One thing I admired most about her was her ability to stay composed. Even when she got overwhelmed, she’d say, “Okay, this is what we’re doing, and we’re going to do it.” She took things on with confidence, and it was inspiring. Handling both The Mandalorian and Ahsoka simultaneously was a huge challenge, but she never wavered. She’d say, “We’re going to do it,” and that was it—we did it. She was like Master Yoda, always saying, “We don’t say no; there is no no, we just do it.”

We had two supervisors at one time: one finishing up The Mandalorian and another starting Ahsoka. This was crucial because they managed the costumers coming in and out, and set up our workroom. We had people who would work on The Mandalorian on Tuesday and switch to Ahsoka on Wednesday. We timed it so that specialty personnel could start on Ahsoka while finishing some tasks on The Mandalorian.

We had two amazing supervisors who juggled everyone at the right time, with constant communication between them and Shawna. We also had a key costumer who organized the workroom and was full-time on Ahsoka. She occasionally helped on The Mandalorian but wasn’t a full-timer there, allowing her to transition to full-time on Ahsoka. It was all about finding capable people who could rise to the occasion. In a custom-made show, you need people who can adapt quickly. We were fortunate to find an amazing crew. Shawna had a talent for recognizing people’s potential, believing in them, and giving them the chance to excel. That belief empowered us to do our jobs well.

– Elissa Alcala, Ahsoka – Assistant Costume Designer

With Ahsoka’s gray costume established back in season two of Mando, it was important to keep her in the same outfit. This season, she also got what everyone fondly calls her “Ahsoka the White” costume. She had a few other changes too, like her PJ look.

Rosario was a big part of making decisions on all these pieces. Rosario wanted to update her gray look to make it more user-friendly for the stunts she needed to do. We made some updates to give her more movement, like recutting some lines. Rosario was always so involved in her fittings, working closely with Shawna. She wanted to touch the fabrics and see Shawna’s vision, while also respecting Shawna and Dave Filoni’s ideas.

Rosario would give her opinions, suggesting adjustments like changing the back line for better movement. We also made adjustments to her armor to ensure it didn’t hurt her wrists. She was very aware of what she needed from the costume to fully become Ahsoka Tano. At the beginning of the season, we reviewed everything together.

Throughout the season, with various costume changes like her space suit, Rosario was always involved. Shawna or Dave would do a quick sketch, and Rosario would be right there with them. Shawna had this way of understanding people without them needing to communicate much. She’d say, “I know what you want,” and then she’d just do it. Often, the actor would realize Shawna had perfectly understood their needs.

Shawna was great at knowing exactly what the actors needed and communicating that to the tailors or specialty team. It was always impressive to see her get it right every time.

– Elissa Alcala, Ahsoka – Assistant Costume Designer

With Ahsoka, everyone knew going in that we were bringing beloved animated characters to life. It was important to make sure we did the fans proud, Dave proud, and involved the actors in the process. The goal was to create a beautiful transition from animation to live-action.
Translating animated characters into practical, real-world costumes was a challenge. Dave Filoni was very involved, and Shawna was constantly texting or emailing him questions, especially about details like Sabine’s artwork. In Rebels, Sabine’s armor art changes frequently, so we had to decide which elements to incorporate.

We consulted Dave, Doug Chiang, and others to ensure these characters came to life authentically. We also had to modify their animated costumes to be practical for real-life wear. Natasha tried on a suit right away to test Sabine’s costume for movement, leading to a design that split into pants and a top. Her costume ended up being quite complex.

We involved the stunts team heavily in the costume process. Their practice area was next to our costume department, allowing us to quickly test armor pieces for movement. Shawna prioritized making sure the costumes didn’t hinder the actors’ ability to perform stunts.
Including the actors in this process was crucial. We made practice costumes for them to wear during rehearsals, ensuring they could perform their stunt work comfortably. This was particularly important as they needed to start practicing months in advance, which kept us constantly chasing deadlines.

