"Old" Coopers jackets..

[dougc]

Disclaimer: Hey folks, if this is a subject that no one here cares to get into I totally understand and if the mods fill it should be deleted, then by all means do so.

For the production of the movie 'Temple of Doom' Cooper apparently made the jackets for Western Costumes using Western's patterns but the question is - did Cooper ever sell jackets to the public in that same configuration. I've never seen a single cooper jacket that had the TofD details (besides a slightly longer back yolk) but I'm open to correction, so if anyone knows for sure and has a picture I'd love to take a look.

Doug C

[Ragingblues]

Nobody here has any attention of squashing a conversation about Indy jackets, so feel free to chat away. That said.... be careful what you accept as fact regarding the origin of certain Indy clothing/gear items, as stated on another site. For example:

What happened to the French company that was used to replicate the Indy jackets from some leftover Raiders stunt jackets?

What about the leftover Raiders jackets themselves that were worn in Temple of Doom?

Was Cooper involved in making some of the jackets? Possibly.

Were their jackets the ones rejected for use? Possibly.

Even if they did have some jackets in the mix, they weren't the only providers, as evidenced by the leftover Raiders jackets spotted in some TOD scenes.

Finally, have you ever seen a jacket made by Cooper that resembled the ones used in TOD? Surely they could come up with something close if the ones they made had been used. Or did those patterns up and vanish like a vaporous emission in the wind?

It seems that in order to sway business toward a company that is friendly with certain folks at another site (and most likely provides kickbacks for jacket sales), the story has been muddied if not completely re-written. If you follow the trail of friends and money in this hobby, it usually leads you to the same group of people trying to pad their wallets and reputations by misleading others.

I honestly don't care who made them, especially what they're selling now doesn't look the part. However, I think it's fair to say that you can't believe everything you read.... especially when it involves fear and folklore.


Ken

[dougc]

Believe me your comments perfectly mirror my own thoughts and doubts to the story. But I'm willing to accept the story to some degree if someone can atleast show a picture of a Cooper jacket in the same configuration as the movie jackets. Supposedly the patterns went back to Western Costumes after Cooper made the jackets. I can't find evidence that Cooper ever offered them like the movie jacket, so my point has always been that an Old Cooper is not a TofD jacket, though there are certainly folks that claim it to be as close as one can get to a TofD jacket pattern. To this I call BS, it's obvious (to me so far) that you can get much closer, and many people already have with custom jackets. Also, is there any differences between the Old Cooper jackets and a modern US Wings Indy, I mean wouldn't you say that a US Wings is just as close as an Old Cooper? If not then why is the Cooper a better match?

Doug C

[Ragingblues]

I think your questions are good, common sense ones to ask regarding this issue. I have never seen a Cooper or US Wings jacket that looked like a TOD one. Most of the jacket offerings from different companies just look like LC to me.


Ken

[indianadirk]

GOOD to finally have a chance to post this here:
From what I have heared. The jackets in Temple where made by a French company in Lyon under supervision of Andre Dometakis.

Plus I really doubt what a certain veteran over at another board says about what he knows. Honestly he doesn't even know what product placement means;) So unless they show the logo or name Stetson somewhere in temple , I still see only Herbert Johnsons.

[dougc]

In all fairness, the re-write is still under construction "elsewhere" and it should be an interesting if not entertaining read once done. I didn't start this thread to disprove anybody but rather to find visual proof that pointed to Cooper, because quite honestly I never considered Cooper or Wings to be very SA, though they are great jackets (don't get me wrong, I've owned a couple of Wings myself). I can't imagine Cooper doing jackets for the movie and not have kept one identical for themselves to copy or patterns to use for production (they became the license Lucas jacket provider post production). Wings now owns Cooper and basically admit to not having an original jacket or pattern from which to use.

