Dancing-girl costume

Dancing-girl costumes functioned as a style of costume for female dancers during their performances. Additionally, these costumes were worn by some beings who were enslaved by the Zygerrian Slave Empire located on the planet Zygerria. They were also used by crime lords of the Hutt species on Tatooine and by the Hutt Clan and the Grand Hutt Council that ruled on the Hutt-controlled planet Nal Hutta. For these individuals, the costume could serve as either everyday clothing or formal palace attire.

These costumes are recognizable by their upper component: a sculpted bronzium harness worn on the chest, featuring metal filigree on the cups and secured with cords that crisscrossed behind the neck and back. The lower half of the costume varied, and could include a bikini bottom with filigree that matched the harness, or a lashaa silk skirt composed of separate panels hanging from a metal belt.

In 32 BBY, Jabba Desilijic Tiure presided over the Boonta Eve Classic podrace on Tatooine, bringing Diva Shaliqua, one of his favorite enslaved singers (who was half-Theelin), to his viewing platform in the Mos Espa Grand Arena. She was dressed in a dancing-girl costume that included a matching harness and briefs layered over loose trousers, thick metal bangles on both wrists, leather armbands on both arms, and a collar.

During the Clone Wars, specifically in 21 BBY, an advertisement for the underground nightclub Show Girls on the planet Coruscant displayed a Twi'lek woman wearing a dancing-girl costume. When Ziro Desilijic Tiure, Jabba's uncle, was imprisoned at Gardulla Besadii the Elder's palace on Nal Hutta, three Twi'lek chorus girls wore dancing costumes as they performed for the Grand Hutt Council alongside Sy Snootles, a Pa'lowick singer. Their costumes consisted of ornamented harnesses with skimpy briefs, thigh-high stockings, collars, and leather straps wrapped around their legs and feet to serve as shoes. They also wore headdresses designed to resemble the heads of specific Hutts, adorned with vibrant colored feathers. The chorus girl styled after Jabba conversed with Snootles after their performance.

In 20 BBY on Zygerria, a Zygerrian enslaver displayed an enslaved Twi'lek in a dancing-girl costume to a fellow Zygerrian and a Neimoidian within a market. Later that year, several Twi'leks wore the outfit in the city of Bilbousa on Nal Hutta. This included a pair who escorted a drunken Sy Snootles out of a saloon, and others within the saloon who danced on the bartop and spoke with customers.

In 4 ABY, Leia Organa, the Force-sensitive human Princess, infiltrated Jabba's Palace on Tatooine disguised as Boushh, an Ubese male bounty hunter who had seemingly captured Chewbacca, a Wookiee. Organa and Chewbacca planned to rescue Han Solo from his imprisonment in carbonite. Although she succeeded in freeing Solo, the Hutt had seen through her disguise and captured Organa as well.

Jabba instructed two servants—Jess and Damaris Viell, who were musicians—to dress Organa in the attire of a palace slave. This included a maroon lashaa silk skirt suspended from a belt, jerba leather boots, and a bronzium harness. Her hair was styled into a braided bun on top of her head with a single long plait down her back. She also wore hair ornaments, small hoop earrings, a spiral cuff on her upper left arm, a bracelet on her right wrist, and a heavy collar around her neck, all made of a metal that matched the harness. The Hutt used a thick chain threaded through the loops on the collar to keep her near his throne.

Luke Skywalker, Organa's twin brother and a Jedi Knight, later entered the palace. Although the costume was intended to humiliate her, she refused to show her true feelings and maintained her dignity. Sensing her worry for Solo and her anger at the Hutt's mistreatment of her, Skywalker had to control his own emotions and resist the temptation to use the dark side of the Force to murder Jabba. When Jabba dropped Skywalker into the rancor pit beneath the throne, Organa was forced to watch as he fought and killed Pateesa, Jabba's pet rancor, while the Hutt held her back with the chain. Jabba sentenced Skywalker, Solo, and Chewbacca to execution by the sarlacc within the Great Pit of Carkoon. He brought Organa along to watch from his sail barge. As the group and their friend Lando Calrissian fought back against their scheduled execution, Organa used the chaos to knock out the controls to Jabba's throne and wrap the chains around the Hutt's neck. Fueled by her hatred for the Hutt, she unknowingly drew on the dark side of the Force to gain the physical strength needed to strangle and kill Jabba.