Working on Hera’s costume with Mary Elizabeth was a lot of fun. She had a lot of input on how she wanted it to fit, considering details like the length of the jacket. During fittings, there was always a moment when the actors fully saw themselves as their characters. I remember this happening with Mary Elizabeth during one fitting—she looked in the mirror and knew she was Hera. That was a lot of fun.

– Elissa Alcala, Ahsoka – Assistant Costume Designer

Yeah, this episode almost broke all of us—in a good way. From the beginning, reading the scripts, we knew this episode was going to be something special. We had to get these costumes right because they are literal translations from the animation. We played around with some of the colors in Hayden’s outfit, but for the most part, it stayed true to the animation. Figuring out how the armor pieces worked, especially Hayden’s shoulder pieces, was a challenge. He needed a piece to practice in to make sure he could do everything.
I remember it took a while to get that piece right, and on the day of filming, we were holding our breath, hoping it would work. If minor adjustments were needed, we’d get notes and fix them.

Working with Hayden and Ariana was amazing. Ariana holds a special place in my heart. Watching her become Ahsoka, spending time with Rosario to understand her movements, and capturing young Ahsoka from the animation was brilliant. In our first fitting, it was clear she was young Ahsoka Tano. It was really cool seeing her try the costumes on.
Ariana played two ages of Ahsoka, so we made subtle differences in the costumes to tell that story. We used slightly taller shoes for one version and gave a more feminine cut to the older version, while the first version had a slightly younger cut.

This episode marked the first time in Star Wars history that we had live-action clone troopers from The Clone Wars in a television series. We made those from scratch, not animated. I became a clone expert because it was necessary to understand the different phases—phase one and phase two. It was pretty cool bringing them to life, but it was a big, insane episode. However, it turned out to be amazing, and everyone is very proud of it.

This episode almost broke us because of the emotions involved in bringing it to life. There were times we doubted we’d make the deadline, working until the last possible minute. The day we filmed the scene, I remember crying in the corner because we did it. I was so emotional, happy, relieved, and in awe of how everything came together.

– Elissa Alcala, Ahsoka – Assistant Costume Designer

It was definitely a process bringing these big characters to life. A lot of people love the Nightsisters and the lore that surrounds them. We got sketches from Doug Chiang and inspiration from Dave Filoni. Dave always gave Shawna and our team a starting point, and from there, Shawna would rethink how to proceed. She wanted lots of layers, textures, and different fabrics. A big focus throughout the season was on making the fabrics flow. Both Shawna and Dave insisted the fabrics had to move in the wind, so we couldn’t pick heavy materials. The witches’ costumes used a lot of different silks, many of which were pleated.

We also had to figure out intricate patterns, like the herringbone pattern, by taking strips of fabric and having our tailors shape them on mannequins. Each witch had a different hat, which was a bit out of the comfort zone for our tailors. While we had a specialist to fabricate the hats, our tailors had to work with them to ensure everything flowed and made sense together.

Kevin Ochoa, our fabric shopper, had a tough job. Shawna was very specific about the fabrics she wanted. Often, we couldn’t find the exact fabric, so we had to find similar ones in white or beige and dye them to the desired colors. Our Head Dyer, Carol Demarti, did an amazing job. Shawna would specify the colors, and Carol would dye the fabrics, sometimes needing to adjust based on their meetings. It was a lot of communication and collaboration among Shawna, the tailors, and the dyers.

The costumes had many layers, constructed from strips of fabric that were put back together. In our fittings, we always used a fan to ensure the fabrics flowed as needed. Shawna and I would move the fan around to make sure the dresses flowed correctly. We did this with quite a few costumes this season because we wanted to give Dave his desired flowing moments. We were serious about that flow.

