NEKKYO USAGI

Robert Fletcher is particularly fond of one item of wardrobe that he created for The Motion Picture: Spock’s black velvet meditation robe [top left]. “It’s Vulcan civilian attire,” the designer explains. “In my concept, Spock arrives on the Enterprise [looking] rather like Hamlet–dark and tragic.

“…People always ask me what the writings on the front of Spock’s black velvet at-home costume symbolize,” Fletcher says of the decorative lettering he invented–just as he invented the “personal symbols” worn on the costumes of several other Vulcans in the first movie. In fact, he never attached meaning to the shapes.  “All I can say is that it’s very much akin to Chinese. It’s non-syllabic, and the various shapes contain an entire thought; you don’t use [the symbols] to make words.”