Afterward, the astromech droid R2-D2 helped Organa break the chain, and she joined the battle on the barge until Skywalker instructed her to aim a deck cannon at the deck itself. The pair held onto each other and used a rope to swing to safety on a skiff as the cannon fired and destroyed Jabba's barge behind them.

By 28 ABY, Senator Leia Organa of the New Republic would sometimes have vivid memories of sensory details, especially the weight of the slave collar and the foul smell of her surroundings, when something reminded her of the events at Jabba's palace. One such memory occurred while fellow senators discussed whether to officially intervene with the cartel of Rinnrivin Di, a Nikto crime lord rumored to be growing as powerful as the Hutts once were. Organa volunteered to investigate Di at his base on Bastatha.

When Organa met Di, he welcomed her and presented her with a holocube containing a recording of Jabba's death. He told her that many Niktos admired her as the Huttslayer, the warrior who freed the galaxy from Jabba the Hutt. He also mentioned that only a few copies of the footage existed because the Hutts had suppressed it, not wanting proof of their vulnerability to spread. Di told Organa that she would always have allies among the Niktos. He then attempted to use her reputation for this unlawful act to form an alliance, suggesting she ignore his cartel's spicerunning and other illegal activities. Organa later showed the holocube to her colleague, Ransolm Casterfo, while explaining her encounter with Di. Instead of disgust, as she expected, Casterfo expressed admiration.

On her next meeting with Di, Organa returned the holocube. He played the recording repeatedly and confessed that he envied that Organa had the memory while he had only the recording. Unbeknownst to Di, Organa had placed a microscopic sensor beacon inside the cube, anticipating that he would keep it close. She used the tracker to pinpoint his location on Sibensko and discovered an underwater complex used by his cartel. By then, Di had discovered the tracker and confronted her; once more, he replayed the recording. Despite his verbal admiration, Di failed to learn from the Hutt's fate and underestimated Organa to his detriment: she escaped, killing him and the warriors backing him up.

The dancing-girl costume Organa wore on Tatooine was mentioned in the twenty-fourth chapter of Skywalker: A Family at War, an exhaustive biography of the Skywalker family written by Kitrin Braves, a journalist, and published sometime after the 35 ABY release of The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire, a book by Beaumont Kin, a historian. The work discussed Organa's imprisonment by Jabba, who forced her to wear an outfit designed to maximize humiliation. The author noted that while Organa appeared to take it in stride, she would remember the weight of the outfit's chains for years, using the experience to fuel her resolve to fight the Empire.

The dancing-girl costumes first appeared in Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, the third film in the original trilogy, which premiered on May 25, 1983. Actress Carrie Fisher and stunt performer Tracey Eddon wore versions of the costume as Princess Leia Organa. The bikini-style costume consisted of a brassiere, a skirt made of two panels hanging from a belt, boots, matching jewelry, and hair accessories.

Fisher told Starlog magazine that she was shocked to learn that the costume was George Lucas's idea. Although she criticized the use of gaffer's tape instead of an actual bra under her primary dress in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope (the original Star Wars film, which premiered in 1977), she otherwise enjoyed wearing her costumes in the first two original trilogy films. In Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back (the second film, released in 1980), she wore a white snow suit that she considered a favorite, later saying that it had a "gas station attendant" look she liked. Richard Marquand, the director of Return of the Jedi, disagreed; he disliked the costumes created by John Mollo for The Empire Strikes Back, especially Leia's Cloud City attire, and felt they didn't show how sexy he thought she was. Nilo Rodis-Jamero, the costume designer, also found Fisher attractive and was another early advocate for creating a dancing costume for her to wear in Return of the Jedi. The costume's creation was not solely Lucas's idea.

