These are very moth eaten but I thought you appreciate some detail shots.
I placed a current set of Wested trousers of the same size directly on top of these and the dimensions almost exactly match up. The bottom of the leg is identical this particular example measures 9" across the trouser hem.
The only slight difference was the Wested are slightly more waisted at the knee, only a quarter inch or so.
The hem is a separate piece of fabric stitched on then folded up and tacked. It is higher at the front than the back. The famous Military hem.
I had wondered how they made the "military" hem if it was sloped. They cut off the extra fabric at the correct location + seem allowance, rotate the scrap 180 degrees, slide it over the leg, (good side to good side) seem it, iron it, then hem it. Cool!
Also, it seems like there's no question about the little seem above the pocket, it's sloped, no optical illususion there. Great find.
These are screenused TOD pants. But the fact that the pocket flap looks alot like the one from ROTLA is new to me!
If Peter copies this correctly this might be very very raiders accurate too!
How are the legs ? The westeds are pretty tapered at the ankles, how are these?
Dutch_jones wrote:These are screenused TOD pants. But the fact that the pocket flap looks alot like the one from ROTLA is new to me!
If Peter copies this correctly this might be very very raiders accurate too!
How are the legs ? The westeds are pretty tapered at the ankles, how are these?
That's the thing. The same sized wested pants Have exactly the same size hem 9".
But what size are we talking about here, a 34 waist? For the size of the screen used pants, I think an 18" cuff opening would make them pretty straight legged. The problem is that unless that opening scales up as the waist measurement increases the pants will seem more and more tapered.
My pair of size 44 Wested pants also have an 18" cuff opening...That would need to be somewhere around 22" to look as straight legged as the original pants were, proportionally-speaking.
Yeah, if the proportions of the pants do not scale up and down according to the size of the pants they will not look right.
If you have a 44" waist and the leg opening is still 18" that's going to look ridiculous. The opening should be scaled up in a proportionate manner to the waist.
What KT is saying is that Wested pants of the same size as the originals have the same leg opening. So if you wear the same size as Ford and get a pair of Westeds in that size they will be the same as his TOD pants.
And that's great if you happen to be the same size as Harry was in 1983. I personally haven't been since I was 15.
I think as long as the new patterns being cut using these screen used pants take all the proportions into account as they scale them up and down for various sizes these are going to be the end of story on accurate Indy pants.
And hopefully this can be done without increasing too greatly the cost Wested has been charging for their Indy pants. This is pretty exciting stuff, really.
I guess it's quite a difficult and involved process in scaling up clothing. If you take a 34 waist and increase that to 44 that's a factor of 1.3. If you take the 18" hem and multiply that by the same factor you get 23.3" which would be silly, you'd not see your Aldens.
The length of your legs also plays a big factor as the pants are slightly tapered. The shorter your legs the bigger the ankle aperture becomes.
Good point. The leg openings cannot be scaled up as much as the waist obviously.
They can be scaled up a little but these are somewhat tapered leg pants and that's what people need to wrap their heads around. Some people like the look and some don't but that's what they are.
My Westeds were smaller than 9" across (18" total) I soaked them in hot water and stretched them and stretched them while they lay flat to dry and finally got them to about 18" total, they are 36 waist. Should be just slightly wider in my opinion.. these are TofD pants, perhaps a bit narrower than the Raiders.
Someone posted a thread here not long ago showing how the hemm of his Westeds doesn't lay across his boots laces like in screen caps from raiders, mine were exactly the same - too narrow to do so. So they are a tappered leg pants but just not as tappered as Wested has been known to make them.
Am I right in assuming the extra piece of material was attached inside after the bottom had already been folded up and hemmed? Is the extra material itself folded? I can't see any unfinished material at the bottom, just what looks like two folded ends attached to each other.
Also, what is the height of the hem? Were people right in speculating 4 inches?