– Elissa Alcala, Ahsoka – Assistant Costume Designer

Everyone on our crew ended up helping to put these guys together. I will never forget it. They worked tirelessly, even staying late into the night, finishing these pieces. We made about 40 of them, each featuring the kintsugi technique with gold leafing. Each piece was meticulously dremeled out, then had gold leafing applied, followed by the red details. Everyone, including Shawna, was involved in finishing and packing these up.

Packing a stormtrooper costume is like solving a puzzle. They were packed in boxes, transported to the set, and then our set kids had to get them set up. It was a huge process, and just packing them alone took hours, followed by unpacking and dressing them.

Fredrick Faith and Gio Kendall deserve a shout-out for figuring out all the logistics. Every piece was numbered and labeled, making it like a puzzle that had to be reassembled on set. Dave wanted these troopers to be practical, not just visual effects, so we spent months dremeling, painting, gold-leafing, and aging these costumes to make them look authentic and battle-worn. Each costume went through a fitting process, which was quite insane.

Our crew was amazing, managing to get everything into bins, transported, and set up. It took an army to build and dress these troopers. We had a lot of set costumers and day players who jumped in to help, even if they didn’t know much about the costumes initially. They were always willing to learn something new on the spot, and I appreciate their dedication.

With Thrawn’s costume, we started early because we needed extensive testing to get the skin color right. We worked closely with Cristina Waltz and her team on the makeup, figuring out the best fabric and paint combinations to avoid transferring blue paint onto the white uniform. We used the traditional Star Wars suiting fabric and had to over-dye and tech it to get the perfect shade of white. It was a collaborative effort making sure everything worked together seamlessly. 

– Elissa Alcala, Ahsoka – Assistant Costume Designer

One important aspect for Shawna was collaborating closely with our ager-dyer and specialty team to make costumes look practical by telling a story through aging and dyeing. In Star Wars, Shawna believed none of the costumes should look brand new, as if they just came off a rack. Instead, they should have a lived-in look, showing the wear and tear of the world they belong to.

For a character like Thrawn, who is meticulous and prefers things to be perfect, his costume needed to reflect his circumstances. After being stranded on a planet for so many years, he wouldn’t have had the resources to maintain an perfect uniform. However, he would have done everything possible to keep it as perfect as he could. This is reflected in the subtle aging and repairs on his costume—small fixes indicating it has been worn for years, cleaned to the best of his ability but without the luxury of switching suits regularly.

– Elissa Alcala, Ahsoka – Assistant Costume Designer

Ray was such a joy. He was so funny and always such a presence. He’s a big guy, like six-five, but also incredibly kind-hearted. He always had nice things to say, checked in on how you were doing, and often played dance music, living life to the fullest and having so much fun. In his fittings with Shawna, they’d be giggling and enjoying themselves immensely. When he got his Jedi robes, he immediately put them on and twirled around, loving the experience. Shawna showed him how the fabric could flow with a fan, and they had a blast.

Ray was deeply involved in his costume, wanting it to tell a story about his character. Shawna loved creating costumes with stories embedded in them, even if the details might not always be visible on screen. For Ray’s character, there were special elements like a space stone, Moldavite, incorporated into his costume. Ray wanted this stone to be part of his character, so we ordered some Moldavite. For practical reasons, like stunts, we made replica stones from resin or plastic to prevent any injuries, but we also had pieces with the real stone for non-action scenes.

Ray’s costume, initially intended to be black, evolved with his and Shawna’s input, along with Dave’s guidance. It developed a green overtone, suggesting the costume had aged to this color, adding depth to his character. Though it might appear black at first glance, it has a distinctive green overlay.

From the beginning, we had sketches from Doug Chiang and additional input from Dave Filoni, who provided Shawna with his own sketches. These characters’ looks were well-defined early on, but we found special details to make the costumes unique to Ray and Ivanna Sakhno who played Shin Hati. Their costumes, reminiscent of Jedi attire, are among my favorites. Both Ray and Ivana were a joy to work with, excited about their costumes, and often kept them on during breaks because they loved them so much.