From July 13 to July 17, 1981, Lawrence Kasdan (co-writer of the Return of the Jedi screenplay) and Howard G. Kazanjian (co-producer) met with Marquand and Lucas for a story conference where they planned how Leia would end up wearing the costume. As they discussed the characters infiltrating Jabba's palace, Marquand suggested that she could enter in disguise, get discovered, and then be turned into a dancing girl. He also thought it would be nice to add a chain. Kasdan asked how the group felt about Leia killing Jabba, and Marquand and Lucas both suggested she use the chain to strangle him. The second draft of the script (dated September 21) included a description that Leia was "dressed in the skimpy costume of a dancing girl; a chain runs from a manacle/necklace on her neck to her new master, Jabba the Hutt." In the "Slave Leia costume" featurette for the 2011 Blu-ray set Star Wars: The Complete Saga, sculptor and jeweler Richard Miller recalled Lucas telling him the purpose of the costume's skimpiness was to show that Leia had grown up. In an interview in the July 21, 1983 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Fisher commented that the filmmakers had decided one way to make Leia Organa more feminine was to remove her clothing.

In Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays, a 1997 book written by Laurent Bouzereau, Rodis-Jamero said that Lucas always talked about a slave-girl outfit, but the artist struggled and kept coming up with clunky concepts reminiscent of Ben-Hur. He met with Richard Miller, a friend of Lorne Peterson (an Industrial Light & Magic modeler) who had created bronze sculptures in a style similar to Rodis-Jamero's concepts. Miller created three-dimensional representations and would later sculpt the faux metal components of the costume as the film's credited jeweler. Because Rodis-Jamero designed costumes from a conceptual point of view and lacked practical knowledge, he and Jim Bloom (co-producer) realized an experienced costume designer was needed to execute any designs.

Aggie Guerard Rodgers, who had previously worked with Lucas on his films American Graffiti and More American Graffiti, was hired in fall 1981. Rodis-Jamero and Rodgers collaborated to produce sketches of their concepts, with the former creating the actual illustrations. Lucas specifically requested that they create a bikini, according to Rodgers. She envisioned having twenty-five or forty-five yards of silk flowing through the air, but it was not feasible. The paintings of Frank Frazetta, one of Lucas's favorite artists, were an inspiration for her. Although she has said that he had requested a Frazetta-inspired costume, she was also quoted in J. W. Rinzler's 2013 book The Making of Return of the Jedi as saying Lucas did not tell her "Frank Frazetta" when designing the costume. Paul LeBlanc and Patricia McDermott designed Leia's hairstyle as hairdressers for the film, while Marilee Heyer illustrated LeBlanc's designs.

Lucas had no objections to the costume concept but doubted that Fisher could be convinced to wear it. Star Wars Costumes: The Original Trilogy, a 2014 reference book written by Brandon Alinger, states that she did not hesitate; Fisher's own accounts differ. About two months before filming began, Lucas invited Fisher to San Francisco to show her a picture of the costume. She later described herself as "aghast," thinking at first that he was kidding, and she was very nervous about it. For A New Hope, she had been required to lose weight, while for The Empire Strikes Back, she was told to gain. Believing Lucas had shown her the picture to successfully frighten her into exercising, she grew preoccupied with how she would look in the costume. Fisher experienced body dysmorphia throughout her life.

