Barry Rice

- doing science on a terrestrial planet -



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TMP Admiral shoes

In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, most of the uniforms looked rather like pajamas, and the shoes were sort of, kind of, built into the pants (but not tightly integrated, as in Seven of Nine's cat suit). In contrast, the shoes for Admiral Kirk's uniform---during the beginning of the movie, when he was wearing the two-toned admiral uniform---were quite different.

It is surprisingly difficult to find good images of these shoes, since they only appeared for a few seconds in a few scenes (even in the 2022 restored cut). Most of the information I have been able to determine has come from publicity photos.

In summary, this is what I have been able to determine

1) The shoes were of a design with no visible stitching in their front half.
2) The soles of the shoes had a separate heel, so they were not (for example) uniformly flat.
3) In finish, they were made of shiny leather, dyed to match the uniform's dark panels. In conversations with John Cooley, I've learned that although Bob Fletcher described the uniform as being "loden green" it is more accurate to use the term "agave green" to describe the uniform green panels. That said, the shoes appear to be a shade greener, so loden green might be a better choice for them.
4) The soles are dyed to match the loden green boots.
5) In none of the photos are laces visible.
6) The shoes come up in front, at least to just up above the ankle bone.

To those observations, I add the following inferences and comments...

7) The shoes probably did not come up much higher than about 25 cm above the floor.
8) The shoes probably had either a zipper on the inner side of the shoe, or elastic stretch. I am guessing they were probably zippered.

I showed the images of the boots I have to the expert bootmakers at Barismil.com, and they concluded that the boots, while made of a shiny leather, are not glossy enough to be considered patent leather. Indeed, while the shoes catch the light in some of the images, in most they are not patent leather glossy.

Let's talk a little more about the color of the boots.

Below are a few publicity photos. Note that the side panels in the uniforms are loden green, but in the studio lighting they look flat grey or even blue.



Here is a uniform image that I suspect (but admittedly do not know with certainty) may be more reliable in terms of color balance:



Here are color cards showing the two types of green:



It looks like the uniform panels might be best described as Agave Green, but the shoes might be closer to Loden Green. In any event, unless the original shoes could be tracked down (and assuming they haven't aged in color), the exact color may be forever a matter of argument.

In shape, the shoes are fairly pointed in the tip, but not extremely so...rather like ropers.



Here you see the boots come up fairly high, but with no stitching visible.



If you have more information, do share!

As a great, inexpensive solution, David Cheng pointed out a pair of rain boots on Amazon, shown below. I haven't bought these, and I suspect they'll have an overall blocky, plastic look, but they're pretty good. If that listing comes up 404-dead, the boots were sold as "totes Men's Cirrus Chelsea Ankle Rain Boot" for about $50.


 

2022