Huttese slave-girl outfits were a type of clothing donned by humanoid female dancers who found themselves in the service of Hutts, either through enslavement or employment. The typical design featured an ornate metal upper harness combined with various lower-body garments, exposing the limbs, chest, and midriff of the wearer. Notably, when Jabba the Hutt took Leia Organa captive at his palace, he compelled her to wear such a costume as one of his dancing girls; however, she ultimately used the very chain he placed on her to strangle him to death.
These costumes were a form of clothing worn by female humanoids who were either enslaved or employed by Hutts specifically as dancers. The upper portion consisted of a harness that fastened with cords, often featuring filigree detailing around the chest. The lower portion's design was variable, sometimes involving an embellished bikini-style bottom layered over trousers, or worn with thigh-high stockings. Other iterations included a metal belt paired with a lashaa silk skirt or a simple loincloth. Jewelry was a common accessory, and enslaved individuals were also made to wear a collar with an attachable chain. In the specific instance of Leia Organa, the bikini was deliberately designed to ensure no concealed weapons could be hidden.
Following the Mandalorian Wars, Meetra Surik, an exiled Jedi, needed to negotiate a deal concerning Sleheyron fuel shipments for the Telosian Restoration Project. Goto, an Exchange crime lord, was interfering with Vogga the Hutt's operations on Nar Shaddaa, the moon of Nal Hutta. To secure a meeting with Vogga, Surik considered an offer from Vogga's majordomo to become a new dancer for the Hutt, or to find another suitable candidate. The requirements for dancers were that they be young, female, and dressed in appropriate dancer's attire.
During the rise of the Sith Empire, enslaved women were made to perform in cantinas wearing these dancer's outfits, such as at the Slippery Slopes Cantina in the Promenade and Club Ufora in the Red Light Sector on Nar Shaddaa. Free individuals also purchased and wore similar styles of clothing.
In 32 BBY, a green-haired human woman in a gold costume was seen accompanying the Hutt crime lord Jabba Disilijic Tiure when Ki-Adi-Mundi met with him. During the Boonta Eve Classic on Tatooine of that same year, Jabba brought his enslaved half-Theelin Diva Shaliqua with him to his private box at the Mos Espa Grand Arena. Shaliqua's slave-girl costume included baggy trousers, thick metal bangles on both wrists, leather armbands, and a collar.
The Clawdite bounty hunter Zam Wesell used the dancing garb as a disguise during the Infant of Shaa incident to seduce Dreddon, a Hutt criminal who had a bounty on his head. Once they were alone, Wesell killed him.
During the Clone Wars, an underground establishment called Show Girls advertised its services on Coruscant using images of a female Twi'lek wearing a slave-girl costume. When Ziro Desilijic Tiure was incarcerated at Gardulla the Hutt's Palace on Nal Hutta, three Twi'lek chorus girls, along with Ziro's lover, the Pa'lowick Sy Snootles, performed for the Hutt Ruling Council. Their outfits consisted of harnesses with matching bikini-style bottoms, stockings, leather straps around their legs, and collars. They also wore headdresses adorned with brightly colored feathers, designed to resemble the heads of specific Hutts such as Jabba and Gardulla Besadii the Elder.
On Zygerria, a male Zygerrian displayed a female Twi'lek in a slave-girl costume to another Zygerrian and a Neimoidian. At another point on Nal Hutta, several Twi'leks wore the outfit in the city of Bilbousa, including a pair that escorted a drunken Sy Snootles out of a saloon, while others provided entertainment inside.
The twin Rebel pilots Tia and Ghia were both forced to wear slave-girl costumes after being captured and imprisoned by Jabba the Hutt. The sisters had traveled to Tatooine in a poorly planned attempt to rescue Han Solo, with whom they had both fallen in love. However, they were quickly captured and enslaved. Tia and Ghia were made to feed and massage Jabba, and also to participate in the Hutt's demolition games. They were eventually rescued by Princess Leia Organa, who had also participated in the demolition games disguised as the male Ubese bounty hunter Boushh. Organa snuck them out of the palace and onto a rebel transport. The musician Jess wore a costume consisting of blue leggings and a solid brassiere while she was in Jabba's servitude.
