Club Obi Wan

Simple...nobody is making it thick enough

Back when I was a teenager and had seen Raiders for the 5th time, I 'nicked one of my fathers oldest keepsakes, his old cadet shirt. It was a perfect match to a real Indy shirt...bar the front pleats.

That sucker was thick...twice a Todds, twice more than a WPG ++ and softer and thicker than a LLBean, which in my opinion is the best material around.

I remember well that it even distressed nicely, again because of the thickness of the weave. To that point, it eventually got thrown out...SO NO PICS....but it was torn and stitched before it met its end.

So why aren't the vendors using a better cotton???

Well I could answer that quickly...$$$$$$$$ for them and then us.

Looking at the CS Shirt thread....I can understand the $$$$...BUT, and here it is...


look at the opening of CS when they pull Indy out of the boot...look at his shoulders at the seam....look at the way the shirt hangs....not straight down..it has about three NATURAL pleats....and that is the THICK material.

I'll add some more thoughts and a pic later, but this is a sad indication of my age....I'm 42 and I remember when they made clothes with better material and more care.

You know why we don't get pocket flaps on our pants we buy at the department stores....I believe that it's not fashion related...it's cutting corners for $$$$$$

Cya

IC
Stu

I think you're onto something with the thickness of the fabric, though the pictures of the TOD shirt when wet makes it look awefully thin.

I just had an Indy shirt custom made and used heavier fabric to get a better look IMO. I know, ;0 , but my Penman should be here any day and then I'll post away.

Regards,

Indiana Jeff

if you want thick sturdy cotton Indy shirt then Magnoli is your man!


contact him.

The original that I saw was very thin and light.

Certainly thinner than Todds, Wested and AB.

The shirt he takes off in the Bantu Wind is practically see through. If it were white, you'd see every hair on the man's chest.. just my 2 cents worth.. the shirt is THIN.

Randy

But, then again the fact of the shirt was so thin I really think is about the time when Raiders was shoot, we had look that the shirt was not polyester, that was a very common fabric in 70's and 80's.
Just think in one point. In the 40's the fabric used for field and military was really thick, designed and made to resist extensively abuse. Now we are dealing with a screen accuracy issue, but, from my point of view, completely out of the reality and historic time.
I remember when I visited the "Musee de l'Armee" in Paris, I had the chance of see a lot of uniforms of the same time Raiders occurs, and believe me, the uniforms are far best quality that we saw in Raiders.

I dunno. The NH shirt is pretty much how thick I'd expect the Indy short to be. I find Todd's too heavy and Wested's too light.

I agree that some stunt shirts were light ....and there are man variations

But here's what I am talking about

Look at the thickness here


and here


and just for fun(off my own topic)...Ive never seen this shot before

Indiana Citroen wrote:Simple...nobody is making it thick enough


Stu

Seriously? If anything, all the vendors are making them TOO thick! I've found that the only real way to go for accurate material is to get a hold of an MBA or NH shirt.

Indiana Citroen wrote: and just for fun(off my own topic)...Ive never seen this shot before

Where have you been?

Kyle

here

I like a little thickness to the shirts. especially for LC and CS.

raiders to me is a thin shirt, same with temple of doom.


but seriously, Magnoli makes perfect shirts with the perfect thikness for LC and CS. and he has the perfect colors for them. keep that in mind.

have you seen this picture?

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g182/ ... hortlc.jpg

Linen would be cool, not screen accurate, but the aged look of linen would go well.

The CS shirt is quite different (in colour too - very green in the warehouse scenes).

The NH shirt was clearly very close for Raiders and TOD, down to buttons and stitching.
Not sure about LC, missed my chance there.

Personally I like the Todds (wearable vs looks). The NH shirt feels like a costume shirt, but it looks perfect.

Actually the shirt I like the best to wear is the close-enough LL Bean field shirt.

I aint knocking Todds at all...infact Im wearing one as I write this....

Refining my thoughts, Raiders TOD...yep thinner...

LC CS...Thicker.....

Maybe I should get a magnoli, but I really would like an accurate shirt with better thicker material.

I like all my shirts, otherwise I wouldn't have 6

IC

Oh and Holt ....I haven't seen that shot either

Indiana Holt wrote:I like a little thickness to the shirts. especially for LC and CS.

raiders to me is a thin shirt, same with temple of doom.


but seriously, Magnoli makes perfect shirts with the perfect thikness for LC and CS. and he has the perfect colors for them. keep that in mind.

have you seen this picture?

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g182/ ... hortlc.jpg

I can vouch for the Magnoli shirts.....perfect thickness, great color!

