Team Galactic Fashion Analysis
When you first meet Team Galactic in Jubilife City, one of the many things Professor Rowan roasts them on is their “outlandish outfits.” Throughout the games, people comment on their clothes. Some people like them (“some Team Galactic guys in snazzy outfits came along…”), some people think they’re weird (“A man with funny bowl-cut hair. In an outfit that is very strange?”), but their distinct style of dress is often commented on. Even in the DP anime, the Japanese episode introducing Team Galactic is literally “Lovely fashion! Their name is Team Galactic!” (Suteki Fasshon! Sono na wa Ginga-dan!!). The costume design of Team Galactic matters in-universe, but it also communicates things to the player about the organization and its members. Let’s do a deep dive on the fashion of Team Galactic.
General Inspiration
The main design throughline of Team Galactic is Space. This may sound obvious – the name is literally “Galaxy Gang” in Japanese – but I really do need to hammer in that Space is the unifying theme. In the games, they’re explicitly compared to “spacemen” (“But then a whole bunch of people dressed like spacemen came...” and “There’s an odd spaceman in front of the ruins.”). It may be easy to forget since “space” doesn’t actually come up as a theme in the text, but it is the critical element in the design.
The designers had a deep well to pull from. Since the 1957 launch of Sputnik, space has been an inspiration for fashion designers. The original launch of Sputnik and the subsequent Space Race spurred an entire fashion moment: the 1960s Space Age Fashion. Science fiction also provided many opportunities to cloth the interstellar traveler and the aliens they may encounter. Team Galactic’s design draws from these two sources. The end result emphasizes the otherworldliness of the members: they are set apart from the rest of the society.
The direct design inspiration for the fashion is astronaut space suits and rockets. These provide much of the raw material that would later be refined into more wearable forms. Silver, utilitarianism, paneling, synthetic materials, androgyny: these are downstream of space suit design. Actual space suits are, of course, too cumbersome to wear casually. They also obscure the body to the point that it becomes only the suggestion of a humanoid form: face hidden by a helmet, the shape of the torso and limbs overridden by the shape of the suit, and hiding all skin.
The main fashion designers we want to look at are Pierre Cardin and Andrew Courreges, two major Space Age fashion designers. Courreges innovated a walkable white leather boot, later known as the go-go boot. Cardin was inspired by the avant garde. Common themes include a focus on white, color blocking, streamlined design (no fussy or romantic details), synthetic materials (for a smooth or shiny look – no texture like wool), and for women, a-line or shift dresses ending above the knee. The high hemline was seen as forward thinking, modern, for the woman on the go, sexually liberated – very 60s. The shift designs were also androgynous in that they downplayed the sexual characteristics of the body. Mobility was key: you would not have extraneous bits of fabric hanging about, no frills, no lace, no pencil skirt. As for closures - don't need 'em! No hooks or buttons. If you must have a closure, let it be a zipper. Otherwise, clothes are stretchy enough to put on over the head. No tucked in pants either - this is the youthful future and tucked in pants are for your grandfather.
When considering space-inspired fashion, it’s also interesting to look at a design vein that the designers did not mine: y2k futurism. When these games were designed in 2005, “y2k” was just 5 years ago and felt incredibly dated and uncool. Team Galactic steered clear of this by hewing closely to 60s and general scifi inspiration. There would be no crop tops, no frosty eyeshadow, no camisoles, no big baggy pants, no design details lifted from fetishwear (a la Mugler or the Matrix) or hip-hop culture (a la TLC). The result is more timeless and less trendy, more alien and cartoony. A y2k look, by contrast, would have added in edginess and sensuality, more fitting for a cyberpunk gang than a space-themed corporate cult.
With that, let’s take a look at the outfits one by one and analyze the common details and their significance. We’ll start with the first ones we get to see and the most frequent ones: the grunts.
Grunts
The foot soldiers of the movement and the ones to immediately get roasted by Rowan. These are the lowest ranking members. Although the dialogue indicates that there are internal hierarchies within grunts, the only people allowed to have separate outfits are the commanders. Let’s start by inventorying the outfits:
Base layers: Both the male and female grunts wear long sleeves and leggings that are silver with a paneled texture. It’s difficult to tell what the paneling means. It could be a black line printed onto the fabric, decorative stitching, or strips of fabric stitched together. The leggings and top appear to be skin-tight, so they’ve definitely got some elastane in them.
