Star Trek TOS Pilot Uniform Fabrics and Such

Thanks for the info, I’ll look into the tricot.

I had a look at the early episodes of TOS in which some of the Women’s Gold Pilot Uniforms were altered with a Black Collar to fit among the new Uniforms, when put alongside the new Series Tunics the colour looks almost identical.
Where did you hear these were repurposed Pilot uniforms? Also, great job collecting those pictures! That uniform was always really cool to me, but I didn't know it made so many appearances. Really good detective work.

I just messaged XScapesProps about those fuzzy Science uniforms to get his opinion.
 
Where did you hear these were repurposed Pilot uniforms? Also, great job collecting those pictures! That uniform was always really cool to me, but I didn't know it made so many appearances. Really good detective work.

I just messaged XScapesProps about those fuzzy Science uniforms to get his opinion.
These Uniforms are often listed on Auction sites as being Repurposed Pilot Uniforms, if you look closely you can see that they have attributes that match the Pilot Uniforms but don't match the Series Uniforms like back zippers when Women's Uniforms at the time zipped from the front. These Uniforms seem to only have appeared in early Season 1 possibly to either present an alternate option to actresses or to bolster the number of ready female Uniforms until more could be made or possibly both.

Both male and female Uniforms were modified for the Series, the male style most prominently appeared in the early publicity pictures featuring Kirk, Spock and Rand, the female Uniforms only appeared in the first few Production episodes while I've only been able to find one use of the male modified uniforms in the Series.

They most prominently appear in the episode 'Charlie X' which is where the Screen Caps come from.

Here is a Pilot Uniform that was modified at Auction.


And here is the only scene I've found that used the male style modified uniforms, he also appears to be wearing Pants and Boots from the Pilots.

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UPDATE: I spoke to XScapesProps and he said that the Pilot uniform you sent me looked like a cotton-based brushed tricot. I may ask others as well for their opinion.
Thank you for your help, I've looked online at Brushed Tricot, it's difficult to find in the colours needed but I can find it in white and dye it maybe, the most common type I can find is Polyester which has a similar look.


 
Thanks for your help there. Lotta really great info bundled up on the StarTrekPropAuthority, but I guess I just glossed over that entry!

So I messaged James Cawley and Joseph Kerezman about the fuzzy blue uniforms you and ALLEY shared. I asked if it was possible we were looking at a tricot there and both said no. Cawley's explanation for the purple-ish coloring of fuzziness of that Pilot uniform was that its a combination of the harsh chemical cleanings, the age of the shirt, and the lighting its under. I could buy that. Velour can get fuzzy over time, though I've never seen it get to that degree. Then again, that shirt is from the 1960s. It's pretty incredible it's not already tattered and dry rot.

Plus we already know the Pilot blues may have been a little extra purple than the main series blues.

Haven't really talked much more with Kerezman about it, but I'll let yaknow in a bit.

And hey, that light blue tricot you found? I've actually been planning to order some swatches for the past couple days! Even if the tricot isn't authentic, and even if the colors aren't quite right, I figured they'd make a great screen-accurate look for the main series TOS blues.
 
Thanks for your help there. Lotta really great info bundled up on the StarTrekPropAuthority, but I guess I just glossed over that entry!

So I messaged James Cawley and Joseph Kerezman about the fuzzy blue uniforms you and ALLEY shared. I asked if it was possible we were looking at a tricot there and both said no. Cawley's explanation for the purple-ish coloring of fuzziness of that Pilot uniform was that its a combination of the harsh chemical cleanings, the age of the shirt, and the lighting its under. I could buy that. Velour can get fuzzy over time, though I've never seen it get to that degree. Then again, that shirt is from the 1960s. It's pretty incredible it's not already tattered and dry rot.

Plus we already know the Pilot blues may have been a little extra purple than the main series blues.

Haven't really talked much more with Kerezman about it, but I'll let yaknow in a bit.

And hey, that light blue tricot you found? I've actually been planning to order some swatches for the past couple days! Even if the tricot isn't authentic, and even if the colors aren't quite right, I figured they'd make a great screen-accurate look for the main series TOS blues.
Yeah Prop Authority is a treasure trove I’ve followed it for years!,

It’s odd that two samples of the same fabric have ended up looking so different even though one is only a few years younger, it’s possible that the Series tunic was simply taken better care of than the Pilot Tunic which was obviously washed so many times it turned purple!

I have an Anovos TOS science velour tunic which matches the light shade of the surviving Spock Tunic though there is some dispute over whether they accurately reproduced the colour of the Tunic when it was used in the Series or simply the colour it is now which could be different due to washing and age like the Pilot Tunic.

For a while it was believed that the Trek Teal from CR Crafts which is similar to those used by Cawley and Kerezman was the correct shade of blue for the Tunic but when the Anovos Tunic came out everyone believed it was incorrect but further research recently has called this into question and it’s possible that the Trek Teal is more correct after all. It’s because the shade changes DRAMATICALLY depending on lighting.
 