As I began reading the posts in this thread, the first thing that went through my head was "As soon as I'm done reading these posts, I've got to get up to bat for Magnoli... his shirts are GREAT (and exactly the kind of 'thickness' I think Indy Citroen is talking about)!"
...But then, of course, Holt - and now PSBIndy have said exactly that... so consider this to be yet another vote for Mr. Magnoli!
Those Adventure Shirts of his are just GREAT!
Mitch

I have a Magnoli shirt which I think would fit you perfectly Mitch.

raiders in stone with super acurrate specs made by me.


pm me for info.

I've only ever seen 1 Magnoli shirt in the flesh. It makes a good CS shirt. But it is too thick and brushed-cotton-like for a Raiders or ToD, might just scrape an LC. JMO.

Nobody can match the shirt because nobody really bothers.
All the good members here who tried to match it are not shirt makers.

Shirt makers don't care. They don't understand the level of accuracy we want and they will never will.
You take the shirt to them and you say "I need a duplicate of this" and they say "sure" but then they make something different. It has happened to me before.

The only way to convince them is to pay them big bucks. But then the shirt will not be affordable to members, or if it is for some, it will not be for others and that makes its sale not justified economically.

At least that's how I see it.

Come on guys - we all know the shirts need to be made out of polar fleece to get the right thickness.
Nothing says thick like a nice polar fleece shirt in the jungle under a leather jacket.

The original shirts were matched NH made excellent copies ( all 3 movie shirts were made form the same material ) , we don't have those anymore, if you want a CS you're out of luck, NH had original shirts to copy we don't have an original CS, there was a guy on this board who found the company that made the shirts and pants, never knew what happened there. Did it even happen? I think his SN was manybothans or something?

Nobody can match the shirt because it was made from swiss cotton and replicating it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

With regards to the Noel Howard shirt, it is a lot tougher than it looks. For those of you going to the FL summit, you'll be able to see just how tough it is (and no, I'm not going to rip the sleeve off of mine to prove it, even though it is ToD's 25th anniversary).

Canyon wrote:Nobody can match the shirt because it was made from swiss cotton and replicating it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

With regards to the Noel Howard shirt, it is a lot tougher than it looks. For those of you going to the FL summit, you'll be able to see just how tough it is (and no, I'm not going to rip the sleeve off of mine to prove it, even though it is ToD's 25th anniversary).

YES ! THe Noel HOWARD shirt WAS IT ! No doubt. I used to think the same that it would be thin and flimsy but it was SO right, it matched the raiders shirt so good. I had to sell it last month but the guy who got it is a Lucky dude having a really cool SA get up now

Bill's Khaki's makes a good repoduction of a WW2 U.S. Army tan poplin shirt. Pricey though, $125.00. And no pleats. But the material is good. An alternative is having some custom made but that's even more expensive. Sometimes its just hard to get it right.
Good luck to us all.

Nobody can match the shirt because it was made from swiss cotton and replicating it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

I have 3 shirts made of the same material. I bought them from ZARA store. They still have them I guess.

With regards to the Noel Howard shirt, it is a lot tougher than it looks. For those of you going to the FL summit, you'll be able to see just how tough it is (and no, I'm not going to rip the sleeve off of mine to prove it, even though it is ToD's 25th anniversary).

I doubt that. I wore my NH for about a year on a regular basis.
It kinda melted after so many times I washed it. The fabric came apart under the left arm and at collar tips.

something like this
http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/6007/nhshirtback.jpg



I have used and abused many shirts but they lasted.

It's a sensitive shirt, a costume shirt as some may say.

I recommend washing by hand only.

PLATON wrote: It kinda melted after so many times I washed it. The fabric came apart under the left arm and at collar tips.

something like this
http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/6007/nhshirtback.jpg

That just shows how accurate they were

I'm saying this partly for a laugh, partly because sometimes here and there pop up people saying that the NH shirt was not the same material or colour while they clearly were. Noel sourced this material on purpose, if he wasn't going for a ~100% match one may wonder why would he have bothered to find such a particular cotton and instead used any more readily available material.

Those shirt are definitely for hand-washing only, PLATON. I never machine-washed mine and it's still "mint". I have worn it for about 2 years now I think. I love the material, I wouldn't do anything too risky with it but it definitely doesn't self-destroy (I guess unless machine-washed).

How much did the ZARA shirt cost? Are they as thin as the NH shirts? If they are I'm going to buy one RIGHT NOW LOL!

