TSFS Bomber Jacket and TWOK Rifle

This is one of the newest uniforms to enter my collection, but it's also rapidly becoming one of my favorites. It's a brand new listing put up by the Chinese cosplay tailor shop Cosplay Sky barely a month or so ago, just before the release of "Star Trek: Into Darkness." It costs roughly $130 plus shipping and handling on the official website listing (I think); when I got mine, the total cost wound up being about $142 or so.

The uniform itself is one of the most famous from the classic "Star Trek" movies after the Monster Maroon duty uniform itself. This is the Senior Officer's Bomber Jacket. There is a long tradition in "Star Trek" of setting senior unrestricted line officers (Commander, Captain) and Flag Officers (Commodores and Admirals) apart from everybody else by giving them different outfits, and in the movies, this was done by allowing them to wear a less formal, more stylish "flight jacket" version of the uniform instead of having to run around in their uncomfortable Monster Maroons all the time.

I've only had this uniform for about two weeks, but I must admit that the Bomber Jacket is already starting to displace the traditional Monster Maroon as possibly my favorite Starfleet uniform (outside my own designs, or possibly even including my personal black variant) because it's just so easy to wear around. Because it's still got the dark maroon color of the TWOK era uniforms and still keeps the undershirt, shoulder strap, arm band, insignia and pants, it's got some of the elegant formality that makes the Movie Era uniforms so admired, but at the same time, its lack of an external belt and soft, suede (in this case, faux-suede - probably Ultrasuede?) fabric make it far more comfortable and very easy to wear. Unlike the Monster Maroon, putting this on and taking it off is a breeze.

There's also a certain charm to the Bomber Jacket that I don't quite know how to properly describe. It's basically just the futuristic Starfleet version of the leather jackets made so famous by military pilots and motorcycle riders, but just because of what it is, and how it looks and feels when I wear it, I can't help but sense a sort of militaristic nostalgia when I've got it on - or, perhaps, it's just because I watched "Top Gun" too many times when I was a kid. Whatever the reason, when I wear my Bomber Jacket, I feel like putting on a pair of aviators and going out for a few rounds with some buddies with the Righteous Brothers playing on the jukebox ( [link] ). "So, a couple of Commanders walk into a bar..."

The Phaser Rifle, as I've mentioned before, is a static wooden prop with no lights or sounds. It is based directly on the design of the "Wrath of Khan" Atalskes Phaser-III/IV pistol and was custom-built to my specifications by Triple-Fiction Productions.