| Princess Leia Unproduced Arctic Outfit | |
| The piece you see here was part of an important find of prototypes relating to Kenner's 12" action figure line. As you've probably already figured out, the figure is a standard 12" Princess Leia, first released in 1978. But the outfit is something else entirely. It looks like nothing the Leia character appeared in in any of the Star Wars films. Rather, it was conceived as an "arctic" outfit, which Leia might have worn while spending time in cold environments. In a way, it was prophetic of Kenner to develop arctic wear for their figures, since the Hoth environment made a notable appearance in 1980's The Empire Strikes Back.
All of the pieces shown on this page are parts of either a "Photo Sample," made for photography purposes, or a "Quote Sample," made to send to Kenner's vendors for cost estimates and production guidance. The outfit you see above is the photo sample.
An image of this photo sample--adorning a production Leia doll--was first published by Tomart. Until recently, that photo was the only piece of evidence proving that the outfit had indeed been created. Fortunately, along with these pieces Ed has came a glossy print of the original file photo, identical to the one published by Tomart. The outfit Ed has may or may not be the one shown in the photograph; indications are that it probably is the same. As the outfit was found, it was loose, without a doll to display it on. But, even loose, it's pretty impressive, especially with the added impact the Kenner photo brings to it.
The story behind this outfit and its counterparts (which also can be found on the Archive) is fascinating. Apparently, Kenner was planning on releasing mid-priced outfit/accessory packs for their line of Star Wars 12" dolls, much as they had for their extremely popular Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman lines. To present this concept to Lucasfilm for approval, several conceptual outfits were created. They can be seen in the photo above. Disco was popular at the time, and the oufits reflected its glittery aesthetic. Lucasfilm, however, had different ideas of what these outfits should look like. They asked that the colors be toned down and the metallic fabrics be eliminated. Also, that goofy "disco ghost" outfit on the far right was nixed entirely. But the rest went through some modifications and were eventually ok'd for release. You can see the concept prototype for this Leia outfit towards the right of the photo. As you can see, Kenner originally proposed a yellow, orange and green get-up, which was really quite garrish. This was changed to a more conservative combination at Lucasfilm's request.
Still, Kenner wasn't too happy with the sales of their 12" Star Wars figures and the planned outfit packs were cancelled before going into production. But before they were cancelled, plenty of work went into producing "Quote Samples" for the purpose of determing production costs. These samples include a fully-finished prototype of the outfit; patterns, so that Kenner's vendor could reproduce the prototype exactly; and several specification sheets. Above you see the patterns for this outfit, complete with hand written identifications.
The above piece of paper is one of the spec. sheets included with the quote sample. The information included here would have allowed the manufacturer of these oufits to know exactly what types of fabrics to use. They include samples of the materials used for the outfit, as well as references to identical fabrics used to make earlier Kenner products. Any way you cut it, these outfits are a major find of unproduced Star Wars toys. It's especially nice to know that they were approved for production by both LFL and Kenner, and cancelled only after their development was almost entirely finished. To see the design of the blister card that would have been used to package this outfit, click here. |
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| Description by: | Ron Salvatore |
| Photo: | Anonymous |
| From the collection of: | Anonymous |
| Country: | United States |
| Film: | A New Hope |
| Licensee: | Kenner |
| Year: | 1980 |
| Category: | Toys / Action Figure Related / Large Size Action Figures |
