Why Lando Wore Han Solo's Clothing At The End Of 'The Empire Strikes Back'
There are certain questions regarding the original Star Wars trilogy that remain unanswered even after four decades, like why Leia can remember her real mother while Luke cannot. Another of these questions - probably less important, but still persisting for a long time - is why Lando Calrissian seemingly wears Han Solo’s clothes at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.
In one of the last scenes of the movie when the former baron administrator of Cloud City is taking off with Chewbacca in the Millennium Falcon to search for Boba Fett and Han Solo, he is wearing a white shirt and a black vest, just like Han had. Even Seth MacFarlane made a reference to this in his Family Guy spoof of TESB, "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side," when Brian Griffin's version of Chewbacca asks Lando why he’s wearing Han’s clothes and then breaks the fourth wall saying, “Seriously, watch the actual movie. Lando is wearing Han’s clothes in this scene. It’s really weird.”
This is actually not true, as the shirt and the vest are similar to those of Han, but aren’t identical to anything that Solo wears throughout the original trilogy. But this choice of wardrobe still is odd for someone like Lando. The Empire Strikes Back itself hints that Lando has a very delicate sense of fashion, although several of the original concepts for Lando’s outfit are much more “out there” with giant shoulder pads and armor pieces than what ended up in the movie. The 2018 movie Solo: A Star Wars Story expanded quite a bit on the smuggler's and gambler's passion for fashion, presenting Lando’s closet that he keeps on the Falcon with a lot of colorful shirts, pants, and capes. So, it really seems out of character for him to suddenly settle for a much simpler kind of clothing.
From an out-of-universe perspective, there are two quite firmly cemented explanations for this: First, when shooting TESB, it was not clear if Harrison Ford would return for the third movie, so Kirshner and Lucas set up Lando as a possible substitute for Han Solo, thus giving him a similar outfit. The second explanation is that the costume designer of the original trilogy, John Mollo, simply didn’t put too much thought into Lando’s clothes for this brief, final scene.
From an in-universe perspective, the answer to this question is less clear. Neither the movie itself nor Donald F. Glut’s novelization explain the change of clothes in any way. Neither does the current Star Wars comic line by Charles Soule that is set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. In one panel, Lando is leaving the medical frigate with Chewbacca, still wearing the blue shirt from Cloud City. A few panels later, they are sitting in the Falcon’s cockpit, with Lando now in the white shirt and the black vest.
In a Q&A session at New Orleans ComicCon in 2011, the host of the panel explained that Han’s pants were actually a part of a military uniform from prior days. This lines up with the tale of the red or yellow Corellian Bloodstripes an Han’s trousers from the Expanded Universe that were earned for special bravery. Billy Dee Williams added to this:
“Yeah, we're all in the army... I was a general or something.”
This explanation, although not completely unplausible, doesn’t really add up. First, it might be possible that Williams confused the end of TESB with him being a general in ROTJ, where he actually got to wear a uniform with a cape again. Secondly, why would he suddenly wear an old uniform when he hasn’t done so before and never does afterward? And third, neither the shirt nor the vest look too militaristic.
Another explanation that is out there is that these kinds of outfits are typical for pilots or smuggler, and so when Lando takes back command of the Falcon, he changes his attire to settle into his new role. Again, it’s possible, but not really likely, as there is no obvious need to disguise himself.
A more pragmatic answer is that Lando just doesn’t have time to pack anything when he has to leave Cloud City, and the dark blue trousers, the light-blue shirt, and the cape are all the attire he has at this time. And as the rebels don’t trust him at first, he probably doesn’t dare to ask them for some spare clothes. So, when he gets back on the Falcon, he simply takes some clothes of his old friend and puts them on.
According to another theory, the clothes that Han wears at least in Episodes IV and V were actually Lando’s all along and had been on the Falcon since Han won the ship in this legendary game of sabacc. Solo later just throws out the ones that don’t fit his style (probably most of them) and keeps the ones that are least extraordinary. The novelization for Solo does mention Lando cleaning out the closet of the ship as Han takes ownership, though details of the novelization can be overwritten.
Source(s): CBR, Screen Rant