Here is my interpretation of the crew jacket to add to the many here.
After years of sitting on my Mk3 jacket and at least four attempts to dye it (and never being happy with the colour), I decided to leave it in it's current green/grey state and finish it off.
Over a number of years I have sourced dozens of patches from various vendors and a number of wings and even a Nostromo stencil years ago. But after lapsing about six or seven years ago and a big move in 2021 meant all that was put on hold and then my stuff went into storage.
However, nostromocrew's release of the Alien shirt and trousers got me thinking about getting back to replicating Kane's jacket (even though I bought the Ash seafoam duo rather than the correct ivory).
A bit of damage to my wallet brought in lovely bullion wings and patches from nostromocrew and alternative patches from patchesnpins, lacings from SG-R8 and a new stencil from Banzai88 as well as enamel rank badges from the bay.
Nostromocrew may update his patches, so I'll be keeping an eye out for them as well, so until then the patchesnpins versions are in place.
Last year, I spotted a Japanese-made MK3 RAF Cold Weather Jacket in black from Waiper on Japanese shopping site Rakuten for about £200. Expensive yes, but as black is my colour of choice (and I'm never going to find an original RAF blue/grey/purple version), I couldn't pass it up. UK customs stung me for fees and VAT though.
It was available in sizes up to 9 -- though I thought they only went to size 8. However, buying the 9 was a mistake as I thought it was Asian sizing and would not fit my 44-inch chest thus going bigger. However, my reasoning failed and this piece of Japanese-made clothing was true to size! Also, the sleeves are way too long, but this is my fault as I'm short. The sleeves will be altered at some point.
Next, SG-R8 was good enough to supply his lacings in black. He was excellent to deal with and they arrived fast. They were attached with fabric glue to save my fingertips. Also, the originals may have been glued on too, as glue stains or similar appear to be on the sleeves in reference photos. By coincidence, the underlying lacing panel exactly matched the shade of my jacket and the loops were also close tonally. So, very happy as together they appear much more like a complete package.
The collar on the my green Mk3 was sewed on by hand in a non-canon light baby pink/almost white piping. Dark grey piping was used on the black jacket. Nostromocrew's silver bullion wings were easy to attach, particularly with the black jacket as it hooked on to a handy patch of loop fabric in the right place on the left chest.
An attempt at the name using a home-made stencil on the green jacket failed miserably and some residual paint is still visible. To fix my error, I turned to Banzai88 who had sold me a stencil years ago and is still supplying them now. So with two more ordered and the appropriate green and dark grey paints the back logos were easily done.
With that it's thanks to the community for its help. In this case, it's true to say that everything I learned about this jacket I got from the RPF!
And thus, my 11-year on-and-off journey is now complete.
cheers all
Steve