In 4 ABY, Organa, again disguised as Boushh, infiltrated Jabba the Hutt's palace, bringing the Wookiee Chewbacca as her apparent captive. Their objective was to rescue Han Solo from his imprisonment in carbonite. Organa freed Solo, but the Hutt witnessed this and had Solo taken to his dungeon. Two of Jabba's enslaved dancers removed Organa's disguise and dressed her as another dancing girl, while the Ortolan musician Max Rebo and his band played the song "Ode to a Radioactive Ruin." The outfit Organa was forced to wear included a gold brassiere harness, a lashaa silk split skirt suspended from front and rear plates, and jerba leather boots. Her hair was styled in a high braided bun, with a long plait left hanging down her back. She also wore metal accessories: small hoop earrings, hair ornaments, a spiral cuff on her upper left arm, a bracelet on her right wrist, and a heavy collar with a heavy chain threaded through it. Rebo, with his gluttonous Ortolan nature, felt sympathy for Organa, believing she looked malnourished and in need of food, so he secretly gave her a blatberry pie from the kitchens.
When Jabba sent Organa to Boba Fett's quarters as a gift one night, Fett instead provided Organa with a sheet to cover herself. Organa offered to pay Fett for assistance in escaping, but he refused, stating that the Rebel Alliance was morally wrong for starting a war with the Empire. They debated the morality of her friends before Fett went to sleep. Other beings in Jabba's Palace showed sympathy for Organa, such as the chef Porcellus, who offered to sneak her some food. When Jabba suspected Porcellus of putting fierfek in his fricasseed sandmaggot kidneys, Organa ate a sample despite feeling nauseated.
Organa managed to get some sleep after a brief conversation with the undercover Lando Calrissian before Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker entered the palace, where he defeated Jabba's rancor as Organa watched. Jabba sentenced Skywalker, Solo, and Chewbacca to death by sarlacc digestion in the Great Pit of Carkoon, and brought Organa along with him on his sail barge. As Lando joined the group to fight back against the scheduled execution, Organa disabled the controls to Jabba's throne, seized her chains, and used them to strangle and kill the Hutt. Organa's victory was witnessed by many beings, including Max Rebo, Sy Snootles, Ree-Yees, Bib Fortuna, and Tessek.
As they flew away from Tatooine in the Millennium Falcon, Leia and Han, in an uncertain moment in their relationship, engaged in some flirtatious banter. Han casually asked Leia if she planned to keep the costume, to which she coyly replied, "We'll see."
In 11 ABY, Kir Kanos, disguised as the bounty hunter Kenix Kil, delivered Tarrant Snil to the Hutt crime lord Grappa. To celebrate this, Grappa threw a party featuring several dancers in slave-girl costumes.
Luke Skywalker visited a bar called Jabba's Throne Room, a faithful replica of the room in Jabba's palace. Upon noting the scantily-clad waitresses and hearing the name Leia, he feared the evening's entertainment would involve a lookalike of his twin sister. Later, Nanaod Engh, the First Administrator of the New Republic's General Ministry, encouraged Chief of State Leia Organa Solo to improve her public image. She responded sarcastically, asking if she was expected to give interviews or be recorded dancing for Han in a Huttese slave-girl costume.
The outfit appeared in a vision to Leia Organa Solo as she struggled to understand her Force powers. She saw herself facing two potential futures. In one, she would be the Empress of the Galactic Empire, having ascended the throne of Palpatine; in the other, she had given up and was crying at the foot of that throne. While the latter wore the scraps of gold and silk with shame, the Empress Leia wore it under a robe with flashing jewels as a shining symbol of strength and power.
Huttese slave-girl costumes first appeared in the 1983 original trilogy film, Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, where versions were worn by actress Carrie Fisher and stunt performer Tracey Eddon. The bikini-style costume included a brassiere, a skirt made with maroon silk veils, suede boots, matching jewelry, and hair accessories. The costume was designed by Nilo Rodis-Jamero and Aggie Guerard Rodgers, and the faux metal elements were sculpted by Richard Miller. The costumes were first identified as a Huttese slave-girl costume in the 1996 novel Shield of Lies, written by Michael P. Kube-McDowell.
In the 2003 massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars Galaxies, the costume was represented by two items: a "Metal Bikini" and an "Extremely Revealing Skirt." Players could craft these items in a variety of colors.