Chief Jim Hopper Costume and Props Thread

Good resource tracking on the shirt. I think it's still available, and the description says plain pockets, so this may be the best option to go with. I have a tropical with the pleated pockets, and they sure are nice shirts, so I'll be grabbing one of these in plain pocket. Silver Tan is the color to go with.

In an interview with actor David Harbour, he said they based the hat on the idea that he wears his fathers old Stetson Open Road. In modern context, the Open Road has changed slightly in design over the yeas - they've made the hat much stiffer, but the Stetson Stratoliner was created to deliver that softer classic open road look. The hat is aged and weather beaten so the brown color has mottled a bit, and the darker line is where the hat band would have been earlier in the life of it before it came off, creating a darker band where the fur felt didn't lighten with age. The actual hat for production is made by a specific guy linked earlier in this thread, and they've done the age work and weathering - it's just a steep price, over $600. An actual Stetson Stratoliner is less, though still a purchase, around $200. It can be aged and weathered, I've just done that with my own Stratoliner.

The holster is actually made for production by Tex Shoemaker, so the one we've linked is correct. The show holster is darker, and does have the basket weave going further around it further it seems, but those things are typical of one-off custom work done for production, as all the work is handmade. On a side note, Tex Shoemaker has done work for numerous productions over the years, including X-Files, Walking Dead, etc. They're one of the go-to places for holster and credential work.

It could be that the pen is more of a cream, though in all my reference shots it looks like a yellow - but this can be hard to pin down as lighting and post processing shift the colors from how they really appear. It's like the color of the hat - sometimes it comes off as almost charcoal, other times it's a light warm brown. And that's all down to lighting in the shot and processing. I do lean towards the yellow though as the Bic Cliq isn't available in a tan or straight cream color - the only colors close to what we see that you can batch order them in is yellow or white.

Nice catch on the compass on the watch!

And welcome to the rabbit hole of Chief Hopper's costume!
 
I decided to further my leather working skill set and replicate the holster using the reference pics on the Tex Shoemaker website. That and it was a bit cheaper than buying one for $126.00. Also tried replicating the oil tan color seen in screen grabs. And now I have the pattern and can make more!

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Just to be clear, is the holster you made on the left, and the one offered by Tex on the right? The one on the left looks fantastic. It's the one on the right I was referencing when I talked about the basketweave pattern not going all the way around the front.

You said you could make more... I'm interested in finding out more about that, please!

Don Hume offered a style very similar, except for the strap. It's called H216 No1.

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Yes, the one on the left was my first attempt at it. I've since made a second, better built version 2 based off of what I learned from the first one:

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Tried to even out the color a bit more, enlarged the front a bit. All in all I'm happier with it.
 
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That's a bummer that Shoemaker's closed, they were around for such a long time and did great work.

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You said you could make more... I'm interested in finding out more about that, please!

Sure, shoot me a PM and we can talk details. And once you get your pen in post a photo, I'd like to see what you found - the pen ended up being one of the harder things to track down for me - with the exception of the B9 coat - which has proven to be the unicorn in this whole costume.
 
The pen looks yellow to me, a pale yellow but yellow. You really can't compare it to the Hawkins PD patch because, for one, it's in more light than the pen is. The material is different so it's going to reflect colors differently and it's clearly a different color altogether, much more orange.
 
Once again thanks all for your help. This thread is why I joined RPF!

Just picked up a used Flying Cross 19w6604 on Ebay for $25.

EDIT: It came and has a problem!

The buttons on the pocket flaps don't button, the buttons are sewn onto the flaps over false button-holes.

As you can see in the photos I posted above, Hopper doesn't button his pockets.

If I use this shirt I'll have to remove the buttons from the flaps and perhaps open up the button holes.

But otherwise the shirt is great. It's been washed many times and has a nice soft feel, not the super stiff starchy feel they have when new.
 
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Here's a shot of my recently purchased Stetson Stratoliner. I haven't done the age/distress work to it yet, including darkening it a bit, this is just out of the box.

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Here's a shot of my recently purchased Stetson Stratoliner. I haven't done the age/distress work to it yet, including darkening it a bit, this is just out of the box.

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That's really nice. I ended up using a Stetson Stratoliner in Caribou which is perhaps the closest off-the-self equivalent to the screen hat, except of course for the actual Worth & Worth Hopper replica. The Stratoliner brim (2.5") is a bit narrower than the screen hat brim is said to be (2.75").

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For the right brim width it would be the Stetson Open Road in Caribou. Of course the crown has to be re-shaped.

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The Biltmore Wilderness in Caribou, very much like the Stetson Open Road.

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I'd say the shot of him outdoors shows the color of the hat more accurately. The other shot of him sitting in the chair is indoors so you have artificial lighting affecting the color of his hat as well as whatever color correcting was used in post.
 
I've been searching the shirts.