The so-called "metal bikini" was not made of metal. Instead of making a full-body or torso cast of Fisher (which Miller described as an extremely uncomfortable process that required getting naked and having plaster thrown on one's body), he used a wax casting technique used in bronze sculpting. The costume components were first sculpted in soft wax around bendable armature wire at his home studio, placed in an ice chest, and transported to Lucas's Park Way house. Fisher's friend and fellow actress Penny Marshall accompanied her there for the fitting with Rodis-Jamero, who explained the process to Fisher. By wearing the cold wax against her bare skin, her body heat warmed and softened the wax so she could shape it for a custom fit before he placed the structures back in the ice chest. Miller then used the wax to create molds and cast the final structural components in orange-colored, dense but flexible urethane rubber for Fisher to wear and a softer, more flexible latex rubber for Tracey Eddon's stunt version. The paint for the faux metal elements was touched up during filming with Treasure Gold polish.

The finished costume was made of silk, painted resin, leather, and rubber. At a cost of $8,000, Miller produced a total of three sets of costume castings to have "one to use, one to lose, and one to break." When the castings were sent to ILM's San Rafael wardrobe shop, Rodgers's team finalized the costume with fabric elements and added leather linings to the backs of the structural pieces to improve its wearability for Fisher. One of Miller's students at the College of Marin made the earrings, and boot maker John Shrader made the suede boots, to which Miller added sculptural filigree.

Fisher arrived in England shortly after New Year's Day in 1982 for makeup and costume fittings prior to the beginning of filming at Elstree Studios. Due to Fisher's weight loss since the initial fitting, the costume did not have the intended snug fit. Miller made a replacement to send to England, but he was never fully satisfied with its appearance in the film. Miller had designed the bra's support cords to be crossed in front, but the on-set dressers instead crossed them in the back, telling Miller that it had looked too confining.

"It was quite challenging to keep it where it needed to be," stated Fisher in the twenty-sixth edition of the Bantha Tracks newsletter, released in the autumn of 1984. "It really frustrated the wardrobe department." Despite not being constructed from actual metal, the outfit still severely restricted Fisher's movement and did not conform to her body. Surrounded by a cast and crew that were mostly men, she initially felt self-conscious, eventually realizing that "any sense of dignity was impossible." Initially, a prop assistant would inspect the top after each scene to ensure it hadn't shifted, a task she soon took over herself between scenes, often facing comments about her chest before filming resumed. She later joked about it with Star Wars Insider magazine, saying, "It felt like steel, or at least hard plastic, and if you stood behind me, you could practically see all the way to Florida. You'd have to ask Boba Fett about that, though."

Janet Lucas-Wakely, an uncredited wardrobe assistant who dressed Fisher throughout the filming process, recounted that Fisher enjoyed her princess dress and combat attire but detested the dancing costume and felt uneasy wearing it. The throne room scenes, filmed at Elstree Studios, were extremely cold, while the smaller set built for Jabba's sail barge became intensely hot due to the lighting, perhaps making Fisher the only person comfortable with the temperature, while the actors in full costumes and the crew struggled with the heat.

Fisher found amusement in joking with Jabba's puppeteers during breaks; Marquand noted that Fisher adored Jabba during filming and would instruct the crew controlling the puppet's hand to tighten the chain, allowing her to better understand Leia's feelings. She later observed that Leia's persona changed when she wore the costume, shifting from being fearless around Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin to barely speaking while chained to the Hutt, even though Fisher attempted to improvise dialogue. In her interview featured in the September 1983 issue of Starburst magazine, she remarked, "I was quite surprised that Leia would simply sit there, wearing such revealing clothes, and say almost nothing. I suggested that the only way to justify it was if Jabba pulled my chains very tightly, preventing me from speaking. I couldn't imagine my character not speaking." Disappointed by Leia's transformation from defiant to silent in the costume, Fisher decided to pursue writing while filming the palace scenes.

In addition to losing weight, Fisher was instructed to maintain a straight posture in front of Jabba to prevent lines or wrinkles from forming around her waist when bending or moving. The discomfort of maintaining this rigid posture while wearing the costume contributed to her satisfaction in the scene where Leia strangled Jabba with the chain, leading to his death. When asked if she wanted a stunt double for the scene, she declined, expressing her strong desire to personally kill Jabba.

