Mace Windu Fabric

Anyone know where to get the fabric used for Mace Windu's tunic/robes, or something close to them.
I've been all over the place and I cant find anything close to what was used for the robes
Cheers in advance all.

Kenny

 

I seem to recall most of the jedi robes were made from vintage military wool blankets. Try searching military surplus stores.

 

Thanks General Mayhem.

 

Kenny,

Have a chat with Martin @ MPM Costumes...

He should be able to help, if not, point you in the right direction.

 

Actually no, the ROBES in Episode 1 at least were made from the wool blankets.

Best thing would be to check out the dressing a galaxy book, they have some amazing close ups and details that will help you find stuff. I have seen really close material at Wal-Mart of all places. No one has ever found exact material for Mace but you can get pretty close.

 

Cheers guys this all helps
I'll keep looking until I find something close

 

I seem to recall that they purchased BALES of military surplus wool blankets. Don't recall from what country's military. Maybe finding out where someone could have gotten blankets in that sheer quantity would be a clue to the source of the originals?

 

In the Dressing A Galaxy book, Trisha Biggar says:

"While sourcing Episode I fabric...I came across several rolls of vintage brown wool fabric in a warehouse in the East End of London that still had the utility marks on the selvedges, which meant they had been manufactured around the time of the second World War, when textiles were rationed...we managed to squeeze out ten or eleven cloaks."

That's closest I have ever heard to the military wool blanket rumor. And I believe the fabric was only used for Obi Wan's cloak.

 

I also heard it was only used for Obi Wans Robe/Tunic.

I've been looking around the internet for something for Mace's Tunic and not found anything yet, but theres loads of stuff out there so I'll keep looking thanks for all the help with this guys

 

If you pick up the Dressing A Galaxy book there's a great closeup of the Mace fabric. Looks like a tweed of sometime; the closeup would give you a good reference for the weave, texture, and colors.

 

Just his robe, not his tunic.

 

Thanks

 

The tunics, obi, and tabbard were made from Indian Homespun.

-OWK

 

Thanks for thet OWK, Gives me a new direction to turn to

 

I swear I haven't seen this crop up as much as I have in the past 2 months.

Indian Homepun has not been proven as a use for ANYONE's tunics. Qui-Gon's is the only expressly mentioned and his is Silk Noil.

 

Yeah, me and you both. As some people with more costuming experience than me have pointed out: homespun is just a type of weave. So Indian Homespun is just homespun weaved fabric made in India. Which isn't very specific.

Besides it being an unsubstantiated rumor.

 

Never thought it would be so hard to find this fabric.
I'll keep looking until I find something

Thanks to everyone who chimmed in

 

I've always thought Mace's tunic looked like some kind of lightweight upholstry fabric, if that helps. I'm probably waaaaay off.

 

here's the pic from Dressing the galaxy

 

Thanks lesternessman
That first close up really helps a lot

 

lesternessman did you scan that yourself? If so think you can scan it at a higher resolution and just grab a swatch of the fibers?

 

Just to add to the unsubstaniatedness a little blerb from TFN (shudder):
Diane reported something interesting from theforce.net dated Sat. April 14th about the type of fabric used for Jedi costumes:

"The other night at the Iain McCaig lecture, I (Scott) saw Vic Mignogna from Lightsaber World approached Iain with a question. He wanted to know what kind of fabric Obi-Wan's costume was made from. Vic had been searching for an identical match, but had no luck. Vic lets us know what Iain told him:

All the Jedi Costumes were made out of a material called Indian Homespun. It is a light woven fabric like Ghandi wore. It is hand woven in a variety of different patterns and shade of white to tan. That is why so many Jedi tunics were different shades. They also dyed the same fabric black for the Sith robes.

You can find this fabric at some Indian stores."

So, take it for what you will. Yoiu know how those cast menbers love to unsubstantiate.

-OWK

 

Yes, it could have been material bought in India with a homespun weave. That doesn't help anyone find fabric though. It's like saying that that to make TK armor you need to buy white plastic. Very vague.

Ever tried looking up "Indian Homespun" on fabric websites. Never comes up because it's too vague a description.

Also, Ian McCaig is a concept designer. He's not Trisha Biggar, he's not a cutter, or anything involved with the actual fabrication of the costumes. He helped design them in the stages of pre-production. I doubt he would know anything more than basic knowledge of the materials used.

