The TOS Shatner Kirk Tunic Part III - "Shore Leave"

The Kirk tunic I owned was clearly an early first season velour Shatner Kirk tunic.  The rib-knit collar with drawstring was a dead give-away.  And while Gerald Gurian and I had previously positively matched the Kirk Tunic in Profiles in History with "This Side of Paradise", James Cawley was convinced it was also the tunic in " Shore Leave".

So James dove into the HD screencaps on Trekcore and when I was on the phone with James Cawley yesterday and he said he had spent two hours screen matching the Kirk Tunic to "Shore Leave" and was convinced that the Kirk tunic was in fact used on the planet side scenes in that episode.  We spent 30 minutes reviewing specific screencaps and I was convinced.  Three things were tells:

1)  The collar at the point had a small indent on the left.

2)  The patch was sewn on in a distinct way.

3)  The collar where the zipper closure hits the black collar was the same.

So here are the details:

 Kirk's tunic on the Enterprise.  Note the fabric around the point:

Kirk's tunic on the planet.  Note fabric indent on left side of point (looking at it)

Kirk tunic has same indent:

2)  Patch Right Side "point"

The patch is sewn on with the right side (looking at it) point pointed outwards, not down as usual.

 Note point on patch points down on Kirk's distressed, post-Finnegan fight, tunic:

Here are two previous Shatner Kirk tunics at auction, the first was Profiles in 2003 and the other is from Butterfield's.  Note the patch points are pointing downwards

3)  The collar where the zipper closure hits the black collar looks the same.  Now this is the hardest to verify and probably the weakest argument.  It is hard to tell, but with everything else we know, it reinforces that this is the same tunic.

Thanks to James for his hard work here.  His attention to detail and understanding of tailoring and costume design is a huge asset to this process.   James has given us a lot of insight into HOW these tunics were made.

What this also did is get Gerald going and tomorrow I will post the screencaps of Gerald's "Shore Leave" braid match.

Alec