The outdoor desert scenes were shot near Yuma, Arizona in April of 1982. During breaks in filming, Fisher and Eddon would sunbathe while wearing their costumes. Fisher mentioned to Starlog that this irritated the crew because they were not supposed to get tanned; she would later add that they became quite popular with the crew during those times. Sunbathing provided her and Eddon with an opportunity to enjoy themselves while feeling absurd in their costumes, and decades later, she fondly remembered them as being "like the Doublemint Intergalactic Twins."

Fisher donned the costume with a woven cloak and black goggles for a sandstorm scene filmed for Return of the Jedi that was ultimately cut. At some point during production, Fisher also wore the costume while playing herself in footage for the unfinished mockumentary Return of the Ewok. This short film would have featured Warwick Davis as his Ewok character, Wicket Wystri Warrick. Davis shared a clip of Fisher's scene at the 2016 Celebration Europe convention, where Wicket asks Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Fisher, all in costume, where the Ewoks should report for filming Revenge of the Jedi.

While in England during February 1982, Fisher participated in a promotional photo shoot, wearing her various Return of the Jedi costumes, including the dancing-girl attire. These images, along with others of Fisher in the bikini, were subsequently used in the film's marketing campaigns. Several artists also created concept art for posters. Two proposals by John Alvin depicted the costume with a bikini bottom instead of a skirt. Ultimately, the artwork of Japanese-American Kazuhiko Sano was selected for the "Style B" poster, featuring Leia prominently in the lower half.

In 1983, a production still of Leia in the costume graced the cover of People magazine's June 6 issue, which also included an interview with Fisher. She participated in a beach photo shoot with Aaron Rapoport for Rolling Stone, and the resulting photographs were featured on the cover and in an interview with Fisher in the July 1983 issue. The cover portrays her as Leia Organa sitting on a beach towel alongside an Ewok, Darth Vader holding a boombox, and a Gamorrean guard holding a beach ball. Fisher later shared during convention panels, such as her "Date with a Princess" at Celebration VI in 2012, that she thoroughly enjoyed the photo shoot.

Fisher sometimes expressed pride when reflecting on her appearance in the costume, but during the time she wore it and for many years afterward, she felt differently. In 2011, she appeared as a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show and discussed her decision to become a spokesperson for the Jenny Craig weight loss program, stating, "I didn't even realize at the time that I was, in a way, the Star Wars pin-up, the geek pin-up. I thought I was overweight back then, so it's only now that it's all caught up with me." Later that year, she wrote in her memoir Shockaholic that reports of her passing would likely include "a picture of a stern-looking girl wearing some kind of metal bikini lounging on a giant drooling squid."

At Celebration Anaheim in 2015, Fisher confided to host James Arnold Taylor that she disliked being perceived as a centerfold in an iconic bathing suit and that she had never considered herself that way while wearing it. Also in that year, she advised her sequel trilogy co-star Daisy Ridley, who played Rey, to resist if asked to wear similar costumes.

Fisher reflected on her faux metal "Jabba Killer" bikini in her final memoir, The Princess Diarist, which was released on November 22, 2016, just weeks before her passing on December 27. She commented on the cosplaying at conventions by women and men who looked amazing in the costume, and she wrote that killing Jabba the Hutt was her most cherished moment in her personal film history. She shared an anecdote about her wax figure at Madame Tussauds, which she visited in May of that year with her emotional support dog, Gary Fisher. In her concluding remarks, she wrote that if she had never been Princess Leia, she would "[n]ever have been asked if I thought I'd been objectified by silently wearing a gold bikini, while seated on a giant laughing cruel slug, while everyone chatted gaily around me."

