Here's why Star Trek: Discovery's empowering costumes are gender neutral and "open for all"

Star Trek: Discovery costume designer Gersha Phillips has opened up about the wonderful outfits on the show and explained that she had female empowerment in mind when she made the uniforms gender neutral.

Speaking to Digital Spy, Phillips shared that for the Discovery uniforms, she wanted attire that avoided objectifying the women and that was "open for all".

"We wanted to have something that was non-binary and that was open to all, and I think we've done that," she said. "There will be a few other surprises coming up down the road, where we've sort of incorporated and taken that further.

"I didn't want to put girls in short skirts. I just felt like it was too sexist, and I felt like I didn't want to do that version but I wanted to come up with a version where the women would be more empowered as opposed to being sex objects."

The gender neutral take on the uniform also makes the outfit inclusive for non-binary people.

"How fashion is approaching the LGBTQ world is interesting, because there's some really cool design now that they're designing for non-binary as well," she said.

"I was more conscious of the sexualisation of women, and that's where I was more focused at the time and wanting to come up with something that was less sexist. But coming up with something that was less sexist led to non-binary uniforms, which I think ended up being great.

"I think it's something that we're continuing to do. Even with some of the alien species that we've been creating – species that don't necessarily have sexes – and not thinking about them in such a human way.

"I feel like if there were other species out there in the universe, they may not deal with sex in the same way as we do at all. Who knows. It's definitely something that as our show progresses and I approach it more, I will definitely have it more on my mind."

She added: "In 250 years, I feel like those things won't really matter. I hope not. If you think about the last ten years, last hundred years, the evolution that we have had – right now, it feels like we're taking a few giant steps backwards in some of those points of view, but I do think even with that, there's definitely some advancements that have happened."

Phillips also revealed that they build "about 95%" of the costumes seen on TV themselves, which really underlines the consideration and attention everything is given behind the scenes to enhance the world-building of the show.

"Almost everything everybody wears on camera is something that's gone through our hands in some way," she said. "If we're buying it, we're completely augmenting it and changing it. There are very few things that we purchase and put on camera as it is."

Star Trek: Discovery airs on CBS All Access in the US and Netflix internationally, including the UK.

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Source: www.digitalspy.com