Tunic: On top of the gray top is a white tunic, which appears to have cap sleeves that cover the top of the shoulders but come in at the armpit. The tunic has a funnel neck that reaches to the chin, with two decorative black bands in the center. The hem of the tunic ends at the top of the hip for men and at the crotch for women. The Galactic emblem is displayed at the center of the chest. Two black panels appear in parallel at the arm pit, coming down to the bottom while leaving a white strip in between. The black extends around the back to cover the entire bottom half of the back.
Breeches: The men’s outfit has slim-fitting black breeches that end above the knee, exposing the gray leggings at the knee. Alternatively, you could view the gray legging and the black breeches as being part of one longer garment. The women’s outfit has no britches, just gray leggings.
Shoes: Both men and women wear round-toed white boots with gray soles, a half inch platform, and a 1-inch block heel. The men’s boots end just below the knee and the women’s boots end above the knee.
Hair: Both have a blue-tinged teal with blunt bangs ending at the eyebrows. The men have a bowl cut ending at the top of the ear, and the women have a bob that ends at the bottom of the ear.
Comments: We can see the space age inspiration very clearly in these guys. The color palette is aggressively achromatic, with the only color coming from the hair and the emblem. This emphasis on silver is very typical of space age fashion. While real space suits have boots, they’re very low practical boots, not go-go boots. The grunts’ higher boots are more fashionable. The paneling on the light gray sleeves and leggings are reminiscent of flexible aluminum pipe. It’s less space outfit and more ‘scifi robot’, but the theme of otherworldliness remains.
The funnel neck recalls a space suit. Real space suits have a wide neck to connect the dome to the body. It also serves to hide the neck and even the bottom of the chin.
The overall impression is colorless, distant, and sealed off. The lack of color suggests something inorganic and not alive. The lack of visible skin suggests unreachability and a lack of sensuality. The body-conscious silhouette, on the other hand, emphasizes the form of the human body and its ability to move and function. In other words, the outfits de-individualize the members and re-imagine them as sealed, functional units.
The impression one gets is a uniform for a very weird organization, which, well.
The teal hair is a curious choice. The teal bobs are so iconic that a celebrity wearing a teal bob automatically gets comparisons to Team Galactic.
Teal doesn’t traditionally have any associations with outer space or futurism, so it seems an odd choice. It is, however, an aggressively artificial color for human hair. Teal itself isn’t a very common color in nature. Previous grunts, such as Rocket, Magma, and Aqua, had human hair colors like black, brown, and red. Team Galactic grunts all have teal hair, which means even their normal human hair color is unacceptable – the organization needs them all to have the same outrageously artificial hair coloring and style. The de-individualization continues.
Mars
We now come to the first commander we meet, Mars. As with the Grunts, let’s start with a fashion inventory.
Dress: Mars’ dress reverses the white/black theme, with white being used for accents and black being used as the base. Her dress has long black sleeves and a mock neck with seaming on the sleeves and below the armpits. There is an illusion plunge dropping past the navel, with white breast cups and a white flared skirt. From the back, the white panels drop, giving the appearance of a backless dress with a black background. The hem is very thick, as if a pool tube had been stuffed into the hem of the skirt. The skirt seems to end at about crotch level. The Galactic insignia is present at the center of the chest and right below the neck at the back of the outfit.
Leggings: Her leggings are black until they reach above the knee, at which point they become silver. They are paneled throughout.
Shoes: She wears white below-the-knee boots with round toed boots, a white toe cap, gray soles, a slight platform, and a block heel of around 2 inches.
Hair: Her red hair features pointed bangs, a peak at the crown, a peak at the nape, and two side sections that curl inwards. It looks like a helmet, obscuring the ears. It must take a lot of hairspray.