The "metal bikini" or "Slave Leia" image has been called a favorite among fans and an icon of pop culture. Articles in science fiction magazines soon after the film's release already praised the costume and Fisher's appearance in it, and the look became iconic. Interviews with her in official publications frequently highlighted the costume and asked her about it. In 1984, Rodgers and Rodis-Jamero were awarded the Best Costumes prize at the 11th Saturn Awards for their work on Return of the Jedi, including the dancing-girl costume. Fan reactions to the costume as appealing have been interpreted as viewing Leia as a passive sex object and overlooking the narrative context that the character was angry and actively sought revenge on Jabba. In Star Wars Insider, author Tricia Barr wrote, "Fisher vividly conveys the emotions of a woman using the chains of captivity to slay the grotesque Jabba to gain freedom, and most women who cosplay as slave Leia speak of feeling empowered."

In broader popular culture, Leia's dancing-girl costume, and others inspired by it, have made appearances in episodes of television shows such as Friends, Chuck, and Bring Back…; the reality show Dancing with the Stars and the game show Deal or No Deal; and the animated shows Family Guy, American Dad!, and two Star Wars–themed Robot Chicken specials. They have also been featured in the video game World of Warcraft and the movie Fanboys.

As Fisher had foreseen, her obituaries prominently featured her appearance in Leia's bikini costume, including on the sports blog Deadspin, in the Los Angeles Times newspaper, and in two articles in the trade publication The Hollywood Reporter. Some online obituaries for hairdresser Paul LeBlanc in 2019, such as one on SYFY Wire, and for jeweler Richard Miller in 2022, including those in The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline Hollywood, highlighted their contributions to Leia's dancing-girl costume and included photos of Carrie Fisher wearing it.

A dancing-girl costume appeared in Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, the initial film in the prequel trilogy, which premiered on May 19, 1999. It was worn by an uncredited extra, later identified as Diva Shaliqua. The Jedi Temple Archives bonus content for the DVD set Star Wars: The Clone Wars The Complete Season Three includes concept art for the chorus girls featured in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars third season episode "Hunt for Ziro," which originally aired on November 12, 2010. The art notes indicate that their attire is "similar to slave Leia bikini." Other iterations of the costume have appeared throughout the Star Wars Legends continuity, including in comic books and several video games. Leia's version is also present throughout the new canon continuity established on April 25, 2014, as well as in non-canonical materials released since the continuity split. For example, she wore it in the mobile game Star Wars: Galactic Defense, launched on October 30 of that year, as an unlockable "melee champion" that players could deploy on the battlefield. Artist Diego Zúñiga created concept art for the design, while David Marín illustrated the character's key art for the game.

The costume used in the film was showcased as part of Star Wars: The Magic of Myth at the National Air and Space Museum from 1997 to 1999 before touring with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. It was later displayed in Star Wars Identities: The Exhibition. The Smithsonian Institution exhibited it on tour again from 2015 to 2018 as part of Rebel, Jedi, Princess, Queen: Star Wars and the Power of Costume.

In 2015, Richard Miller put a costume used on set, design materials, and his concept sculptures up for auction as a film memorabilia lot. The costume was returned to Miller and not used in filming because it did not fit Fisher's altered measurements. The winning bidder was Gus Lopez, a Star Wars collector and author of articles on collecting, who runs The Star Wars Collectors Archive website. He authored an article about his acquisition for StarWars.com and shared photos of the various items on his website. In July 2024, an auction held by Heritage Auctions sold a seven-piece dancing-girl costume worn by Fisher for $175,000.

The news station FOX 29 Philadelphia broadcast a story on July 13, 2015, titled "Star Wars Action Figure Has Parents Furious," about a father who was shocked that stores were selling Hasbro's "Princess Leia (Slave Outfit)" action figure, which had been released in 2013 as part of Star Wars: The Black Series. This story gained widespread attention, leading to rumors that Disney would be phasing out all imagery and merchandise featuring "Slave Leia," including an allegation by comic book artist J. Scott Campbell that Disney was actively doing so. When asked for her opinion, Fisher expressed disagreement with the idea of eliminating it. In The Wall Street Journal newspaper, she addressed a specific concern about how parents could explain to their children why Leia wore it: the bikini and chain were not her choice, but she used the latter to kill Jabba and then discarded the former. She made similar remarks to The Daily Beast and the Los Angeles Times.

