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Achieving the Indiana Jones look...without looking in costume??

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,074
Location
London, UK
I think that's cool. Apparently, you've made it a part of your style. Not all of us have the nerve to do that on most days though. I know I still haven't become accustomed to wearing one every day, even though there isn't anything really wrong with it, outside of maybe embarrassing two or three family members. I think this summer, I'll be wearing hats more often again.

I think, since 2007, I've left the house without a hat on my head maybe three times - all in some form of costume / fancy dress. After a short period of wearing one daily, you'll get to feel naked without it. I've never left a hat behind me anywhere - soon as I head for the door I feel its absence. Course, my beginning to wear hats daily (as opposed to against the cold in Winter and the Sun in Summer) also coincided with beginning to shave my head completely, which makes a difference too.

On another note, this is an Indiana Jones look that may be easier for me to pull off in a academic environment, which is also a look I'm trying to go for eventually.

indiana-jones.jpg


Not nearly as iconic as his field gear, though. It would suggest professor more than anything. Oh wait, Dr. Jones is supposed to be one.

This is my main inspiration for wearing a bow tie, which I do regularly now in the office, often with tweeds, year round.

Yeah, I see what you're saying. That particular picture from The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not the best example I could have selected. I just quickly chose it off my Google images search. You're right, he doesn't look nearly as cool as he did in Raiders, Temple, and Crusade. More like an older man trying to affect a more youthful appearance from the prime of his life, although even he does that very well...

Which, I believe, was deliberate. Consider when we meet Indy in KOTCS he is now roughly nineteen years older than when we last saw him riding off into the sunset at the end of Crusade.
 

johnbriner

New in Town
Messages
4
Location
Canada
Hey! you can be your favorite IJ, just be confident! Sometimes it is not the costume or outfit which makes you to be someone, it's the attitude and the way how you act about it!
 

djd

Practically Family
Messages
570
Location
Northern Ireland
@Edward - personally, I don't think it was deliberate. Bad costuming choices. The jacket looks like a new jacket made from a pre distressed hide rather than an old, battered one as in raiders or temple. It's also a little too big on him that makes him look like a skinny old man - which he wasn't. He WAS older. They didn't have to do a thing with the costume. It was just bad IMHO :(
 

Henry Gondorff

A-List Customer
Messages
327
Location
Fulda, Germany
That's exactly how I do it: wearing the "Indy" Temple of Doom-hat, shirt and pants without the gun, the bag or the holster - and I'm good to go. The people around me don't even recognise the dress; ergo I don't look like being in costume.
 

insomniac

New in Town
Messages
20
Location
Seattle
No problem. I don't wear my fedoras with my leather jacket either for that reason, except very rarely. It's just outside my comfort zone (right now, anyway).

I inadvertently wore my (charcoal) Akubra Sydney with my (black) leather jacket. Someone said I looked like IJ, even though nothing else matched. I won't be wearing that combination again!
 

Rudie

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,069
Location
Berlin
I wouldn't give a damn if somebody told me I looked like Indiana Jones. If I like what I'm wearing that's good enough for me. 20 years ago at university a lot of people called me Elliot Ness after the Kevin Costner character in The Untouchables because my daily wardrobe consisted of 30s suits and a Borsalino or newsboy cap. So what?
 

Rick Blaine

My Mail is Forwarded Here
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3,958
Location
Saskatoon, SK CANADA
We took a Yankee friend into the GSMNP today. I was wearing russet jump boots, khaki colored Khakis, a beige linsey/woolsey camp shirt & a tan Tilley T3. When we were at Cades Cove strangers started to ask me questions about the exhibits & such! LOL
 
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1961MJS

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,370
Location
Norman Oklahoma
I inadvertently wore my (charcoal) Akubra Sydney with my (black) leather jacket. Someone said I looked like IJ, even though nothing else matched. I won't be wearing that combination again!

Hi

That strikes me as odd. I wear a black fedora, and a black leather jacket all winter and NEVER got an IJ comment. I wore my brown Stetson Temple with a navy hooded sweatshirt and got the IJ comment. I usually wear my Stetson temple with an olive drab army coat and get no comments.

