Thursday 23 January 2014

Anovos' Wrath of Khan uniform

Anovos have revealed their latest replica uniform, their first from The Wrath of Khan. They're kicking of their range of reproductions from the film with Captain Spock's uniform, complete with belt, badge and rank insignia. Here's what Anovos had to say, posting on Facebook, about the development process:
In keeping with Anovos’ attention to detail; no expense was spared in our research and development of Captain Spock’s Standard Uniform. Not only did we examine patterns and reference materials used in the design of costumer Robert Fletcher’s iconic uniforms, but we reverse engineered a screen used Star Trek II uniform from our personal archives. This piece provided more information about Wrath of Khan era uniforms than any single resource could, and became the basis of our own exacting recreation.

In addition to screen accurate patterning; our Captain Spock Standard Uniform uses a custom created and dyed cavalry twill that replicates the look and feel of the original uniform’s wool élastique while being a more comfortable, durable, and cost effective fabric. We also perfectly recreated the Officer’s Chest Insignia using an original Star Trek II badge as a physical reference, creating in the process the most screen accurate replica of the Officer’s Chest Insignia ever offered. But we didn’t stop there. We applied the same process to all of the pins and accoutrements found throughout the uniform, from the Captain’s rank insignia to the distinctive chain found in the uniform.
Anovos are initially making two-hundred of these, with four tiers of pre-orders; the first batch of eighty are being offered for $950, stepping up eventually to the full retail price of $1200.


Continue after the jump for more images and a look at some of the details of the uniform:


Anovos also posted on Facebook about the efforts they went to to recreate the Starfleet badge for the uniform:
For our recreation of the Wrath of Khan uniform, nothing less than a perfect replica of that insignia would do. We took a look at what was available, compared it to the film and found that they just didn’t really look like what we saw on the screen. So we set about gathering every piece of information about the badge we could find, and then through a twist of fate we were given access to a screen used original insignia. Like excited archaeologists we studied, analyzed, and scrutinized every tiny detail of that badge, and applied every bit of knowledge we could glean from it into creating our own. And we’re as proud of it as we are our entire Wrath of Khan uniform.
They went to no less effort in recreating the chains which appear around the chest flap, as they explained:
That chain is one of the key reasons why it has taken so long to bring this uniform to you. No machine can really get in there and do what’s required to fit the chain between the snaps and sew it down to the jacket. That requires human hands with a needle and thread. And that’s not all. Even on this particular STANDARD line uniform, no less than 25% of the final product must be completed by hand, and that drives up cost. At the same time, ANOVOS did everything possible to make this uniform affordable for fans and I'd like to simply offer this staggering bit of trivia: the original uniforms cost the production of Star Trek II more than $2000.00 each….in 1981! Now adjust that cost for today.

One last personal note on that chain…I have spent nearly every day of the last six months staring at it, studying it and searching for it. It was made by only one company on this planet, and when they left the marketplace a number of years ago, the tooling for it was discarded. NO ONE has made that chain in years, and even samples of it are hard to come by. No other chain has the qualities and physical characteristics that allow it, for instance, to lie flat against fabric when sewn down. And, of course fans of this uniform KNOW what it looks like. So we did the only thing we could do in this situation—we had it made from scratch.
Full the full specification of all the parts of the uniform, and to nab one of the cheaper pre-orders, see Anovos' listing.

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