Lucky for me a local agency, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dept, wears the exact Hopper shirt, so it's widely available here. (EDIT: the California Highway Patrol also wear it.)

I'm sure some of you have done the same, but in case not, yesterday I visited a police uniform shop.

They had three long racks with nothing but these shirts, plain pockets, longsleeved, in Silver Tan (or Silvertan, in one word, as they sometimes have it).

I saw some shirts (for a different agency) in the "tan" and yes it's much more yellow/brown and not suitable.

Anyhow as you probably know shirts that look exactly like the Hopper shirt come in three different fabrics (at least)

1) polyester/wool blend. These are the standard Class A shirt for the LASD. I see some of these on Ebay numbered Flying Cross 440w9404, but shirts which evidently are the same I've seen numbered Flying Cross 40w9133. These are available fairly cheaply on Amazon. What's strange is that generally, it seems, Flying Cross shirts with numbers ending in 04 are Silvertan, yet in the latter case shirts which appear to be Silvertan end in 33.

Other companies make these exact poly/wool LASD Class A shirts: Elbeco model 7064N, and United Uniform "LASD Long Sleeve Class A".

These poly/wool shirts look fantastic and have a high-quality feel to them. I'm pretty sure the Hopper shirt would be this wool blend.

BTW Flying Cross also makes these with a zipper front, usually these have a "Z" at the end of the product number. The zipper is concealed, and when worn the shirt looks normal, having nonfunctional buttons down the front placket.

2) Polyester/Rayon blend.
I have seen these sold with two different Flying Cross numbers, 40w6504 and 19w6604. These feel strangely thick and stiff; perhaps multiple washings will soften them.

3) 100% Polyester. The police uniform shop had a whole rack of these. They're much thinner and would be great for a hot Comic Con. Trouble is, they apparently are only available with a zipper front, and they have sewn-in welts (press-pleats or press-lines) which of course the Hopper shirt lacks. Flying Cross calls their 100% Polyester shirts their "Command" shirts. Strange that I searched online and could only find pleated-pocket Command shirts, yet at the police shop they had a whole rack of plain-pocket Silvertan ones.

BTW I admire you guys going for the jacket, but here in the US southwest our Cons can be very hot (116 at the Phoenix Comic Con when I attended in 2016) and there is no way I would wear the jacket. Here coolness is a big consideration of any costume.

Another aside, I see that David Harbour is 6'3". I'm 6'4" and around 240 pounds which makes acquiring costume items challenging oftentimes- I need size 14 shoes for example, and a 7 5/8 (UK 61) hat size. It's tough finding things that fit.
 
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The fit and feel of these pants seems correct. The belt loops are fairly wide . It would be easy to add flaps but getting matching fabric would be tough.

With Dickies you can order them unhemmed and when you cut off the bottoms to length and hem them you'll probably have plenty of fabric for the pocket flaps.
 
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Back to the hat, I saw this photo of an Akubra Campdraft, customer-bashed in a very similar way to the Hopper hat:

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I just got a US flag patch for the costume, then noticed something I'd not noticed before: the screen flag patch is made incorrectly, with the blue field resting on a red stripe.

On the actual US flag, and every flag patch I'm seeing for sale, the blue field rests on a white stripe.

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If you don’t have correct holster and have Worbla lying around you can make holster like I did. It’s not perfect but cost me nearly nothing. I used sandwich method (craft foam) after making pattern. While the thermoplastic was still soft I formed it around gun and used another holster with basket weave to leave impression (the real holster was wrong size). Drilled holes with dremel and stitched with awl. Used part of old belt to make retention strap and adding button snap is very simple. Painted and added few layers of modpodge ( satin). Works and looks fairly good just for cosplay. Cost less than buying leather, tooling, etc if you have extra worbla laying around
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What pistol are you using? EDIT: sorry I just now saw where you say it's an airsoft .357.

Though it's a moot point around here, because most or all of our Cons have adopted a zero-tolerance policy, permitting nothing that even remotely resembles a firearm, even Nerf guns and squirt guns. At Comikaze many cosplayers were sporting bananas in their holsters in a whimsical protest.

I admire your Worbla-modelling skills. I know nothing about that stuff.

I noticed with interest how you went with a reversed flag patch.

That got me Googling 1980s photos of various police departments in the USA, to see whether a reversed patch or non-reversed patch was more common at that time, and what was interesting is that I couldn't find any showing the wearing of flag patches at all.

Then I came across AR 670-1 dated 11 February 2005 which directed military personnel to put flag patches on their right arms, and for these to be reversed. Full compliance was required by 1 October 2005. The stated reason was that US forces were serving overseas in multinational operations.

Non-military agencies and organisations such as various police, fire, paramedics, and Boy Scouts vary as to which style they wore/wear. From what I read online various rules and regulations vary as to which type is considered correct.
 
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