The year 2008 was just shy of 20 years since the previous Indiana Jones film, and George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Harrison Ford decided it was time to get back in the saddle for a new film that would be titled Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Whether because it had been almost two full decades, or because the production wouldn’t be operating in the UK and Europe for this jaunt, Spielberg and crew started looking for new costume vendors. Bernie Pollack, having worked with Ford since Clear and Present Danger, was the costume designer for Ford on Crystal Skull and responsible for the hero’s outfit and leading the search. After a long search in which he couldn’t find a manufacturer that he was happy with, costume designerMary Zophres suggested Tony Nowak, a Polish leather jacket artisan who had been operating out of El Segundo, California since the 1970s and was working on the jacket for Mutt Williams for Zophres.
Costume Designer Bernie Pollack said, “I found a guy named Tony Nowak, and he came up with the greatest jacket. Everything was to perfection—I said now, can you do 30 of them? ‘Yeah, I can do whatever you want.’ He brought me samples and we picked out a sample of what color we wanted. And we did a few extra, oversized in case we had to have extra padding. And he did a wonderful, wonderful job.”
Since much of Ford’s costume in the fourth film contained a stylistic continuity with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, it’s little wonder that on first glance, Nowak’s jacket shares much with its 1989 predecessor.
“With the iconic look of Indiana Jones, there’s no updating really. Except if you go back to Indiana One, and Two and Three you’re gonna see nuanced differences in his look. And I was under great pressure—from me—to try to duplicate an iconic picture and I had to come up with the right stuff,” Pollack said.
The Crystal Skull jacket has snaps at either end of the storm flap, which were first introduced on the jacket in Last Crusade, as well as the D-rings holding the side straps in place, which were also first used on the Crusade jackets.
Nowak’s jackets were also, like Crusade, a little bulkier when compared with the first two Indiana Jones films. Some jackets were specifically made oversized to accommodate stunt padding for action scenes, however the rest were still visibly more robust.
Part of this was due to the use of cowhide for the Crystal Skull jackets as opposed to the lambskin that had been used on the original Indiana Jones films. The choice for cowhide was a practical one. Pollack needed Nowak to deliver a jacket that was truly a practical workhorse in function as well as construct a garment that would stand up to the rigors of a lot of exposure to water. Many scenes in Crystal Skull involved Ford getting dunked in rivers and Ugha cisterns, and they wanted the jackets on set to be able to shrug this off as best as possible instead of being instantly ruined. (They would apply this same philosophy to the Crystal Skull fedora as well, making the hats from beaver felt instead of rabbit felt.)
With an order for 30 jackets in place, Nowak got to work. As part of the directive to take Indy’s famous jacket and modify form into full function, Nowak reworked the entire pattern for the Crusade jacket to bring everything into balance, with durability always in mind.
The Crystal Skull jacket made the following modifications:
- Slightly more pointed collar tips
- Different brand of zipper
- Snap type and color was changed
- Adjustments to the shape and position of the front pockets
- Leather facings on the zipper to support them
- Different lining material
- Cowhide as standard for all jackets
Sadly, Nowak passed away in 2010, but during the two years from Crystal Skull’s release to his untimely passing, he delivered exacting reproductions of Ford’s jacket from the fourth film to many appreciative Indiana Jones enthusiasts, and by all accounts from the filmmakers, succeeded in bringing the iconic silhouette of Indiana Jones back to the big screen perfectly.
“We did a costume and make-up test on Harrison and I had to kind of walk out of the light a few feet just to take a few deep breaths before I went back to work. Because seeing him look that good was kind of like what happened to the last 19 years? How the heck did they go by that fast? My god. And that was scary, but it was also beautiful. And it was something we all shared together.”
—Steven Spielberg
