Gawker disses the L.A.-based Church of Scientology for its new uniforms that have been created by local celebrity designer Richard Tyler for the organization's officer caste. (Hey, why not? Christian Dior designed airline stewardess uniforms.) By now those who live or work near central Hollywood are used to seeing Scientology members strolling down Sunset or Hollywood boulevards attired in military-style uniforms. If the outfits strike the casual observer as nautically overboard, it's because of Scientology's obsession with the ocean (a legacy from its late founder, L. Ron Hubbard) — a fixation embodied in both the church's instructional metaphors and in its  “Sea Org” nomenclature.

Titled “Scientology's Creepy New Uniforms,” Ryan Tate's Gawker piece reports that the latest getups, designed for wear in Scientology's new churches, or “Ideal Orgs,” would “look at home in an Ian Shrager hotel, save perhaps for the capes. A tipster tells us all 'Ideal Org' staff members must wear them.”

Scientology's fall line for its “emissaries of a new civilization”

features bucket hats and, indeed, capes with red lining for women, and

dark, less ostentatious wardrobes for men.

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