50 Most Iconic Star Wars Costumes

25. Captain Phasma

Captain Phasma is the boss, and she wants to make sure you know that she’s the boss. That’s why she gets a cape and shiny chrome armor.

However, the cape, fascinatingly enough, is black with red accents — the colors of the First Order, marking her as part of the leadership of Starkiller Base alongside Kylo Ren and General Hux. In fact, all three of them actually share silver as well, although it does not dominate Ren or Hux as it does Phasma.

Notably, however, despite her being the first female stormtrooper that we know of in the main films (although we also hear a woman’s voice from a second trooper in TFA, specifically the one who tells Kylo Ren where Rey might be after escaping), the armor doesn’t really reflect that at all.

Funnily enough, it turns out that Phasma was originally supposed to be a man, and then J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan had the idea to flip the script about three weeks before principal photography began for TFA.  Enter Gwendoline Christie. In that same interview with Vulture, Christie notes that there’s no sexualization of the armor, and it’s entirely functional, both very key points in analyzing the costume.

She’s a woman, she’s a villain, but that does not mean that she has to dress sexily or as a femme fatale…kind of a dark Brienne of Tarth in some ways, don’t you think?