I personally dislike the CS shirt by the way so I cannot care less if nobody reproduces it but if some of you are after a good match I think the current Wested shirt could be a good CS shirt (colour aside of course). I'm sure it was Indiana G who found the original makers, I think they were asking $400 for a replica but again, the topic of the CS shirt is very foggy in my mind

How is it no ones mentioned the AB shirt from Marc. I own one and other than the sleeves being a tad long, the material is thin and lite weight. I think there very SA. Just my 2 cents. If you do a search, you can find many a thread and pic's I'm sure.

Croft

[/quote]


I personally dislike the CS shirt by the way so I cannot care less if nobody reproduces it but if some of you are after a good match I think the current Wested shirt could be a good CS shirt (colour aside of course). I'm sure it was Indiana G who found the original makers, I think they were asking $400 for a replica but again, the topic of the CS shirt is very foggy in my mind[/quote)

Not to blow my own horn or anything, but I was the one found the maker of the CS shirt through a Bernie Pollak interview in CLASSIC STYLE magazine. I brought it to everyone's attention in a thread in early December. As was stated in a recent thread Anton's of Beverly Hills made the shirts, but are NOT ALLOWED to make replicas of the shirts for sale to the public.

Accept my sincere apologies, glad you popped up. I had no idea who said it I was only guessing.

Indiana Citroen wrote: So why aren't the vendors using a better cotton???

Well I could answer that quickly...$$$$$$$$ for them and then us.

Looking at the CS Shirt thread....I can understand the $$$$...BUT, and here it is...


look at the opening of CS when they pull Indy out of the boot...look at his shoulders at the seam....look at the way the shirt hangs....not straight down..it has about three NATURAL pleats....and that is the THICK material.

I'll add some more thoughts and a pic later, but this is a sad indication of my age....I'm 42 and I remember when they made clothes with better material and more care.

You know why we don't get pocket flaps on our pants we buy at the department stores....I believe that it's not fashion related...it's cutting corners for $$$$$$

Cya

IC
Stu

I could not agree with you more
You and I are exactly the same age and I also have extremely precise memories of some of my own fathers items of clothing which were of a far superior quality to much of what you see these days (I sound like a grumpy old man, but it's true).

What puzzles me the most about these vendors, is that in their zeal to push up their profit margins by saving on materials, the customer not only loses out but ends up not patronising that vendor again, so its a lose - lose situation?

To be honest, I've been shocked at the poor quality of some of the 'Indy' related items I have ordered, when you consider the prices in question. What escapes those involved in many areas of retail and services, is that if they were prepared to offer the best possible quality product, those who apply would happily be prepared to pay a little more if that quality was guaranteed, a win - win situation.

To give an opinion regarding shirts specifically, I own a couple of Indy shirts but I don't wish to slander anyone, I will simply say that the quality of the cotton used in my 'Magnoli' is impressive, however, even that could do with being a little thicker.

Great thread, thanks mate.
JTW.

Kt Templar wrote:I've only ever seen 1 Magnoli shirt in the flesh. It makes a good CS shirt. But it is too thick and brushed-cotton-like for a Raiders or ToD, might just scrape an LC. JMO.

Hi buddy,
was that my shirt out of curiosity?
I agree with you as you know and my collection is LC The ROTLA shirt, IMO from the screenshots, would appear more like a military quality material, almost canvas like, maybe not as thick as other cotton shirts but perhaps a stiffer more firm cloth.
JTW.

jones the whip wrote:

Kt Templar wrote:I've only ever seen 1 Magnoli shirt in the flesh. It makes a good CS shirt. But it is too thick and brushed-cotton-like for a Raiders or ToD, might just scrape an LC. JMO.

Hi buddy,
was that my shirt out of curiosity?
I agree with you as you know and my collection is LC The ROTLA shirt, IMO from the screenshots, would appear more like a military quality material, almost canvas like, maybe not as thick as other cotton shirts but perhaps a stiffer more firm cloth.
JTW.

LOL, Rumbled!

BTW go and check out a tropical weight army shirt, actual shirt and colour nothwithstanding. That is closer fabric weight than any of the repros to the shirt the NH was based on.

I thought that would be the case.
I've seen shirts in army surplus stores that have a very similar weight, body and drape in the material to ROTLA.
JTW.

I don't know if I'm understanding properly the topic here but I think quality of real vintage military shirts is being compared to the screen used Indy shirt (?)... if this is the case, we're just talking for talking sake since a comparison like that is completely out of discussion.

