sometimes, it makes a lot more sense.

 

[borgboy]

I can see that. I don't see it as a gender issue. If a male therapist wore sexually provocative clothing it could have the same effect. It's a sexism issue that society doesn't really recognize that a man can dress provocatively.

 

[Lance]

/Actually for what it's worth a showed a friend of mine who studies psychology pictures of Deanna Troi's causal attire (the jumpsuits and the dress) and asked my friend if that was appropriate attire for a therapist.

Unsurprisingly....no, apparently not my friend claimed that Troi's appearance was too overly sexual for dealing with people with mental problems. She (my friend) said some people might feel intimidated by it, others freaked out and there would be the constant danger of a patient evolving an obsession with her and her appearance (which is arguably what happened with Barclay if you think about it).

Now the 24th century might be a lot more desensitized to people openly displaying their sexuality and I'm not a friend of the idea that a woman, or anybody, must hide her beauty to be taken seriously in her chosen field, but if we take into account that she does work with unstable people sometimes, it makes a lot more sense.

True. Then again, bear in mind that the Betazoid people are said to be very sensual (they're basically just adapted from the concepts intended for the Deltans in the aborted Phase II from the 1970s), an openness with sexual tropes is a part of their day-to-day life, which is something we see overtly in Lwaxana Troi as well. And it seems humanity in the 24th century is more broadly accepting of that kind of thing.

I certainly agree that by any reasonable standard it's not something we would consider "appropriate attire" for a counsellor in this day and age. On the other other hand, perhaps being diagnosed by somebody wearing Lieutenant Commander's pips would be incredibly intimidating to junior officers, which is probably why Deanna chooses to wear the 24th century equivalent of 'office casual' to begin with.

As I said earlier in the thread, I think her costumes would've been easier to hand-wave if she'd been established as civilian staff back at the beginning, instead of being a Starfleet officer...

 

[borgboy]

Even if it made sense for Troi to wear civilian clothes while seeing patients, I don't get why she didn't wear the uniform on the bridge or on away teams.
Making Troi civilian staff works well, but I don't hate that she took her Starfleet career more seriously later, got promoted, etc.

 

[Lance]

I remember reading somewhere that the TNG writer's room had a discussion, somewhere around the story break down of "Disaster", about Troi as a character -- and somebody twigged that the pilot episode had shown her in uniform and with a clearly established rank. Up until that point it had kind of been assumed that her role in the Starfleet hierarchy had been fairly loose. That's where they really started trying to re-establish her rank and position, which it was felt at the time had been kind of forgotten in the subsequent five years.

On paper, Deanna is arguably one of the most important people on the ship, which is probably why (in-universe) she's given a seat next to the Captain, and appropriately has the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Her role on the bridge is as a kind of monitor of the Captain's condition during stressful situations, as well as being a conduit towards relieving him of command should that be necessary (ultimate responsibility for that is in Dr. Crusher's hands, but Troi undoubtedly has a part to play in determining the Captain's mental state at all times). A logical precaution given how many Starfleet captain's went mad from the stresses of the role back in the TOS days.

 

[Orphalesion]

I certainly agree that by any reasonable standard it's not something we would consider "appropriate attire" for a counsellor in this day and age. On the other other hand, perhaps being diagnosed by somebody wearing Lieutenant Commander's pips would be incredibly intimidating to junior officers, which is probably why Deanna chooses to wear the 24th century equivalent of 'office casual' to begin with.

True the whole Betazoid culture, ill-defined and vague as it was, seemed very sensual. Only Deanna did not seem very in touch with her culture, you could even make a point for her actively trying to distance herself from her Betazoid roots. Notice how her character becomes more causal over the course of the series, she seems to be assimilating into human culture.

Still Barclay was clearly uncomfortable with sexy Deanna. Which begs the question if Troi was the only therapist on a ship of 1000+ people....it must have been a nightmare to get an appointment.
A uniform would not have been better to counsel people, I agree, but perhaps a less revealing choice of attire? I could imagine something tunic like with a skirt or pants. Tunics can be very easily made to look scifi depending on the choice of cut, material, colour. Given what we saw and heard of Betazed, a slightly Elven/fantasy or Greco-Roman style (or mixture of both) would have fit the culture very well.

