Fan Uniforms

[Alidar Jarok]

Nerys Ghemor wrote:

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You know...now that I think about it, I DID wear a Trek costume once: grade school, Halloween. (And I said "Trek or Treat"...cue groan here.

I did the same, sans the trek or treat.

I might actually have a picture of it (although I'd be surprised if I end up posting it ).

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I used to make these costumes - not uniforms - as a hobby. I'd wear them to conventions, but usually just once or twice, certainly never got enough wear out of them to make the expense and number of hours involved worthwhile for any better reason than to do it. Like building ships in bottles or something.

Anyway, in some cases just duplicating the materials used in the screen-worn outfits was both difficult and very expensive. The TWOK uniform jackets, for instance - 100% wool elastique, about 19 oz, and the color had to be custom-dyed by a professional.

Here's a (bad cellphone) picture of a jacket I made about twenty years ago - it badly needs drycleaning and it certainly wouldn't fit me any more.

[RapidNadion]

Starship, beautiful job on the TWOK jacket.

I might as well ask, before someone else does: you don't still take orders for custom jobs like that, do you?

[Admiral Buzzkill]

No, 'fraid not. The problem is that the amount of work and material involved is ridiculous.

But thanks for the kind words.

[RapidNadion]

Well, you've really done some great work there. You have a customer if you ever need one!

[Red Ranger]

RapidNadion wrote:

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Starship, beautiful job on the TWOK jacket.

I might as well ask, before someone else does: you don't still take orders for custom jobs like that, do you?

I second that, Starship! It looks nearly identical to the movie version. Nice!

Me, I've never worn anything like a ST-inspired uniform. I have dressed up for Hallowe'en office parties as (a) Zorro; (b) Gomez from The Addams Family; and (c) The Joker from the Tim Burton 1989 Batman film.

The last one wasn't completely accurate -- mixed and matched colors -- had a yellow shirt, a green velvet jacket, and a black-and-gold checked vest. But I managed to get purple striped pants and spray painted a straw hat and a pair of black shoes purple. I even used hair "paint" and sprayed my hair green!

Wish I could find the pics, just to see what a bad job I did!

Red Ranger

[RapidNadion]

I've enjoyed the privilege of owning many Trek uniforms, but a great deal of them were the first-release, foam-collar, stick-on-rank-pips ones they sold back in the early 90s. Hated those screened-on combadges on the TNG ones. In any case, they kept my elementary-school self absolutely happy.

I thought the "deluxe edition" Rubies TNG tunic was a pretty good job -- the one with the full-zip back and metal rank pins. My favorite part about that one was that they didn't forget to do the black underarm portion, like they had on the first release. Also, the Rubies gold Kirk tunic still gets its day in the sun pretty much every year for Halloween (though, admittedly, it's almost impossible for me to squeeze into these days).

My aunt was nice enough to create a first-season TNG jumpsuit for me a long time ago. Made of spandex -- very, very cool. Wish I could still fit into that one.

I spent many an after-school afternoon anxiously awaiting uniforms from the UPS man (remember when things still took 6-8 weeks to arrive?). Insignia pins were also a big thing for me, too -- I will always remember the night my dad brought me my first TNG commbadge ("The Hollywood Pins" super-shiny edition -- $14.95!) ... it had been delivered to his house and he brought it to me at my mom's that night. Wore the thing on my PJ's, I was so excited.