Comments: We now come to the first commander we meet, Mars. She’s pretty chatty and friendly, all things considered. As the first commander we encounter, she’s not meant to be too challenging (though I’m sure many of you have memories of her Purugly). She also has a childish reaction to losing, generally having poor control of her feelings. Her design emphasizes this sense of childishness with a cutesy motif. Her most recognizable element is the flared skirt with the massive padded hem. This is a common ‘space girl’ costume. Though I could find no reference in film or fashion, it seems that it became popular for costume makers and home sewists to represent a ‘space-age’ silhouette by using a hula hoop at the hem of the skirt, creating a distinctive conical silhouette.
(Images shown are from a dance store, Jenny Jupiter the living statue. Potential predecessors to this look historically may be Paul Poiret’s “Lampshade Skirt” and the avant-garde ballet costumes by Oskar Schlemmer.)
As with the grunts, only the face and hands are exposed. However, her black top with white accents draws attention to where decolletage would be in real life without actually showing anything. Mars is therefore feminized by the design of the bodice as well as the very fact of having a skirt. The out-of-universe explanation for this is fanservice. The in-universe explanation – perhaps the commanders design their own outfits. Hers matches her bratty, pushy personality well – cute but inaccessible.
Jupiter
Catsuit: Jupiter shares the same upper body design as mars with the gray banding under the bust, the white cups against the black background, but it changes dramatically at the hips. The right leg has a skintight leg that continues the white, transitions to two silver panels, and then plain smooth black. The left leg opening has a black panel extending from the crotch to the upper hip, as if she were wearing a white swimsuit over black hot pants. It stops there, and then there is a thick black rubber band at the middle of bare thigh. As with mars, the insignia is at the center front and high center back.
Leggings: She wears plain black leggings that end above the knee on her left leg.
Boots: She wears the same boots as Mars.
Hair: She has purple hair with what seems to be a bun at the crown and a bun at the nape of the neck. The bottom of the ears are exposed. She has blunt bangs that obscure her eyebrows. Her sideburns appear to be styled to point inwards.
Comments: I originally thought that Jupiter’s outfit didn’t have any particular real world referent, since bodysuits weren’t really part of space age fashion. Then I remembered that tight-fitting bodysuits were a major trend in science fiction depictions of the clothing of the future. Men and women were conceptualized as wearing tight suits that would allow them flexibility and would intelligently adapt to different climates. It also provided an opportunity for fanservice, naturally. Some examples from film are the bodysuits from Space 1999, War of the Worlds 1953, and likely most importantly, Rei Ayanami from the massively successful Neon Genesis Evangelion.
As for how it relates to her personality – Jupiter seems to be positioned to be the more ‘mature’ between her and Mars. Platinum implies she has some kind of rivalry with Mars, and in DPP she’s always paired with Mars to slow you down before you face Cyrus at Spear Pillar. Her outfit emphasizes a vertical line that makes her appear taller than Mars. She’s haughty and judgmental of others, being noticeably less agreeable than Mars is.
The exposed thigh is truly baffling. Does she zip into her outfit, strap on her rubber garter, then a sock, then the boots? Is her leg cold standing at the top of Mt. Coronet? Is she fooling us by wearing skin-toned fleece tights underneath? When she has to go to the bathroom, does she have to unzip and wiggle out of her catsuit and then sit sad and half-naked on the toilet? Her outfit is a mystery. It certainly seems to be more body-forward than other outfit, revealing more skin and outlining the entire silhouette of the body. My original thoughts when I encountered her in 2006 was that she was a noticeable attempt to be “sexier” than other female designs we’d had in the past. Her extensive fanbase of men suggests that they achieved their goal, though Mars also has many male admirers.
Saturn
The third commander, whom we meet at Lake Valor after Team Galactic has detonated a bomb and apparently emptied the lake of water.
Top: He also has the base black with white accents, but his is much simpler. The white accents look like a plunging tank top with three white bands crossing horizontally at the abdomen. In his art from DP, the top ends just above the crotch, but in the BDSP art, the top ends at the hips, obscuring the waistband of the pants. The Galactic emblem is at the center of the chest.
Pants: He wears slim but not tight black pants with black paneling. His pants end with no break, with their hem barely brushing the top of the boots.
Shoes: We cannot see the rest of his shoes, but since everyone else seems to be wearing white boots, I assume he is as well.
