Sith apparel

Sith apparel was the term given to the armor, robes, and general attire of members of the Sith Order in all its forms. As the dark side counterparts to the Jedi the Sith were traditionally garbed in shades of black, Sith black being the very symbol of the ancient threat they represented. However, unlike the Jedi who did not believe in material possession, the position of Sith Lord was highly individualized and the personal attire of each Dark Lord reflected this.

The Old Sith Empire


Unlike their Jedi predecessors, the Sith Lords decided there was no place for modesty and humility, and many of them seemed to appreciate flaunting rich and outstanding signs of their wealth. As the first Sith Lords derived from fallen Jedi that enslaved the Sith species, the style of their clothes reflected aspects of both those cultures. They thus adopted a fastuous fashion full of bright colors (such as green, gold, light red or purple), with golden and ornamented parts of armor. They also favored extravagant headdresses, war helmets and capes eccentric with necklines. Naga Sadow and Ludo Kressh were good examples of it. On the contrary, notable exceptions included Ajunta Pall. Despite being a well known Sith Lord, his clothing suggested no individuality, but this could be attributed to the fact he probably kept more human habits, being one of the human Dark Jedi who discovered the Sith species.

Battle armor
The Sith Lords of the old empire each wore personalized battle armor designed to strike fear into their enemies. The Sith armor traditionally consisted of bronzium plates worn over black or dark red robes, the plates were usually covered in sharp spines to be used as weapons. Each Sith Lord's armor was unique. When Darth Vader needed to get his famous survival armor, Darth Sidious insisted on creating an intimidating look and completed the design with a cape and tabard reminiscent of the more usual Sith garb.

The Old Sith Wars
After the Dark Lords Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma established their Brotherhood of the Sith, the first order to their new students was the Jedi Pogrom, in which the apprentices were commanded to strike down their Jedi masters as such very few of them had chance to change their Jedi garments and this led to a still less uniformed Sith order. Kun went on with the tradition of the battle armor, as he himself wore one.

Revan's Sith Empire
At the time where Revan founded this new empire, the Sith likely chose to get more practical dresses. The technology itself had known fundamental improvements in the last decades, and it gave fairly quickly a more austere and high-tech look to the whole Galaxy. This is probably why individuals such as Darth Bandon, Darth Malak or even Revan himself wore such unadorned set of clothes. The many renegade Dark Jedi who joined Revan simply clung to Jedi garnment style, adapted to the dark shades of their new allegiance. The Sith Empire also had huge numbers of minions at its command, including the Sith assault troopers and the Sith Assassins, whose outfits were highly specialized.

Military uniform
In the aftermath of the Mandalorian War, the Republic officers who served under Revan turned traitor and joined the new Sith empire. They replaced their red and yellow uniforms with azure blue/gray jumpsuits. The higher ranking officers wore caps. This uniform was also worn by the trainees at the Sith Academy.

The New Sith Wars
Throughout the New Sith Wars, the style of the Sith apparel evolved into a more sober form, though it still had a touch of the old elaborate fashion of the ancient lords. Brighter colors were apparently left behind in favor of different shades of black, dark purple and grey. They would generally wear black capes with cuirasses and multi-pouched belts with buckles featuring symbols similar to later Darth Maul’s tattoos. Lord Kaan and Darth Bane himself were often seen dressed that way, and Bane even wore armored pauldron and vambrace to protect his left arm.

Order of the Sith Lords
The Sith Lords that came after the establishment of the Rule of Two were in hiding and generally favored simpler black garments. Darth Sidious's (and apparently Darth Plagueis's) sense of fashion stuck to monk-like robes made of harsh zeyd-cloth. One of those was navy-blue with very long sleeves, and the other, which he worn in his late days, was definitely darker with a raised waffle pattern on it. It should be noted Palpatine also possessed at least two other Sith robes. One of them was made in a red, heavy and velvet-like fabric, ornamented with Sith symbols. Palpatine publicly wore it in front of the Senate when he addressed his Declaration of a New Order. Indeed, he knew nobody in the rotunda would recognize the origin of these clothes, and he estimated the time of hiding had come to an end for the Sith. The other garb was an elephant grey robe with a large hood, a black velvet capelet and puff sleeves. Palpatine was seen in it when he battled Yoda.

In a more elaborate way than the standard zeyd-cloth cloaks, Darth Maul wore black robes and loose-fitting desert-like garb, and collard coat belted at the waist. The very large hood would drape down the back, while the sleeves were elongated, and almost touched the ground. Where the sleeve attached to the main body of the robe, there are two slits cut, where Maul could put the arm through.

Darth Tyranus seemingly used his traditional garbs from Serenno, made of a sober black officer-style Vjun tunic and reddish or brown armorweave capes, the shape of which would visually enlarge the Count's silhouette. He would also wear black boots made of rare rancor leather.

Though Assajj Ventress wasn't a Sith per se, she wore "the trappings of the Sith", as Dooku himself noted. Her gear consisted of high-collared tight-fitting black and white dungarees which was covered at waist length with a wide black skirt.

Behind the scenes
Sith robes production design

As George Lucas envisioned the Sith as the dark counterpart of the Jedi, their robes were mainly designed as black versions of the Jedi apparel. The under robes for the costume of Palpatine as an Emperor were in fact a Japanese kimono of black raw silk, as revealed in Star Wars: The Magic of Myth book. Ben Kenobi's inner robes were also made of it, but in a beige version. Darth Maul's attire was sewn from a hand woven fabric called Indian Homespun which had been dyed black, by costume designer Trisha Biggar.



Appearances

 * All works in which the Sith feature.