An interview with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy in the February 2016 issue of Vanity Fair magazine addressed the merchandise rumors, stating that Disney was not banning the bikini's image from future Star Wars products. The article mentioned that Kennedy had a statuette of the Return of the Jedi cast outside her office, including Leia in the costume. Kennedy expressed doubt that Lucas would put Leia in a bikini if the film were made in more recent times. Mellody Hobson, Lucas's wife, disagreed with Kennedy, stating, "George is not apologetic about that bikini," and adding, "He thinks that was a very important scene. He would probably do the same thing today. He is not apologetic at all."

Contrary to the rumors that began in 2015, Disney continued to depict Leia wearing the costume. Later that year, it appeared on July 28 in the Return of the Jedi Little Golden Book by author Geof Smith and illustrator Ron Cohee, as well as in "Gambit on Geonosis," the finale of the non-canonical Disney XD television series LEGO Star Wars: Droid Tales, which first aired on November 2. Star Wars Galaxy of Adventures, an animated microseries adapting stories from the Star Wars films, depicted Leia wearing the attire in episodes that debuted on StarWarsKids.com in 2019: "Luke vs. Jabba - Sail Barge Escape" on May 10 and "Luke vs. the Rancor - Wrath of the Rancor" on May 31. The 2022 video game LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga also features Leia wearing the costume.

During the height of the merchandising controversy, a Twitter user using the pseudonym Angie P. advocated for Leia to be referred to as the "Huttslayer" instead of "Slave Leia." The 2016 novel Bloodline, penned by Claudia Gray, officially recognized the term "Huttslayer." Gray credited Angie P. for bringing the fanon term to her attention, noting that she became aware of it around the time she was writing that section of the book. Rather than describing it as a slave outfit in Bloodline, she identified it as a dancing-girl costume, portraying Leia's actions while wearing it as legendary in-universe.

The 2018 DK Publishing reference book Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary, New Edition, authored by Pablo Hidalgo and David Reynolds and released on September 18, includes the costume on a page largely consistent with the original version from the 1998 reference book Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary. However, the updated version replaces the label "Slave girl harness" and the heading "Jabba's Slave" with "Bronzium harness" and "Huttslayer," respectively.

On Twitter in 2015, Fisher responded to a request from the user @hamstachick to verify the accuracy of the article "15 Interesting Facts About the Slave Leia Costume [Movies]," which had been published in 2014 by The Geek Twins blog. In response to Fisher's tweet, The Geek Twins published a new article listing their sources for the initial article, including the 2006 article "Star Wars Secrets: Leia's Teeny Bikini" on the website IGN and a "Slave Leia costume" article on the Star Wars fan wiki Wookieepedia. Regarding the details attributed to Wookieepedia, Fisher stated that it was untrue that a moldmaker was replaced because he was overly enthusiastic about the prospect of creating a mold of her torso. Another detail she refuted was a statement that included two parts: her being unhappy with the costume and referring to it as "what supermodels will eventually wear in the seventh ring of hell." Given that the quoted phrase originated from a 1999 Newsweek magazine article written by Fisher, it remained unclear to The Geek Twins which aspect of the two-part claim Fisher considered inaccurate.

Fisher also stated that IGN's article was inaccurate in claiming that a wardrobe assistant checked after each take to ensure Fisher's breasts had not fallen out and that the costume was created because she had complained that her previous Star Wars costumes did not allow people to recognize "she was a woman" in them. Based on search engine results, the latter item may have originated with IGN's article before being disseminated to other publications and websites, including Wookieepedia.