Doug C

[Kaplan]

Jul 23, 2008 15:49:28 GMT -5 dougc said:

I've never seen a single cooper jacket that had the TofD details (besides a slightly longer back yolk) but I'm open to correction, so if anyone knows for sure and has a picture I'd love to take a look.
Doug C

I'm willing to bet you'll never find a picture of a cooper jacket that looks like a Temple jacket.
In fact, the only jacket I have ever seen that even looked like a TOD jacket is THE TOD jacket.... and that's because it was in TOD. ;D
I never understood why people recommended USWings as the most "accurate" TOD jacket out there. People have said it too. It started making me think that maybe people were seeing something different than I was. But when it comes down to it, USWings, and cooper, while being fine jackets don't seem like they have ever produced a jacket accurate to any Indy movie.
It seems like Holt has gotten good results from Magnoli, and Platon got good results from Wested. But no vender has gotten it right yet. And especially not USWings. I don't want this to come off as vender bashing. It's just my observation.

[dougc]

Right and I have no doubt that Magnoli or Peter could get the side vents right if they gave it a try (that's essentially the obvious thing they're getting wrong). So, again in my opinion it's wrong for someone to put forth that an old Cooper is closer than Holt's Magnoli or Platon's Wested, it's just not so. For this reason, I believe that Wings would have to change way more of their pattern (or cooper's pattern) than would have to be changed on some of the other maker's jacket. BTW, I personally believe that most of the jacket that we see in TofD is left over Raiders and most specifically stunt man jackets.

Doug C

[crismans]

Anyone who reads the COW board knows that I was looking into trying to get an SA TofD jacket (possibly for a Wings limited run as Sgt. Hack said he would be up for this) as I thought it would be nice to have a jacket made to specs from the vendor that had some ties to the original (somewhat disputed I know, but this was what I knew at the time I posted).

If the Coopers of that era aren't the closest to the TofD jacket (I had intended to have it altered to be more SA), what would be the best approach to creating a suitable template?

[dougc]

It's like I said before, that you'd have to build one yourself and send it to Hack. Unless you got another maker to create one then send that to the Sarg to be de-constructed for making paterns. I don't think that's a bad route in theory (ignoring the issue of expense), and I understand about the "morality" and perhaps "legality" of it (but hear me out)...first of all keep it to yourself who you commisioned to build the prototype. That builder would of course have the right to sell and market this new pattern too. You'd not have to say what you were buying the jacket for, I mean one could argue that it's yours, you paid for it and what you do with it is up to you. However I certainly wouldn't leave any evidence of which manufacturer made it (remove all labels) which would make it anyones guess as to who created the protoype, only you would know. Now, Sarg Hack hasn't suggested that he has any of the correct paterns (hello he owns Cooper though), and with him suggesting that the group send him a jacket to copy says to me that he doesn't care who makes the proto, it's seems irrelivant to me.
On another note, I'm somewhat suspicious of how close Wings would get to the correct details even with a prototype to tear up. I mean I'm not sure they understand that some of the items are way different than what they're used to making (side vents construction, pronged buckles, zippers, etc.). I'd be surprised if they'd want to do more than minimal things like lengthen the body and a slightly smaller pocket - but I could be completely wrong about that. One other thing, Peter at Wested claims that he may be able to measure Mr. Howard's original TofD jacket and create paterns from it for his own model. I have complete confidence that Peter could pull this off without de-constructing a single stitch - why then does Wings need to unstitch one, I'd confirm that before taking anyone guarentee that it's necessary.

So, I say find a jacket that's very close (start with a tall/long then shorten the sleeves a bit) and have the various items changed, because going with a cooper of any age is going to put you even more away to begin with. For one thing Coopers (and Wings) are the only popular mnfg that installs the straps backwards (D-rings attached at the front of the jacket by the pockets, buckles should be on the back panel) and these straps are set too low also, and if you're not carefull the back panel will not be wide enough at the top. Don't fool yourself into believing an old cooper is anymore like a movie jacket than anyother, I'd say the opposite is true.

Doug C