Hair: He also has blunt bangs, and hair styled into two peaks like horns. His hair is a cobalt blue.
Comments: The most straightforward outfit, emphasizing slenderness and height. It draws from the design language of the Commanders with the black sleeve and white accent. The utilitarian but slim outfit reminds me of the Star Trek approach to uniforms, keeping things simple, clean, and fitted. Saturn would fit in well as a crew member aboard a spaceship.
How does this relate to his character? His introductory speech shows him as being quite mission-oriented – and authoritarian: “The mission is proceeding without a hitch. The boss should be pleased. Everything is for everyone, and for the good of Team Galactic! […] But anything and anyone that opposes Team Galactic must be crushed! Even the very thought of opposition will not be tolerated!” His look is less theatrical than Mars/Jupiter or even the Grunts. He’s dressed practically for working in an office and telling people what to do, which is what he ends up doing during the Mt. Coronet operation.
Charon
Charon, the Fourth Commander, the newest member, the oldest member, and the one added in Platinum. His design is quite unique.
Lab coat: Charon wears a white lab coat over his outfit. It has standard lapels, two patch pockets by the hem, and ends above the knee. The coat appears to cover his wrists.
Top: His top has a black upper section, but the middle section is silver, not white. There are two panels at the top of the silver section, with the Galactic logo aligned with the center line. Has a mock neck.
Pants: He also has black seamed pants with what seems like a full break. His pants appear a little looser than Saturn’s, showing more folding.
Shoes: He wears round-toed shoes with a black sole and a slight heel typical of men’s formal shoes.
Hair: He has lavender hair with two points to the side and two points crawling forward. He also has pink circle pince-nez glasses, like an evil John Lennon.
Comments: The black and silver definitely give him a darker shade compared to the other Galactic members, where white is prominently featured. The white comes only from the lab coat (which is generic) and the shoes. Throwing on a lab coat to show that he’s a scientist is a classic TV depiction of scientists, even though we don’t know what kind of science Charon does. The pant break at the shoes suggests more typical tailoring for menswear, rather than the youthful and futuristic no break look.
Charon looks to be the least integrated of all of the designs, which is fitting with how unaligned he is with the mission.
Cyrus
Top: He has a top that has paneling not just on the sleeves but also up to the mock neck. From the armpits down is a plain white fabric. The top goes down to the crotch. The sleeves are noticeably wider than everyone else’s and you can see the fabric bunch near the shoulders because of it.
Vest: The vest is primarily silver with white side details and black horizontal bands parallel to each other at the waist. The vest also has a high collar. The vest is never shown closed. Vest has the Galactic emblem at the left breast over the heart, and on the back in the center.
Pants: The pants are black, paneled, and wide legged. They have no break, stopping just at the top of the shoe.
Shoes: The shoe is presumably also a boot since everyone else seems to wear boots and no lacing or fastening is visible, with the shaft inside the pants. They have a white round toe cap and two silver bands across the instep, with a flat black sole.
Hair: The hair is variously either a light slate blue or an azure. It is always spiked up and out.
Comments: He is oddly casual-looking for an evil team lead. He looks like he’s wearing comfy space pajamas. His outfit is also the most body-obscuring of the commanders (save Charon, who was designed later). While all the other costumes outline the silhouette of the body, the wider-legged pants, baggy sleeves, and loose vest obscure even that, making his body less legible. (At least in the Sugimori art – the sprites and especially Platinum show more fitted clothing.)
Other than the general space themes, I don’t think there’s any particular design that his outfit is drawing from. That being said, the vest and the puffy sleeves feel like something a hiker might wear. As mentioned above, the sleeves are thick enough that when the arms are slightly raised, they bunch up near the shoulder. This suggests a fabric that is perhaps meant to be insulating. The vest also feels practical. I’m getting futuristic hiker vibes. You can see in the Team Rainbow Rocket appearances that the actors are dressed in padded quilted tops (look at the sleeve opening by the wrist).
And finally, this is more of a coincidence than anything else, since this style postdates the release of the games, but his outfit gives me mad lunarcore vibes. This is a very niche substyle of techwear (itself a niche fashion style focusing on technical fabrics). I like to imagine in an alternate universe Cyrus is a power poster on r/techwearclothing writing screeds on how Arcteryx just isn’t what it used to be.
