Han Solo pants

Just thought I'd see what others have done for Solo's pants. Have you gotten fabric and sewn your own pair, or just taken an existing pair of pants and modified them? Anyone ever used a pair of Dickies dark blue pants for the job?

~Solo

 

i have to add a little question here, out of curiosity. how the heck do you get the stripes down the sides?

sry, not much help in answering ur question, but i had to add one

 

lol, no prob. Um, everyone I've asked has said they just sewed it right on down the side of each pant leg. As far as the actual red piping, guess you could do ribbon or fabric. Everywhere I check seems to suggest having the width of 1-1/2 inches for the bloodstripe.

~Solo

 

His pants are pretty tight by today's standards, so I'd think that scratch, not modified Dickies, would be the way to go. Unless they make a "slim-fit" Dickies that I'm not aware of.

 

For another option for Han Solo pants, check out the "Star Wars: The Action Figure Archives" book. It states on the ANH Han Figure Page, that pants that Harrison Ford wore were just blue jeans with the bloodstripes sown on.

 

so you could use the blue jean material at any fabric store and go from there?

sounds good to me.. I was wondering what i was going to do...

 

They look to me to be modified riding breeches. The seam on the butt is different than most pants. And I would use a twill for the fabric of the pants.

 

Just remember that the bloodstripe is not a solid ribbon. It is a long line of separate hash marks.

 

in the Magic of Myth book, they've got a good shot of Han's costume...only thing is tho, the pants look brown. maybe the colour's off or else i'm just a moron, but i thought his pants were blue with the red stripes. anywho, looking closer at it, the strips down the sides look like a solid ribon, with thin embroidered bars on it, almost looks like US officer's tabs. I was thinking that a button stitch on a sewing machine might be able to do that, haven't tried it out yet, but it may work. my guess now is that, you're right, it's a ribbon sewed down with those little bars embroidered onto it before hand. and they are tighter pants than normal. i was thinking either military issue pants could work, or dress pants. if i was to make it from scratch, personally, i wouldn't used blue-jean material, only because it is outrageously expensive. I'd go with either a light wool blend or just a stiffer poly-blend.

btw, anybody know why that pic in the MOM book looks wierd, or am i just loosin' it?

 

Depends on the movie.

Blue with red stripes is from A New Hope, brown with yellow stripes is from Empire.

There is someone here who knows a lot about those pants, I'm going to try and get her to post a reply.

 

He wore the brown pants in Jedi too. That picture you're talking about is from Return of the Jedi. You can tell cuz he's got the vest on with the brown pants.

Just as an aside, the "in universe" reason he changed pants for the second two movies is 'cuz the red bloodstripes are usually awarded posthumously, making him easier to find for a certain bounty hunter on Ord Mantell who doesn't know his face. So he wore the more common yellow bloodstripes to be less conspicous.

Does anyone know the "real" reason they switched his pants?

 

haven't the clue except they had the money for better material?

 

Probably because he wore a blue jacket in TESB and Brown added some more color than just having everything be blue.

Personally, I think all the main characters looked their best costume-wise in TESB.

 

I agree with you, I really like the costumes from that episode...

 

There are many options in making or purchasing your Han Solo Pants. The first Option is to search around any thrift stores you can for a pair of 1970's-1980's "Disco Jeans". They are a stretch denim material and it was either dyed brown or dark navy for the production of the Trilogy. But good luck finding the right choclate brown or midnight blue colors right off the rack.

The seecond option (whihc is the cheapest and the easiest in my travels) is to buy a pair of dickies work pants (they are virtually identical to the the movie pants colorwise) and do a little seam ripping and altering. They are a bit wide legged but any seamstress, tailor, or determined fan can alter them so they taper and fit into the boots. Plus make sure that you take off the Dickie's logo.

The third option is to Check out either "Corellian Exports" or "The Prop Palace". Now I know that the prop palace has gotten a bad wrap, but his are inexpensive and I've had no problems with him thus far. As for Corellian Exports...well, Vince charges a bit much, but offers a quality domestic product. They both come with the Bloodstripe or Honeystripe (that's the yellow stripe) sewn on to the pants. Email either Vince or Peter to get their separate prices on their products.

On a small side note, J.Krezman of "CostumeCostumeCostume" sells the Corellian Bloodstrpes and Honeystripes on their own, ready to be sewn onto a pair of pants just like it was a patch. They are about 30 bucks, but it's less expensive to do that and buy the dickies pants than pay a large amount to get it from Corellian Exports or the Prop Palace.

If you are having any trouble finding any of these sources just check google.com (search engine) or go to DewbackWing.com and their prop board for the "rebel costuming" thread, it has all the necessary contact info.

Hope this helps all you Solo-ites out there looking for a pair of trousers worthy to smuggle in.

-HashSolo

 

I'm going to take the special effects artist's guess at why the pants changed:
Some of the shots of him on the desert skiff where done with a bluescreen, which would have been a MAJOR pain if he were wearing blue pants. (It would be a challenge even today with digital, I can't imagine what it would have done to an all optical process.)
I'm not sure if there was a similar requirement in ESB, other than he needed to be frozen in the same pants he would be wearing on the skiff (that's a lot of forward thinking!!!)

Same thing goes for why R2's dome has black squares instead of blue when you see him in space shots in the Xwing. It's not "lighting", they needed to avoid using blue since that's the color that becomes transparent when doing bluescreen shots.

Have fun!