The indy shirt was designed to remind of military shirts (but not to match them). The trilogy shirt was thin and lightweight, this has been widely documented and appears to be so also from the film. Vintage military clothing of the 30's were undoubtfully thicker and completely different kind of material, no surprise there. At most we could compare the modern materials with the quality of the 70's/80's material but that's just about IT.
So what's on discussion here exactly? "Why no indy-replica-shirt vendor has matched the material and feel of the real military shirt of the 30's"? Well the answer is obvious, because the indy shirt was not anything like the shirt of the 30's in material or feel (only the look perhaps). And I do hope that vendors won't dare doing anything like it because it would lack of accuracy which is what everyone wants around here. What is more important is that vendors nowadays would focus on getting closer to what Noel Howard was offering because that was the "real thing". But working with that material is not as lucrative as using more readily available texiles (that links to what you said about vendors using cheaper materials to make higher profict... another topic that would need a thread by its own).

I have handled a screen used shirt and so have other people around here and everyone of those people can tell you that the NH shirt was the closest ever to the original, in material and feel. And it was nothing like the 30's shirt of course.

If I mistaken on the subject of this topic then I'm sorry. Just making sure of what we're talking about here.



Just to throw a few facts there before more myths and doubts are added to the many we already have in the indygeardom:
- The original shirts (of the trilogy) were lightweight? FACT
- The original shirts (of the trilogy) were thin? FACT
- Were the NH shirt closest in material and feel compared to everyother vendor? FACT verified by everyone who has handled them (quite a lot of people)
- Was the CS shirt thicker? It appears so

Therefore... are thick shirt replicas accurate? NO! (except for CS)

Now enjoy to contraddict everything I have just said, I know it works like this on COW.

Your points are concise and put in a highly intellegent manner, as always Erri.
I think I speak for many, when I say that this pursuit of quality and accuracy becomes an integral part of the whole, especially for relative newcomers like myself.

If a vendor is advertising their goods as 'SA' would it not be naive of any customer to believe that anything other than the best possible product was being made available to them?

Perhaps I've got it wrong, but I thought that was at the heart of the thread.
Cheers,
JTW.

These are some of the highlights of the first message of this thread

Why nobody has matched the shirt!
Simple...nobody is making it thick enough

I 'nicked one of my fathers oldest keepsakes, his old cadet shirt. It was a perfect match to a real Indy shirt...bar the front pleats. [...] That sucker was thick...twice a Todds
[...]
So why aren't the vendors using a better cotton???

... then it goes on about the thick CS shirt (which of course is).

Either the title get renamed Why nobody has matched the CS shirt or I did understand well and the message is that the Raiders shirt was thick and nobody has matched it yet because all the vendors make them thin (to make more profit)

In that case, I already answered with my previous post. The vendors who make them thin are, I hope, simply imitating as best as they can, the original shirts from the trilogy, thin and lightweight. The only thicker indy shirt was in Crystal Skull and it was a horrible shirt anyway.
I'm also quite sure that the thin material used in the NH shirt (and the Adventurebuilt ones) is much more expensive than Magnoli's or Todd's cotton.

To conclude, I can only quote myself

Erri wrote: Just to throw a few facts there before more myths and doubts are added to the many we already have in the indygeardom:
- The original shirts (of the trilogy) were lightweight? FACT
- The original shirts (of the trilogy) were thin? FACT
- Were the NH shirt closest in material and feel compared to everyother vendor? FACT verified by everyone who has handled them (quite a lot of people)
- Was the CS shirt thicker? It appears so

Therefore... are thick shirt replicas accurate? NO! (except for CS)

I also think there was a reason why the articles of clothing were light weight, and that is comfort due to filming locations. The main site eludes to the fact that at first, one of the prototype jackets was made of cowhide. They went with the lighter lambskin. The same theory was undoubtedly true with the shirt. You would not want to wear a heavy, thick shirt in the middle of the desert, or the rainforest during the summer. Several ToD screen grabs point to the screen shirt being very thin.

Having used a NH on the dig for five weeks last season, it held up very well. Since we did not have access to washers and dryers, we had to wash everything by hand, and this is one time that the thin shirt was beneficial. It dried very fast, when put out on the balcony.

Texan Scott wrote:Since we did not have access to washers and dryers, we had to wash everything by hand, and this is one time that the thin shirt was beneficial. It dried very fast, when put out on the balcony.

it's also the safest way to wash your NH shirt (aside from dry cleaning). Washing machines are dangerous on such pieces of gear.
It does indeed try very fast

Why? because noone has the exacting standards of the original tailor.

The original shirts for the first 3 films were made by Andreas Dometakis. Not Hoel Howard or anyone else. Noel simply outsourced the making of the shirts to Dometakis. His are the ~only~ real Indy shirts and are exact to the way he supplied them to A&B. I spoke with and visited Mr. Dometakis in person years ago, and he confirmed all this. He even showed us the material he was given by the production staff and costume designer at that time. They gave him the general ideas, he came up with the shirt.