Later
 

insomniac

New in Town
Messages
20
Location
Seattle
Hi

That strikes me as odd. I wear a black fedora, and a black leather jacket all winter and NEVER got an IJ comment. I wore my brown Stetson Temple with a navy hooded sweatshirt and got the IJ comment. I usually wear my Stetson temple with an olive drab army coat and get no comments.

Later

Odd. It was actually the first time I've worn that combo, and the first meeting of the day. Luckily I have a nice trenchcoat that does go well with the fedora and doesn't give me the IJ look.
 

enigmata-wood

New in Town
Messages
12
Location
Cambridge UK
I also have a full set of very nearly screen accurate Indy gear. I use some of it all the time but never all of it together. The Fedora, well I rarely leave home without it. Most of my clothes are Indy-esque but that includes sharp suits and scholarly tweeds which he also wore. My shirts are all Indy style: eppaulettes and breast pockets, but only one is the pale cream-khaki of indy's. Basically I wear a lot of Indy-vibe stuff; servicable outdoorsy clothing. However just swapping a smart jacket for the casual leather one makes it all look comfortably sharp, especially with the fedora.
 

1961MJS

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,370
Location
Norman Oklahoma
Odd. It was actually the first time I've worn that combo, and the first meeting of the day. Luckily I have a nice trenchcoat that does go well with the fedora and doesn't give me the IJ look.

Hi again, I don't really like, but at least understand the IJ comment if I were to wear a brown Stetson Temple / Adventure built / IJ Fedora AND a brown leather flight jacket. I always thought that the color mattered. If it's not BROWN, you're NOT Indiana Jones. I stand corrected I guess.

Later
 

Not-Bogart13

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,501
Location
NE Pennsylvania
I'm a little late to this party, but I own fairly accurate gear, and have tackled the problem of wearing the stuff and not "being in costume." The first step was realizing something that many people forget - aside from the bag, whip, and gun, it's not a costume. It's clothing. Like any other movie character who's style gets emulated by others, it just clothing.

Next, you mix and match. I wear a fedora almost every day, but when I wear my Indy jacket I wear a hat that doesn't look at all like the Indy hat. The pants are, basically, taupe slacks. Don't wear a safari shirt with that, wear whatever you would normally wear with an ordinary pair of pants.

If you want to wear a lot of the outfit at once, pick one significant thing to change up. For example, I might wear the entire outfit, but with a newsboy cap instead of a fedora. Or I'll wear a blue shirt. Or olive slacks. Or a corduroy blazer. What you don't want to do is something hard to see. A tan shirt without epaulettes isn't going to cut it, nor is a brown fedora with a different bash, or a shoe change.
 

bearpeterson

New in Town
Messages
1
Location
Virginia
Having struggled abit with this same question, it is great to hear others have had similar thoughts. I'm totally down with "The Jones", as I both love the look, but mostly because I'm very active and love good adventure. I think "vintage" harkens back to a great time when people looked sharp and there was adventure all around. It was a time when "personal style" was in.

My suggestion is to simply mix it up, never wearing a combination that crosses the line into the "classic costume". Having travelled alot, I've seen the guys "who wear it all", and it does look very out of place. Don't want to knock the "fan boys" out there but those who wear an Indiana Jones costume do make it harder to try to incorporate elements of that look into your wardrobe without worrying you will appear that on your way to a comic convention..

I have a Todds jacket, but wear it with jeans and a white or navy button-down shirt or something like that. ( get lots of compliments ). Or a cool green or white t-shirt while wearing my Todds Downtowner Fedora. I often wear a Aussie cowboy hat ( as I ride horses ) and that gets more Indy comments than my screen accurate jacket ever did, so after awhile you just gotta get to the "don't care" point. Sometimes a hat IS just a hat.

I agree with a earlier post here that there will always be someone who makes a dumb comment, but he or she is probably wearing the same old boring "drone wear" that everybody dresses in these days.

That's my 2 cents!
 
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