And does the colour of the pants match Wested's Raiders or TOD/LC version? I'm seeing both colours in the above photos.
Am I right in assuming the extra piece of material was attached inside after the bottom had already been folded up and hemmed? Is the extra material itself folded? I can't see any unfinished material at the bottom, just what looks like two folded ends attached to each other.
Also, what is the height of the hem? Were people right in speculating 4 inches?
And does the colour of the pants match Wested's Raiders or TOD/LC version? I'm seeing both colours in the above photos.
Matches the raiders color.
I still hope they fix the leg thing. Because its no excuse they are the same. They look totally different in drape. The westeds are tapering too much towards the ankle. If they update the pattern they should do it correctly. Don't want Mc Hammer pants.
The pocketflaps however ! are exactly like the raiders ones !
Satipo wrote:What about the height of the hem, Kt? And did you manage to measure the inside leg length?
The turn up inside is about 3-3.25", I didn't measure the inseam or outseam. Handing these felt like handling some ancient papyrus – a little worrying.
That's fair enough. I felt the same myself when I saw them at MBA, and that was about ten years ago. Thanks for the hem measurement and for taking such great photographs.
Satipo wrote:You've been looking at exactly the same pictures I just have!
The TOD pocket flap does look similar in that picture. I haven't seen any other good pocket shots from TOD.
So it could come down to the colour, but can we be sure the colour was actually different in Raiders and TOD?
According to Noel it was. He used to have fabric samples, and the TOD/LC fabric was noticeably lighter than the Raiders. when looking at some pics in temple we can see the trousers DO look lighter. But its very hard to tell as most of temple is indoors and very dark!
I think however that these pants are from the Raiders movie. Or they could have been Raiders pants which were left over from the first movie and they were used in ToD.
If we look at:
1) The back flap pockets(Diagonal stitching + Triangle shape)
2) The front belt loops which are on top of the front pleat. The ToD front belt loops were put more forward. The pleat was stitched.(look at the pic above)
3) Poor but lived-in condition of the "find"
We can assume that these trousers are more Raiders than ToD. If they are indeed Raiders...they should be put in a museum!!
KT, can you please confirm the colour of the trousers? Do they look like the Wested colour? Thanks
Was it so difficult to protect these treasures from moths?! I can't believe it. If these items were mine I checked their condition every week, or possibly every day...
I think however that these pants are from the Raiders movie. Or they could have been Raiders pants which were left over from the first movie and they were used in ToD.
If we look at:
1) The back flap pockets(Diagonal stitching + Triangle shape)
2) The front belt loops which are on top of the front pleat. The ToD front belt loops were put more forward. The pleat was stitched.(look at the pic above)
3) Poor but lived-in condition of the "find"
We can assume that these trousers are more Raiders than ToD. If they are indeed Raiders...they should be put in a museum!!
KT, can you please confirm the colour of the trousers? Do they look like the Wested colour? Thanks
Indygr
I might be wrong but I'm rather sure that on the label they read "Raiders II", size 33" (made for a stuntman, that would explain the condition, don't think it's moths work there) but the colour was ToD. Is it so hard to believe that ToD's pockets are identical to Raiders? Unless they reused some Raiders trousers in the sequel perhaps re-dying them.
As for the stitches and details like that, can't be use as a definite proof, Noel stated that there could have easily been differences in the construction of the gear. The costumiers didn't exactly care (like we do) if 5 pair of trousers had a different stitch from another 5 pair
I believe that the ToD pocket were more similar to Raiders since LC trousers had to look more similar to the officer's pinks. However, I don't believe that they were making mistakes on the stitching of the belt loops. If a costumier is a perfectionist, as in my opinion Noel was, then the belt loops would have been the same. About the re-dye issue, I think it's not the case.
It might be the case that these trousers were used under hot sun in Tunisia hence lightening the trousers' colour.