Closing Thoughts
Overall, the Team Galactic designs do a great job at conveying an impression instantly through visual language and sticking to a theme without staying repetitive. They stand out to us and to the in-universe audience, suggesting that Team Galactic’s outfits were always meant to stand out. They may be goofy, but I love the decision to go with a retrofuturistic aesthetic. Of all the things I wish BDSP had changed, the clothes are actually not one of them – I don’t think they were in need of HGSS or ORAS-style redesigns. The designs aren’t simplistic or over-designed (with the possible exception of Jupiter).
While it is a shame that the text rarely expands on why space matters to Team Galactic, the costume design elaborates on it excellently. This is a group of people who choose to become alien-like, de-individualized, utilitarian, dressed as if on a mission to an entirely new place.
(As an aside - it would be interesting to also investigate from a game perspective, since these designs had to be able to shrink to fit small sprites and be relatively legible. That, however, is not my department.)
Beta Design Trivia
Male grunts originally had capri-length pants and calf boots, with the gray leggings in between. This got changed to knee boots and thigh-length pants in the final version.
Obviously the blue hair is different, as well as the never-used black face covering. Also seems there was a time when the emblem would have a blue outline and not a black one.
Why was blue changed to teal? Blue may have too strong an association with water or the sky. Bright teal is attention-grabbing and not obviously associated with any element.
These unused designs for the Commanders were found in the leak. As you can see, the design sensibilities are radically different from what we got in the end, featuring bare arms, exposed legs, pumps for the women, a butt cape for Saturn, and an overall more theatrical look. The weird leg garters appear to have survived only in Jupiter’s final design. As fun as these are, I feel like they show how important visual cohesion is. These guys do not feel like they are members of an organized alien group. They look like they’re going to the club. And while final Mars and Jupiter are hardly alpine-ready, beta Mars and Jupiter should absolutely not be climbing a permanently snowy mountain dressed like that. I’d be curious to know more context about these sprites (file name, location, what other images were they near?) but alas, this is all I have.
(Also only Mars has a Galactic insignia? And it’s also on the left breast? Where’s everyone else’s emblem??)
TRIVIA
None of the male uniforms show the waistband of the pants. The male grunt, BDSP Saturn, and Charon show the crotch. DP Saturn and Cyrus cover the crotch. Female outfits do not show waistbands or waist seaming either. Tucked in shirts at the waist or waist emphasis is a very traditional silhouette, while the more streamlined look keeps the eye moving down throughout the outfit.
The color palette is achromatic: black, white, silver. The only colored accents are gold (for the emblem) and the hair colors: teal, red, purple, cobalt, lavender and azure.
Women don’t have separate trousers. Jupiter has a single leg covering.
Only female grunts wear visible over-the-knee boots. Everyone else wears under-the-knee boots.
Women’s tunics (grunts) and skirts (Mars) do not go lower than the crotch.
M/F grunts, Mars, and Jupiter have skintight sleeves and leggings.
Saturn (all variants) has skintight sleeves but only slim-fitting trousers.
Charon has normal sleeves and trousers.
Only Cyrus has roomy sleeves and wide-leg trousers.
Saturn and Cyrus have no-break pants. Charon has full break pants.
M/F Grunts, Mars and Jupiter have visible boot shafts.
Charon, Saturn and Cyrus have the boot shaft concealed under the trouser leg.
All uniforms except Cyrus have the insignia at the center of the chest. Cyrus has it over the left breast on his vest.
Charon is the only one to have no white at all on his Galactic-specific top. His lab coat is top, but all the scientists wear lab coats even if they don’t otherwise wear the uniform. His actual Galactic top is black and silver, not black and white. He also has no white on his bottom half except for his boots.
Cyrus and Charon are the only ones to have silver on the torso. Grunts have silver sleeves and leggings. Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn do not wear silver on the torso.
Silver sleeves are for grunts; black sleeves are for commanders + boss.
Black trousers are only worn by male commanders + boss.
Mars’ black + silver leggings is reminiscent of the male grunt breeches + silver leggings.
