The Fifth Element - Korben Dallas

This has been my favorite movie pretty much since the first time I saw it, and I've always wanted to make this costume, but put it off because I didn't want to deal with making my hair blond or wearing a backless, sleeveless shirt. Well, no more putting it off.

About a month ago I got a job where I have access to a mill and connections with machinists, and I started learning SolidWorks so that I could make a full metal (well, actually more like 75% metal until I can afford to buy/find a real Vektor) KD-1 blaster. MattMunson was also cool enough to let me measure and trace his screen used holster. A couple weeks later, I started thinking that in addition to the gun it would be really cool to put the costume together. So I started doing some light research, and after finding the ID on the boots from Prop Store (made by the German company Buffalo) I got really into the search. Buffalo no longer makes the boots, but New Rock makes a very close knockoff (actually it's hard to say who knocked off who).

NEWROCKWORLD

The differences being the emblem, the straps, and the soles. I ordered a pair of these boots and they're currently sitting in my apartment's mail room until I can pick them up in the morning. The first modification will be to remove the metal emblem, then I'll cover up the hole with a leather patch. The strap will be slightly more difficult, and I'll bring them by my local shoe repair place to see if new soles are even an option. It would run at least $100, so if I can find the soles I'll probably just do the work myself.

The next hurdle was the shirt. I search for days for orange corrugated rubber sheeting, but couldn't find anything close. Finally I decided that I'd make it from fabric when I found this:

Bright Orange Poor Boy Knit - Discount Fabrics

One yard is enough for the whole shirt. I'll be patterning it in the next week or two, then giving that pattern to my girlfriend to sew it up because I hate stretch fabrics. If it's possible, I may have her fuse the fabric so that it doesn't stretch. The arm and neck trim will be done with a different fabric, either from an orange rib knit shirt I found at Kohl's or from another fabric I haven't found yet.

I do plan to make the jacket eventually, but for now I'm going without. That leaves the pants. These things will be a bit of a pain to make, because in total there's about 12 yards of parachute cord lacing up the inseams, crotch, and seat. Not to mention a speed buckle, zippers, and a belt. And all this without even one GOOD shot of the pants in the whole movie.

I did get really lucky last night and found a buy it now for an English copy of the making of book for only $150 shipped. That's about half the going rate. I'm hoping there will be some pictures I can use in there.

So stick around, this thread will get interesting in the next few weeks.

Coolness.

I think there was a thread a while back on the jacket, if you haven't done so yet you might want to do a search for it.

Somebody making it or pictures of the original? I did a pretty thorough search of the forum (or thought I did) and couldn't find anything useful for Korben.

It was a research thread although it may have been for several costumes related to 5E.

IIRC it looked to be a modified USAF jacket.

The prop store of London had the shirt and boots.
link to archive page.

Apparently the shirt has a bodysuit type crotch to keep in pulled down in place.
Sadly the shirt was sold folded in a frame but you can just make out the grey bottom.

Yea, that was how I found out the brand name of the boots. Hadn't seen that listing for the shirt, though. The other site I found it on just had the blurriest picture ever posted to the internet.

So I picked up the boots and wore them to work today, a bit of a review:

OW!

Very painful. I guess goths have to be in pain to feel cool. They're a bit tight across the top of the foot, and the leather pinches in when the foot bends (with every step). The buckles are a really stupid design, it's impossible to tighten the boots completely down onto your ankles without punching extra holes, and it takes about 10 minutes to get the things on. They aren't fantastic quality, either. For $250 boots, I would expect at least the same quality as my $200 All Saints boots, but it doesn't come close. Heck, I've got a couple pairs of $80 boots that blow these out of the water in the stitching department. There are silver pen marks exposed where they misaligned pieces, some of the topstitches waver, and one of the stitches on the pull tabs is just falling out. Luckily that's one of the bits that'll be going in the trash when I replace the buckles with velcro. The New Rock emblems were a piece of cake to remove, and just left 4 small holes. So yea, pictures.







The differences between these boots and the Buffalo boots (which I now believe may actually be the knockoffs, not these.)

Big: The soles are completely different. Different shape, molding, thickness, and tread. They do have the same number of exposed treads on the sides, though. This one kind of leads into the welts. They're not actually welts, the soles are stitched on through the boot leather. If I had to guess, I'd say these aren't resoleable at all. I'll still bring them in to get a professional opinion, though. One thing that's clear is that these are top stitched all the way around, where the Buffalo boots have a set in heel. And the straps, which I can make just about perfect with mods.

Not so big: Different color liner. Not huge. Different logo stamping as well, but I have a planned mod for that. The back pull tabs are slightly skinnier and taller on the New Rocks.

All in all, if you want to do a good Korben costume and have the money, get these. If you think they look cool for any other purpose, don't. They're better than costume quality, but definitely not worth that much money. Don't get me wrong, though. No regrets here.

I'll have a look for that other thread again, but if the jacket was modified USAF, then they completely removed the sleeves and made new ones.

I think I found the post about the jacket, but it was just somebody talking about how they planned to make theirs on the cheap. The original is almost definitely completely custom.