Word of advice guy's.

Avoid Joe K.
He's well known for poor quality and for taking your money and disappearing.
I've heard he's gotten a lot better with orders recently and also if you order through his EBay there's no problem, I plan to get two of his TOS Uniform kits when I can one in Velour and one in Double Knit.
 
division 6 I've heard similarly that he had a somewhat rough past but that he'd cleaned it up. In addition, he still has plenty of customers pretty pleased with the results. Still, I appreciate the warning!

AnthonyD2199 Also remember that, at least according to Cawley, the purple-ish hue in the Pilot uniforms comes from the creators using a different blue than what would come to be used throughout the rest of TOS. The TOS blue, according to several sources, had a bit more of a teal color to it.

I'm also a bit mystified about what the correct "blue" is. It doesn't help that the color of the blue velour was the most obviously in flux out of all 3 division colors, thanks to those constant cleanings. When I spoke to Cawley recently he said that CR Craft's "Trek Teal" was way off from the original and authentic color, but Kerezman begged to differ. He told me that he had actually worked with CR Craft to design the Trek Teal velour, and that they got it pretty close. He admits it isn't perfect, but that Cawley ended up using it for his Star Trek fanfilms, so it must be pretty good.

As for Anovos, I don't actually know a whole lot! I wasn't even into TOS costuming when Anovos was still around. As we noted, the TOS blue velour had some serious color fluctuations, so who knows how their velour looked compared to the velour studied by those like Kerezman and Cawley.
 
Not sure if I should post this here, but my swatch oh ohSEWcuddly's baby blue brushed tricot just came in. It's more of a TOS look than a Pilot look, but I figured I'd share it!

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The second picture was taken with the flash on.

EDIT: Unfortunately, the blue is pretty washed out compared to how it appears on etsy. Not sure how much I actually like this for a screen-accurate uniform.
 
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division 6 I've heard similarly that he had a somewhat rough past but that he'd cleaned it up. In addition, he still has plenty of customers pretty pleased with the results. Still, I appreciate the warning!

AnthonyD2199 Also remember that, at least according to Cawley, the purple-ish hue in the Pilot uniforms comes from the creators using a different blue than what would come to be used throughout the rest of TOS. The TOS blue, according to several sources, had a bit more of a teal color to it.

I'm also a bit mystified about what the correct "blue" is. It doesn't help that the color of the blue velour was the most obviously in flux out of all 3 division colors, thanks to those constant cleanings. When I spoke to Cawley recently he said that CR Craft's "Trek Teal" was way off from the original and authentic color, but Kerezman begged to differ. He told me that he had actually worked with CR Craft to design the Trek Teal velour, and that they got it pretty close. He admits it isn't perfect, but that Cawley ended up using it for his Star Trek fanfilms, so it must be pretty good.

As for Anovos, I don't actually know a whole lot! I wasn't even into TOS costuming when Anovos was still around. As we noted, the TOS blue velour had some serious color fluctuations, so who knows how their velour looked compared to the velour studied by those like Kerezman and Cawley.
The Anovos Tunic I have is a good match for the colour of the Series Spock Tunic I posted earlier it's a shade I've heard called 'Columbia Blue', it looks a lot less rich that it does on screen, it matches the look of the fabric very well, when it comes to the 'Trek Teal' if near perfect is the only option then I'll take it, I've seen it in pictures taken in various lights and it looks good, I'm guessing that the 'Kirk Gold' and the Red are much closer to the original colours.
 
Oh, you have one yourself? Great! I appreciate it :)
I'm sorry I wasn't able to take the pics today due to a personal emergency, I'll take them tomorrow,
In the meantime do you know if the Blue Velour Kerezmen uses in his Uniform Kits is the same as CR Crafts 'Trek Teal'?, I remember you said he helped come up with the colour.
 
Hey, no worries! I hope everything's alright now or at least being taken care of.

Kerezman was somehow a part of creating the Trek Teal velour (I'm not sure to what capacity), and now CR Crafts continues to buy and sell said velour. James Cawley worked on the Kirk Gold velour as well.
 
Hey, no worries! I hope everything's alright now or at least being taken care of.

Kerezman was somehow a part of creating the Trek Teal velour (I'm not sure to what capacity), and now CR Crafts continues to buy and sell said velour. James Cawley worked on the Kirk Gold velour as well.
Thanks, things are a bit better now, here are the pics of my Anovos Velour Tunic, it’s made in the Early to Mid 1st Season Style so features a Rib Knit Collar and the Reverse Rank Braid both of which were phased out by the end of the 1st Season.

The tunic is a blue-er and has a nice sparkle to it in person but comes across as more grey in the photos despite all my attempts to change the lighting.


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It fits me a lot better than it used to, especially if I wear a t-shirt under it.
Compared to their sizing for the 3rd Season Tunics they were way off.

Now with that in mind the TOS Tunics MUST be custom fitted to the wearer, but that Velour they came out with was horrible, a lot of people were disapointed with it.
 

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