– Elissa Alcala, Ahsoka – Assistant Costume Designer

After I got that phone call I mentioned earlier, I ended up being a day player on The Book of Boba Fett. I remember showing up on the first day of shooting with backgrounds. It was very well organized, and Shawna had established all of her costumes, including those for the background characters. Most designers do that, but she was adamant about establishing every single background costume and wanted to be on set that day. For some reason, there was a sudden need to add scarves and more layers to the characters, who had already had their fittings but didn’t have those additions.

It was one of those fight-or-flight moments. Her main team was busy with the principal actors because it was a big day on set, and one of her keys handed me a bag of scrim—our term for scrap fabric—and asked if I could add layers to the background costumes. I said, “Sure, why not?” Working on something like Star Wars is intimidating because you don’t want to mess it up. There were rules Shawna had established, like no closures in space and no knots. You had to think on your feet to close something or make adjustments without using typical methods.

I started working with the scrim, adding layers to the costumes, when I noticed someone next to me doing the same. I turned and saw it was Shawna. I asked if she liked what I was doing, and she said she loved it, gave me some pointers, and left me to continue. Her set team, knowing my love for Star Wars, recommended me when Shawna needed someone to step into an ACD role early in the series. They kept saying my name, and Shawna, noticing my passion and work ethic, invited me to join her team.

Shawna and I just clicked. We understood each other without needing to communicate much. We developed a special bond. I could interpret her instructions perfectly, even when others found them confusing. She took a chance on me, and I’m forever grateful. Shawna was all about taking chances and nurturing talent, even hiring non-union tailors and specialty team members who had unique skills. She believed in their potential and brought them on board.

Shawna encouraged me to grow and believed I was ready to become a designer. She was nurturing, always cared about her team, and was open to discussing anything, work-related or not. We all called her “mom” because she treated us like family. She advocated for us, whether it was making sure we were comfortable on set or ensuring we took care of our health. She cared deeply about everyone.

– Elissa Alcala, Ahsoka – Assistant Costume Designer

She saw things in people that most wouldn’t take the time to see. She wanted you to be the best version of yourself. We didn’t always have perfect days, but we always came back together. Shawna’s door was always open, and she prided herself on being approachable. She supported everyone and was always there, whether it was about work or personal matters. Shawna advocated for us, pushed for better working conditions, and genuinely cared about our well-being. She was truly a force and an amazing individual to work with. I’m honored I got to work with her. Because of Shawna, I got to work on my own Star Wars trilogy.

Shawna cared immensely. Even before her work on Star Wars, she deeply cared about fans. Shawna has worked on some iconic nerd fandom shows, like with Joss Whedon and her early work on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. She’s been a nerd from the beginning and always cared deeply about the fans, their fandoms, and making them proud. Her love for the fans translated into our crew also loving and interacting with fans.

At Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, our set costumer would go and adjust different Mandalorian costumes, saying things like, “No, the cape needs to be like this.” It was fun interactions like these that Shawna encouraged. She wanted us to engage with fans and made it special for us too. This drive was especially evident with Ahsoka, knowing how beloved characters like Rebels and Ahsoka are. Shawna nurtured our love for the shows and the fandoms, believing it would inspire us to be better artists and advocates for the show.

One of Shawna’s favorite things was interacting with fans. She attended events like Comic Con and Star Wars Celebration in London, where she even got permission to showcase fabric swatches. Sometimes, I’d worry about permissions, but it always worked out because Shawna had a great rapport with Lucasfilm and wanted us to enjoy interacting with fans.

I genuinely believe Shawna’s love for fans contributed to the positive fan feedback we’ve received for Ahsoka. Fans recognize the love and care that went into every costume piece. I’ve never experienced such an outpouring on my own social media, with people reaching out to express their appreciation for our work. It’s all about community, and Shawna deeply understood and cherished that aspect too.

– Elissa Alcala, Ahsoka – Assistant Costume Designer