Since Star Trek first made its way to the big screen, its costume design has veered away from the classic color-coded uniforms in favor of experiments with red double-breasted uniforms and unfortunate flesh-colored jumpsuits. But for the 2009 J.J Abrams *Star Trek *reboot and its recently released sequel, Into Darkness, costume designer Michael Kaplan helped move the sartorial stylings of the Enterprise crew forwards by looking backwards–at the trusty old red, blue, and gold. It’s a comfortingly familiar detail amongst Abrams’ trademark lens flare and glowing spaceship interiors: a conscious chromatic nod to the vintage style of the original costumes.

“I wanted the film based in the ‘60s,” Kaplan told Wired. “Not literally the ‘60s, but I wanted my thinking to be grounded in the concept of the original Star Trek, almost like an homage.... I had a lot of books in my library that I’d consult: [André] Courrèges [inventor of the mini-skirt], designers like that. To keep things rooted in that, even if when you look at the movie, you don’t say, ‘Hey, this is the early 1960s.'"

In a different film the female officers' mini-dress uniforms might have seemed like a gratuitous anachronism, but the larger framework of 1960s styling (towering, stylized beehive hair on some of the extras; Uhura’s cat-eye eyeliner) makes them work. It helps, too, that, the flimsy color-coded uniform shirts no longer have to survive fight scenes. They're treated more like officewear, and quickly swapped out for tougher gear.

“Now that we’re so far ahead in time from when the TV show was released, I felt that more sophistication was necessary,” Kaplan told Wired. “In the past, [the crew] were all seen to wear their uniform when beamed to other ships and going to other planets. I felt like it was time they had something to travel in, so I created these shuttle suits. They’re almost like a jumpsuit, worn over their uniforms and with little plastic windows so you can see the color of the uniform.”

So: even if you’re wearing a protective flight suit when you beam down to explore an alien planet, everyone will still know you’re a redshirt.

The wetsuits Kaplan designed for Uhura, Kirk and McCoy are especially slick, sharing a geeky little detail with the bridge uniforms: tiny images of the Starfleet logo, embossed all over the fabric.

Uhura's wetsuit, embossed with tiny Starfleet insignia. Uhura's wetsuit, embossed with tiny Starfleet insignia.

Kaplan also worked to keep the characters in consistent color palettes even when they dressed in civilian clothes. The one exception was Benedict Cumberbatch’s villain: “I wanted him to be kind of enigmatic, but also very well-dressed,” Kaplan explained. “He has a costume of the character’s own clothing, that makes you not quite sure who he is. But I wanted him to be easily identifiable, so I put him in a long coat in every scene... I wanted to single him out from the rest of the crowd.”

It certainly works. Cumberbatch’s character has a Hollywood villain’s unerring ability to locate a swirling, cape-like coat in any scene, even if it involves grabbing one off an extra. And although his true identity remains a mystery for much of the film, eagle-eyed fans may spot a couple of clues hidden in one of his costumes—another long black coat, of course.

Into Darkness is a little more violent than its predecessor, which perhaps explains the changes to Starfleet’s formal dress uniforms. Spock’s sleek, slate-grey uniform is gone, replaced by a paler suit that looks (dare I say it) ever-so-slightly Death Star. But, as Kaplan points out, “[Starfleet] is a military service—more than for peace than for war—but still, they’re officers. A lot of situations in this movie are formal meetings, when Kirk and Spock have to meet with the higher command. They wouldn’t just show up in their, you know, Enterprise uniforms.”

In the new dress uniform, Chris Pine often looks downright ... Shatnerian. Apparently he had to gain so much weight for this movie that he was constantly dripping food onto his gold command shirts, coining the on-set phrase, “He’s Pined himself again.” (You should have gone for mustard, Chris. That barely would’ve shown up on camera.)

"Captain, I find your lack of faith ... disturbing." Kirk and Spock's new dress uniforms wouldn't look out of place on an Imperial Death Star.

As for the casual fashions of Into Darkness, Kaplan was careful not to go too extreme. “If you do anything too futuristic, it’s too jolting, it takes you out of the moment,” he explained. “J.J. was much more concerned about the emotion. So I just wanted it to be very, very subtle—not really identifiable as being clothes of today, but also not anything that was highly futuristic.”

The end result is a world that successfully combines 1960s mini-skirts, leather jackets that wouldn’t look out of place in a 2013 Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, and occasional hints of futurism, like the doctors in crisp white jackets with detachable sleeves that give them a modular, almost robotic appearance. But of all the anachronisms of Into Darkness, my favorite is Scotty, who ends up in a decidedly retro alien bar wearing a disco-era yellow shirt that–thanks to Michael Kaplan’s careful eye–somehow meshes perfectly with his 23rd-century surroundings.