How Patrick Stewart's Star Trek Uniform Battle Led To The 'Picard Maneuver'

Every iconic character on "Star Trek" is known for their habits and quirks. William Shatner's Captain Kirk is known for his stilted line deliveries and double-handed neck punches. Jonathan Frakes' Commander Riker is known for straddling chairs backward. But Patrick Stewart's Captain Picard has a mannerism so common that fans have jokingly named it the "Picard Maneuver." Hundreds of times over the course of seven seasons on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," Picard yanks on the shirt of his uniform to adjust it. But as Stewart has explained, the Picard Maneuver was necessary because Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry refused to give him a comfortable costume.

As Stewart recounts in his new memoir, "Making It So," Roddenberry insisted the updated Starfleet uniforms should be completely smooth at all times, with no creases or wrinkles. Accordingly, the original one-piece uniforms worn on "The Next Generation" were painfully tight, and Stewart lobbied ceaselessly for Roddenberry to switch to a more comfortable getup. Eventually, his agent, Steve Dontaville, came up with a plan. As Stewart writes, "I would consult my doctor and ask him to make an appeal, as a medical professional, to change the uniforms. Steve also threw his weight around, intimating to the Paramount execs that if the situation were not remedied, he would bring suit against them for any muscular and joint damage I suffered."

At long last, Roddenberry relented, replacing the tight jumpsuits with separate pants and shirts. However, he wouldn't back down on his requirement that the outfits be unwrinkled at all times. To make sure the new outfit didn't crease, Stewart was forced to pull on his shirt constantly when sitting down.

While the Picard Maneuver is, of course, most associated with Captain Picard, nearly every cast member on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" needed to yank on their uniforms to keep them smoothed out. When YouTuber Jay Warden took it upon himself to count every instance of the Picard Maneuver during a period of COVID lockdown boredom, he found that, including "The Next Generation" movies, characters performed the Picard Maneuver a whopping 546 times. Picard himself did it 282 times, Riker 173 times, and Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) 46 times. The outlier among the main crew was Data, who performed the Picard Maneuver only once. In a comment under his video, Warden admitted he missed a few instances of the shirt yank, so the actual tally should be even higher.

Did Gene Roddenberry really think that characters constantly tugging on their costumes would look better than a couple of creases? Apparently so. He was known to be extremely defensive of his vision for "Star Trek" and made enemies of more than a few creatives on the projects he headed. In his memoir, Stewart recalls finally being relieved of the one-piece uniform in favor of the two-piece and developing the Picard Maneuver in response to Roddenberry's demands. "My new getup, with a top separate from my trousers, was still snug but had plenty of give," he wrote. "Gene, however, was adamant that Captain Picard's uniform must always be unfailingly smooth. So every time I sat down in my captain's chair, I tugged on the hem of my tunic — a tic that 'Star Trek' fans have named the 'Picard Maneuver.'"