On the other hand a point could be made for jumpsuits being the 24th century equivalent of business suits. The first season monstrosity in general seems to call an 80s power suit to mind. And when really *off duty* Deanna seemed to prefer wearing a number of dresses rather than her jumpsuits. So in the context of the 24th century there seems to be at least a sort of professionalism attached to jumpsuits.
In this case Deanna's attire would have been perfectly adequate.

In general I would wish the had shown us more of the characters in civilian outfits more often, it would have been nice to see the individual style of each character out of uniform. Deanna was really the only one who regularly was out of uniform.

 

[Lance]

On the other hand a point could be made for jumpsuits being the 24th century equivalent of business suits. The first season monstrosity in general seems to call an 80s power suit to mind. And when really *off duty* Deanna seemed to prefer wearing a number of dresses rather than her jumpsuits. So in the context of the 24th century there seems to be at least a sort of professionalism attached to jumpsuits. In this case Deanna's attire would have been perfectly adequate.

In general I would wish the had shown us more of the characters in civilian outfits more often, it would have been nice to see the individual style of each character out of uniform. Deanna was really the only one who regularly was out of uniform.

It's interesting to note that in TNG's second ever episode, "The Naked Now", the (allegedly) more business-like Tasha Yar, who we always otherwise only ever see in uniform, goes to Deanna's quarters to borrow some slinky clothes -- the implication clearly being that Deanna is generally more of a girly-girl than Tasha.

We only ever see Troi wear a limited on-duty wardrobe of maybe four or five rotating pieces through TNG, but she does have quite an array of off-duty wear that we also get to see as well (during the dinner in "Haven", while off-duty on Betazed with Riker in "Menage A Troi", after a romantic evening in the holodeck with Worf in "All Good Things", etc), most of which are much more 'trendy casual' than even her on-duty jumpsuits.

So, I would agree that the leotards are probably the equivalent of smart business casual wear in the 24th century. Or that certainly seems to be the implication.

 

[borgboy]

We do see Geordie in casual clothes, an ugly sweater and pants when he has dinner with the real Leah Brahms.

 

[T'Girl]

I Her role on the bridge is as a kind of monitor of the Captain's condition during stressful situations, as well as being a conduit towards relieving him of command should that be necessary

I disagree.

Troi is on the bridge solely because of her Betazed mental abilities, and not at all because of her position as the ship's counsellor. If she were just a counsellor with no special mental powers we would almost never have seen her on the bridge. None of the other 24th century starship's we saw had a counsellor on the bridge, Defiant and Voyager certainly didn't.

We did eventual have Ezra on the Defiant bridge, she wasn't there as a counsellor.

 

[Doug Otte]

On paper, Deanna is arguably one of the most important people on the ship, which is probably why (in-universe) she's given a seat next to the Captain, and appropriately has the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Her role on the bridge is as a kind of monitor of the Captain's condition during stressful situations, as well as being a conduit towards relieving him of command should that be necessary (ultimate responsibility for that is in Dr. Crusher's hands, but Troi undoubtedly has a part to play in determining the Captain's mental state at all times). A logical precaution given how many Starfleet captain's went mad from the stresses of the role back in the TOS days.

I've always thought the same. In fact, we saw her fulfilling this role (to a less urgent degree) in "We'll Always Have Paris" where she confronted Picard about his attitude.

I've also thought she fulfilled important roles in relaying the entire crew's stress to the Captain (we saw it w/ Riker in 'Contagion'), and in using her empathic skills to help 'read' and/or understand alien cultures' mindsets ('The Ensigns of Command') as well as diplomatic interface ('First Contact').

I think we saw too little of these roles, but it's been pointed out numerous times that if we did, it would suck the drama right out of the script. Troi had to overtly mention many times that she couldn't 'read' a particular species; otherwise, it would have made a very short episode!

As with many other grand ideas in the original inception of the show, they mostly fell by the wayside.