I'm excited to see this build thread as i'm also working on doing a Korben Dallas! Already a huge help w/ the boot ID. Cant wait for updates!

I finished the shirt pattern last night, and we may have found a way to rubberize the fabric after it's sewn together. The pants are in the works. There were some ok reference images in the making of book, but nothing fantastic. (ridiculously good page for Leeloo costumers, though.) We found a fabric I like, except that it's too light a grey, and it doesn't seem to want to take dye. I'll be starting on the pants pattern later in the week.

Also, slowly making progress on the gun design in Solidworks. The front receiver is about 25% done. As I learn more, I expect to finish it more quickly.

Not a ton of progress on this. The pants fabric has been dyed and I'm going to order the paracord for the lacing soon. I'll finally start on the pants pattern this weekend. The first tests of the rubberized shirt fabric are on their way to me, but I've heard they aren't outstanding so we might stick with the regular fabric. The shirt is completely cut out and partly sewn together, and the pattern for the holster is half finished. I only have 2 weeks left until the con, and I'm kind of at the mercy of the waterjet cutter to get the holster finished on time. Also, the pants have somewhere in the area of 200 embroidered eyelets for the paracord, and I don't have a setting for that on my machine, so each would take a few minutes to make them look nice. That in two weeks with everything else on my plate, I'm just not sure. I'll have to think on it for the rest of the week. This may get bumped to Dragon Con.

Rubberizing the shirt didn't go so well, but I tried it on for a test fitting and everything is looking great. The new goal is Dragon Con, hopefully I can make it.

I'm working on a Korben Dallas costume for this Halloween. Thanks for the help on the boots. Luckily I found a pair of the New Rocks on eBay in my size just this week.

For the shirt I found a pre-made hooded tank on Amazon that is almost exactly the right ribbing pattern and color. I'll have to remove the hood and hem the neckline. It has a solid back, but I'm going to try to find a jacket rather then cut the back open. Anyway, search for "H2H Men's cotton sleeveless t-shirts tank top with various colors (orange) JPSK05". Its JINIY brand. They're made for the Asian market and are small by American standards (order 1.5 sizes up) but the color is great.

That shirt isn't bad, but the ribbing is smaller than the original. It looks like the fabric I'm using is sold out now, though.

Keep in mind that Korben's jacket is cropped really short, it doesn't reach his pants, so even with it on you can still see his back.

Risu said:

That shirt isn't bad, but the ribbing is smaller than the original. It looks like the fabric I'm using is sold out now, though.

Keep in mind that Korben's jacket is cropped really short, it doesn't reach his pants, so even with it on you can still see his back.

Click to expand...

Well, as the pant is high waist and the orange rubber "inside" the pant, the jacket covers the pant (a little but enough) I will take more pics of me wearing my whole costume !

The hero pant is a custom padded football pant where legs were extended and for the joint they used knee protections, then they added a lot of eyelets in the crotch and the back (and yes the cord mostly looks like paracord ! this is what i've used at least !) the pants also features two zippers on the end of the legs, as the pant is tight (thanks to the laces) you need them to put the pant and get it off !

My first replica was fully custom build it's cool but i plan to modify a football pant for a more accurate version ...

For the jacket it's padded in the spine (most likely motorcycle vest) but also fully custom pouches/arms and a lot of eyelets/laces too one in the top of the pads, one each side the pads, and one each side the vest ...

Pictures coming'

Where do you get your info? I've looked all over the web and not been able to find any more info about the costumes than they have on the DVD special features. I'm guessing you found it on a French language site? Any info you have, I'd love it if you could share it. I had never thought of football pants, I was just going to sew mine from scratch. Does that mean his pants are some kind of stretch fabric? I've never been able to find a shot that gives a good feel for what type of fabric they're made from.

to sew mine from scratch.

Click to expand...

I sewed mine from scratch.

For the fabric
12.5 oz. double knit polyester fabric, i used simple polyester fabric on mine, it's to thin, but gives a good result at least.


Well no it's almost deduction from search and hi-res screen caps

Why the knee protections are "full sized" well if they give a nice look, they also hide the "possible seem" they had to do for a modification.



And as you see on the pics, the laces match the front & back seems !!! it's a nice pant to start, well in the movie got a front zipper, not laces.

Are your screen caps taken from the bluray, or something better?

I'm not sure I agree that the fabric is a knit, it just doesn't look that form fitting to me.

just compare

It's a good hypothesis, I'm just not sure. I would definitely believe that they might have styled his pants after football pants, but the material and details don't look right to me. The biggest problem I have with it is the wrinkles. Look at any picture of a football player. The pants don't wrinkle easily and when they do the wrinkles are small and there aren't a lot of them. Given the wrinkles on Korben's pants in your photo, I would agree they have some stretch, but not as much as football pants. The wrinkling at the knee looks like a regular thin cotton or cotton/poly blend woven. And last, it would be incredibly tedious to open up a pair of pants and add all the panels of lacing and the fly zipper when you could just make them from scratch. The details do match pretty well, from the location of seams, to the knee pads, and even the buckle or D rings at the front of the waistband, but I think they were custom made.

when you have an industrial sewing machine with arm, you don't have to open pants, it's at least quite easy !