They were 100% sea-island cotton and extremely luxurious in feel. They were not thick material or heavy weight. I should know, I have many Dometakis Indy shirts. The stitching is immaculate, you can tell one of his shirts over any others. There was a rare occasion where he made them with heavy weight cotton because he claimed he cared about the correct color, but the originals were all lightweight (aka summer weight) sea-island cotton. If a vendor is not copying them in sea-island cotton, they are not even close. Though, I know that's expensive. But so are his shirts.

Mac

Mac, it would be great to see some pictures of your Dometakis shirts.

It kinda melted after so many times I washed it. The fabric came apart under the left arm and at collar tips.

Ah, that was your mistake. For ultimate screen accuracy, don't wash your Indy shirts at all. I happen to know for a fact that Indiana Jones never did laundry.

I think the current Wested shirt could be a good CS shirt (colour aside of course).

That's why I got a Wested. The material is thicker than my Noel Howards, and aside from the rounded-off cuffs and mile-long epaulettes, it is a very close match. I boiled the shirt in tea to achieve the NH fabric color, although the fabric is not sweat-reactive (changing from khaki to dark brown when wet) like the real NH shirts. I am also pleased with the looser CS-style fit, as opposed to the body-hugging tightness of Noel's Raiders/ToD shirts. I recall reading somewhere that the Noel Howard fabric was mercerized Swiss cotton, and therefore is probably rather difficult and more expensive to source.

Just for comparison, here is a picture of all my Indy shirts. From L to R: Noel Howard Raiders, 2 Noel Howard ToD's, and tea-boiled Wested Raiders.


P.S.- Notice that even after repeated washings (by hand and washing machine), the Wested pleats do not pucker like the SA Noel Howard fabric.

WOW, what a great example of the colour of NH shirts.
Even the tea treated Wested is still slightly lighter in colour. Great pic mate thanks alot.
JTW.

No problem. The Wested is twice-dyed in tea. I could have given it a third wash to get it a bit closer, but I'm afraid of going too far with it. You can add, but you can't take away. I figured that was as close as I dared go.

Just for comparison, here's the NH Temple shirt with the bridge shot. Sorry about the reflection on the poster frame.

Whip Warrior, I've sort of been looking at the ToD shirt recently. I've become puzzled with the buttons.

On the NH shirt (and his original sample) the buttons are different to the ones on most of the publicity shots. On most of the publicity shots the buttons are pretty much identical to the Raiders ones just darker and grey green they have a Piped external ring and flat or slightly convex inner.

On the NH shirt and the ones he made the buttons have a flat top to the outer edge and a concave inner, the colour is also a darker green/brown.

As you have such a great big image, can you compare those buttons to the NH for me?

I hasten to add that I have seen 1 publicity shot with what looks like the NH style buttons... so they are SA to me and that might even identify the particular shirt that Noel had. (During the bedroom fight with the Thuggee).

Kt, from what I've seen of NH's original sample, I suspect it may actually have been a Raiders shirt.

Satipo wrote:Kt, from what I've seen of NH's original sample, I suspect it may actually have been a Raiders shirt.

You may well be right there. A little while ago someone pointed out something about shirt pocket to front button relationship that fixed it to one of the films. I can't for the life of me remember which! LOL.

Kt Templar wrote:

Satipo wrote:Kt, from what I've seen of NH's original sample, I suspect it may actually have been a Raiders shirt.

You may well be right there. A little while ago someone pointed out something about shirt pocket to front button relationship that fixed it to one of the films. I can't for the life of me remember which! LOL.

I believe that may have been me halfway down in this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=33576

whipwarrior wrote:No problem. The Wested is twice-dyed in tea. I could have given it a third wash to get it a bit closer, but I'm afraid of going too far with it. You can add, but you can't take away. I figured that was as close as I dared go.

Just for comparison, here's the NH Temple shirt with the bridge shot. Sorry about the reflection on the poster frame.

Great photo once again ww, it's this sort of detail we cry out to see on these pages.
Well done sport.
JTW.

Shouldn't the epaulet button be centered with the 'reinforcing vertical strips that run down the shirts and pockets ?? They are on my Todd's I believe........

I had a competitor's shirt, and received a NH about one year later. I liked the NH so much, I sold the other. To me, it is as accurate as is possible, all things considered. The competitor's shirt pockets were larger and it was lighter in color. There were other small dissimilarities, but the NH just has it.