Shoulder seam stitching.

Indiana Jake · Post by **Indiana Jake** » Sat May 02, 2009 6:15 pm

I have collected one of almost every Indy adventure shirt that has been made from one company or another. I am by no means an expert, but I do have a few to look at. What I notice is that some of these shirts have stitching about 3/8 inch away from the shoulder seam, and some do not. For those of you who haven't noticed, this is where the shoulder meets the edge of the shirt body. Wested and WPG got it right, and the others left the stitch out. (I do not own a Magnoli shirt, so please chime in if you own one.) Any explanation? A way to make cheaper shirts? Every other shirt in my closet has this stitch. Do any tailoring experts know if there a proper term for this? Many pics of HF wearing this shirt clearly show this stitch. Can we get our vendors to take notice of this and make the changes? Was there one screen-used sample floating around out there that had this detail omitted?

Still thread counting!

Indiana Jake

RCSignals · Post by **RCSignals** » Sat May 02, 2009 7:17 pm

I'm not sure what stitching you are referring to. Do you have any photos?

Indiana Jake · Post by **Indiana Jake** » Sun May 03, 2009 12:03 am

Go to the indygear.com main page and look at the close-ups of the shirt in the Temple of Doom section. Underneath the epaulets running vertical you can see puckers between the stitch line I am referring to and the actual seam. This stitch line seems to have been left out of most repro shirts. Let me know if you see what I'm talking about. Most folks on this site don't miss the most minute of details!!

Indiana Jake

RCSignals · Post by **RCSignals** » Sun May 03, 2009 12:42 am

are you talking about a stitch on the epaulet at the shoulder end, or the double row seam stitch around the sleeve to shirt body?

Satipo · Post by **Satipo** » Sun May 03, 2009 7:15 am

I think I see what you're saying, but I can only see it on the TOD pics.

Alkali Jones · Post by **Alkali Jones** » Sun May 03, 2009 7:41 am

Hey Indiana Jake,

Are you refering to the seam between the "shoulder yoke" and the shirt body? When you say "under", do you mean under (as in lower down) and behind, not beneath, the the shoulder straps? If we're talking about the same seam, there are several reasons for a double line of stitching. It could be a flat felled seam, which needs two lines of stitching to make. If flat felled seams are used, it's usually for strength. Also, double lines of stitching are used for styling and strength (sometimes even three lines of stitching- Carhardt work shirts have this).

Why omit this line of stitching? Most manufacterers seem to struggle with high levels of accuracy. Someone in the chain of providers (fabric makers, dyers, pattern makers, sewers, button makers, thread makers, etc.) drops the ball. Magnoli only recently got sloped seams above the back pants pockets, PLATON couldn't get his tailors to do it at all. Some say Todd's shirt is too yellow, the pockets seem big. You get the idea.

Most customers buy a shirt and say, "That looks nice." Few say, "Wow, if that shirt had one more line of stitching..." We costumers are outside the industry standard. Since there are so few of us, we either pay more to get what we want (custom work) or pay less and get what they want.

Dan S

Kt Templar · Post by **Kt Templar** » Sun May 03, 2009 11:17 am

The shirt I saw did not had an additional stitch around the armhole.

Henry Jones III · Post by **Henry Jones III** » Sun May 03, 2009 4:17 pm

I've noticed it on Crystal Skull shirt as well as the ToD one. I was slightly disappointed when my ToD NH shirt arrived - touted as THE Indy shirt - was missing the shoulder stitching.

whipwarrior · Post by **whipwarrior** » Sun May 03, 2009 5:42 pm

I noticed this detail, too. The Wested shirt has the double-stitched shoulders, while all of my Noel Howard ones don't. So my Wested has become my official CS shirt, since it has the authentic shoulder detail, and a baggier fit.

RCSignals · Post by **RCSignals** » Sun May 03, 2009 10:06 pm

Satipo wrote:I think I see what you're saying, but I can only see it on the TOD pics.

Agreed, if I'm correct abut what he's referring to, I only see it on the ToD as well.

RCSignals · Post by **RCSignals** » Sun May 03, 2009 10:08 pm

Alkali Jones wrote:
Are you refering to the seam between the "shoulder yoke" and the shirt body? When you say "under", do you mean under (as in lower down) and behind, not beneath, the the shoulder straps? If we're talking about the same seam, there are several reasons for a double line of stitching. It could be a flat felled seam, which needs two lines of stitching to make. If flat felled seams are used, it's usually for strength. Also, double lines of stitching are used for styling and strength (sometimes even three lines of stitching- Carhardt work shirts have this).

.....
Dan S

thanks Dan, 'flat felled' seam is what I was thinking of.

Indiana Jake · Post by **Indiana Jake** » Sun May 03, 2009 11:58 pm

I think we are on the same page about identifying this shirt seam. Likely the surviving examples without the stitch are the shirts Indy might wear with his jacket on. Every time I see these images from raiders and TOD, the stitch is there. This is just a typical detail that I expect to find in almost every shirt I have. I am surprised not to find it on the Indy shirts that left it out. I guess we all have little details about this stuff that bugs us!

Indiana Jake

Kt Templar · Post by **Kt Templar** » Mon May 04, 2009 3:07 am

I understand where you are coming from. However, I really believe the extra seam is NOT necessary for strength.

Before I got a Wested or AB or any of the Indy replica shirts I went through a few. One is a British army tropical shirt, made by Ben Sherman. It is mil issue and very strong also part polyester but thin and breathable, it is closer in weight and feel than any of the replicas fabric wise.

Colour and details of course are totally wrong. It is a very comfortable and wearable shirt.

I feel that this, or it's fore runners were the shirts that they looked at when creating the Indy shirt.

azuma · Post by **azuma** » Mon May 04, 2009 3:20 am

Only Raider's shirt has single stitched shoulder seam. TOD, LC, KOTCS has double stitched shoulder seam.

Azuma

Indiana Jake · Post by **Indiana Jake** » Mon May 04, 2009 12:22 pm

Not to be a crazed stitch counter, but if you look on pg 66 of the James Luceno book Indiana Jones The Ultimate Guide, you will see the shoulder seam stitch on the Raiders shirt. It is the Cairo swordsman photo. My only point is that I'm frustrated that such a common shirt tailoring detail was overlooked when putting these shirts together. As far as the actual surviving example shown here earlier that does not have a stitch, I have to believe that it slipped through the quality control section of the costume department to make it cheaper, faster, simpler, etc. And they thought no one would notice! Oh well.

Indiana Jake

gwyddion · Post by **gwyddion** » Mon May 04, 2009 7:36 pm

I was watching screencaps (the ones made by agent5) to check if I saw it and I stumbled across this:

No extra seam there, so maybe it wasn't on all shirts?

Regards, Geert

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