We have to take into consideration also the shooting methods, material, filters etc. that they were used in that movies. If e.g. I take my cellphone camera and take a pic of the Wested shirt(redyed)/trousers assembly under sun, it comes out as the Cairo scene...if you take a pic with a more advanced camera, the colours are captured more precisely.
Look for example the behind the scenes photos and compare them with those of the movie...completely different colouring. This is the case also with KOTCS.
Sadly, the colour repro changed with every shot. The closest is possibly the one of the turned out hem.
When a current set of Wested pants were placed side by side, the weight was virtually identical, and the colour was very, very close. The screen used were perhaps a half a shade pinker but you would never know if you weren't holding them up to each other.
What's also interesting is that in several scenes in TOD his pants do not have the military hem, in some scenes they do. Apparently no perfectionists worked on the TOD pants, the details were all over the place!
Am I right in assuming the extra piece of material was attached inside after the bottom had already been folded up and hemmed? Is the extra material itself folded? I can't see any unfinished material at the bottom, just what looks like two folded ends attached to each other.
Unless I am much mistaken, to hem these, you put on the pants like any other, roll up the leg to the height desired at the instep and mark or pin. Then, (after removing the pants) you mark the back one inch lower, again, using chalk or pins. You remark five-eighths lower down the leg and cut on the new mark. Rotate the scrap you cut off and turn it inside out. Slide the scrap on to the outside of the pants good side to good side, with the cut edges matching (high in front lower in back). Seem with five-eighths seem allowance. Iron the seem flat and hem with an invisible (sort of) stitch at the top of the scrap, and voila! Military hem.
Indiana Strones wrote:Was it so difficult to protect these treasures from moths?! I can't believe it. If these items were mine I checked their condition every week, or possibly every day...
To you they're treasures, to Noel Howard they may were probably just costume pants.
TheMechanic wrote:What's also interesting is that in several scenes in TOD his pants do not have the military hem, in some scenes they do. Apparently no perfectionists worked on the TOD pants, the details were all over the place!
It goes to prove that the art of costume making isn't always as exact as you might think. It's not uncommon that multiples of one costume piece vary from one to the next. Apart from being a historical advisor for the film, Curator Rick was in Gettysburg, and he once commented how the uniform coats of some of the main actors had noticeable differences when put side by side, like button placements, for example, yet unless you are looking for that type of thing specifically throughout the movie, you won't see it.
Problem here is that years after, we're nitpicking film stills to a fault. I bet not a single one of us started screaming, "Those pants hems are inconsistent!" in the theatre the first time we saw the movie. So yes, details in Indy's costume probably WERE all over the place! Remember, some jackets hat gussets while others didn't. Who's to say the pants didn't vary, too?
indygr wrote: If a costumier is a perfectionist, as in my opinion Noel was, then the belt loops would have been the same. About the re-dye issue, I think it's not the case.
It's not a matter of professionality here. Noel told me that if, for example, 10 pairs were ordered and they put a stitching on the pockets (we were talking of the pockets) and, after a few weeks, the production ordered other 5, forgetting some details (such as stitches or hems) wasn't an issue at all, but actually very common thing.
I understand that it is for us gearheads but not for costumiers, professionals or not.
Afterall they were all hand made like the jackets so it's no surprise if some differ from others.
All we really know is that there is only SA for a specific sceen, so there is no reason to think they are anything other than TofD screen used pants, especially since Anthony Powell gave them to Noel after TofD shooting wrapped.
Also, even though Noel Howard had these pants to copy, his repros didn't have the topstich around the pocket flaps or quite the right shape - so maybe not a perfectionist at all
Kentucky Blues wrote:
To you they're treasures, to Noel Howard they may were probably just costume pants.
-KB
Well, that's very hard to believe...
Well, maybe Noel just wasn't all that nostalgic. I'm sure he valued them as a piece of costuming history that he worked on, but I doubt they were his ark of the covenant. I couldn't see him checking up on them every day like a museum artifact.
TRUE...