The fact that Indian Homespun is an unsubstantiated rumor still remains. Because it doesn't give any information. It doesn't help anyone buy screen used fabrics.

 

Okay, so because it doesn't give specific info, like where you can buy it, it unsubstaniated?

It would be very simple for Ian to find out/know what type of fabric was used. Even going by your own logic, if he had BASIC knowledge than he would know the type of fabric used. He did, and he said it. If a production members word isn't good enough for you than email trisha biggar.

Also, I seem to remember captain carter getting ahold of some indian homespun as well as a few others a year or two back. I think she decided on crinkled cotton as a good close alternative for the costumes she was making around then.

Doing a simple google search I found a different name for it "khadi". So, then I googled Khadi cotton and found a couple of places to by it from. Of course it will probally have to be dyed to whatever color you want, as I believe the color is not inherently tan

-OWK

 

fine, whatever, you win. Indian Homespunis what was used.

It wasn't used for Mace's Tunics though. So I guess our argument was no help to the thread.

 

Nor Qui-Gons.

In fact Trisha said she was going by Obi-Wans ANH costume for fabric likness, though how Ewans costume is so differnt.

Ewans fabrics through the prequels remains the same or similiar and only certain processes make the fabric bubble or wrinkle permanantly.

A concept artist would know very little about textiles, so don;t use that as an example. We now have swatched from the Dressing a Galaxy books and you can see the materials yourself. Indian Homespun may have been used as a test fabric, but if you did a little reasearch as many have you will find that A) its like saying "car" or "coke" and B) Many people haven't an idea what fabric is what.

There has been no Indian Homespun found that even remotely resembles the Obi-Wan fabric or any other Jedi's fabrics.

Honestly just because you are involved in a production doesn't mean you can find out everything you want.

As of this time Indian Homespun as a fabric uused on ANY Jedi costume is nothing but unsubstatiated because there is no proof counter that aside from a production artists word.

 

I'd guess possibly they used it for background Jedi with costumes that lacked any details or imagination.

 

Well the quote was taken from pre TPM right?

Surprisingly the BG Jedi had a lot of variety and detail, many fabrics looked beautiful as well.

 

Actually the qoute was post AOTC.

-OWK

 

nope, I didn't scan that. Someone here actually posted that way back when the book first started hitting the shelves. If you want the close up I saw the book in Barnes and Noble, just haven't bought it yet. Sorry fellas...

 

I have it. I'll try to remember to get a good scan this weekend.

 

Nice One

 

Here it is. Scanned at 1200 dpi and resized. Photobucket resized it a bit for the web. I have full res version of the initial scan and the fabric detail. If you want em, PM me and we can figure something out. Maybe use a file transfer site. I think one of the newer ones allows files up to 250 Mb.

The initial scan is 370 Mb right. The fabric detail is 45 Mb at full res.

 

That's not entirely true. Most concept designers don't start as big-budget designers, so they frequently come from an experienced background of designing and producing everything themselves. And any designer will tell you that you have to have at least a capable knowledge of the materials for which you are designing, what materials will work for your designs, and so on. You have to maintain a regular dialogue with the people actually producing your designs so that you can collaborate and troubleshoot accordingly.

Now, the guy probably didn't know exactly where the material came from, but it wasn't really his responsibility to know. Still, I'll bet he worked regularly with the production department, and came in often to help revise design elements based on test fittings. That's just good design practice.

You have to keep in mind: these people are concerned about making a film, not about providing extensive amounts of information for Star Wars fan costumers to take advantage of. The burden of proof lies with the costumers, not with the production team. If you can't find the fabric, keep looking. Research. Yes, I understand extensive research has been done, but more research is the answer. You can't expect the production people to provide this information, and you can't expect to just trip over it via the Internet. And just because it's a difficult source to locate doesn't mean the guy is blowing smoke. For all we know, they bought the fabric from a peddler on the streets of Calcutta. (As I understand it, Star Wars production teams have always preferred to use exotic items for props and costumes, anyway.)

 

Everything you said is true. But not about Ian McCaig. He's a preproduction designer not a roduction designer. He drew character sketches for TPM and Lucas liked them and asked him to lend ideas to Trisha Biggar. But different than a production designer.

 

This is one I found last week. It is wool. It has the pied de poule design. In bronze color, not gold. But will do the job:





More photos here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/the.re...terTunicFabric?authkey=Gv1sRgCJailbnBv4HdxwE#

What do you think?