Creating ANOVOS' New TNG Shore Leave Collection

“If you'd earned that uniform you're wearing, you'd know that the unknown is what brings us out here.” - Captain Picard to Q in the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Encounter at Farpoint”

Hi. I’m John Cooley with ANOVOS, and we've been preparing for the 30th anniversary ofStar Trek: The Next Generation.

Just like last year’s Star Trek: The Original Series Retro Shirt, we wanted to do something fun and unexpected to celebrate TNG — and, in doing so, we have created an entirely new line of uniform-inspired clothing that we have dubbed the “Shore Leave Collection.”

Amazing, and fun, those early uniforms (jumpsuits and skants both) are firmly rooted in an exciting time when Star Trek was returning to the small screen for the first time.

Which is why when we first thought about doing something fun for TNG's anniversary we wanted to throw ourselves back to a time when everything connected to that show was new and exciting. So, we thought, “OK, what would a shirt like this have looked like as a new product in 1987? What would a designer have done then?”

There’s more detail in those first season uniforms than most remember. We had to make decisions about just which shade to use of each of the three (Command Red, Ops Gold, Sciences Teal) department colors, how to get the shoulder piping to look right, and even working out how a clothing manufacturer would have handled the communicator/insignia in the 80s.So, we went to work designing just what these shirts would have looked like in 1987. We used a micro spandex for the department color sections of the shirt recalling the spandex of the original uniforms while employing the same comfortable fabric we used for our TOS

shirts for the black areas. We even constructed the distinctive shape of the shoulder piping in precisely the same way it was done on the original uniforms while ensuring that they were easy to pull over by using the soft, rib-knit material for the collar that we use for every shirt in this collection.That left us with only the communicator badge to figure out. Undoubtedly, the communicator would have become a patch, but it had to look like a real communicator, so we chose to use a radial stitch pattern to give the oval a three-dimensional look, while replicating the Starfleet Delta in a flat, reflective material that allows it to look like it was made out of the same resin material that the original badges were made from. The effect is awesome, and from a few feet back actually looks like the shirt has a real communicator attached to it.By now you might be asking yourself why we would go to such lengths to “recreate” a product from 1987 that never existed, to begin with. The answer is because it was fun to do. We wanted to feel some of the excitement someone must have felt to make something for a show no one had seen yet. We also wanted to do it because we love the show and because the 30th anniversary of TNG gives us an opportunity to go back to a time when we couldn’t wait to discover what Star Trek would be in the future.

Our TNG “Shore Leave Collection” tunics will cost $50.00 apiece and will be available in all three department colors, and in sizes ranging from Small to 2XL.

Visit www.anovos.com to reserve your shirt.

ANOVOS will also have a limited number of the Command Red Shirt available at their booth at Star Trek Las Vegas, and we hope to meet you there.