Props and Costume Research

  In order to create a realistic looking trailer, poster and website for a Western, costumes and props must appear to be like those of which people of the era would have worn/used.

    Costumes

  Throughout our research we noted conventional clothing of the time and together found enough for four of the five characters appearing in the trailer. For the fifth character we felt a rough jacket would work well. In order to make the jacket look like it was made by someone of the time one of us purchased material that imitated buffalo hide and created the jacket (evidence shown below) whilst the other purchased a duster coat to improve further the appearance of another character.

  We discovered that traditionally Outlaws would have worn darker clothing to Lawmen or Bounty Hunters.
They were likely to have worn black, either leather or otherwise, with a black hat. They may have worn duster coats or jackets but would usually always wear a bandanna around their neck. or on their face. These were often to signify that the person wearing them belonged to a certain gang. Their shoes would have most likely been either brown or black leather. One of the reasons for this, was to protect their feet from the harsh wilderness and the creatures within it.

 On the left is a shot from 3:10 to Yuma, showing the clothing of the outlaw and the "hero". On the right is simply a diagram of typical Western wear.

We can see that the jacket of the "good guy" is of a light colour, whereas the jacket of a "bad guy" is a darker colour. This black-and-white depiction of good and evil is often found in Westerns. 

Props

The main props in Westerns are the firearms which the characters most certainly use. We know that, in this time setting, guns as we know them today had only recently been developed; the revolver was patented by John Colt in 1836, and the Winchester rifle, a firearm symbolic of Westerns, was invented in 1873.

No matter how historically accurate a Western is, revolvers are always used by characters, as modern pistols were simply not invented; at least not until 1911, generally regarded as "the end" of the "Wild West" period.

In this clear example from Unforgiven, the character on the right holds a revolver which at least appears to be very similar to a typical weapon of that period: a Colt Single Action Army, also known as "Peacemaker".

This was the US Army's official service revolver from 1873 until 1892, placing it firmly in "Western" times.

In 3:10 to Yuma, the character of Ben Wade uses a .45 Peacemaker, with special gold crucifixes. Pictures of the weapon can be found on this website, which is website of the prop maker who created the holster he used for the weapon in the film.



 The character on the left holds a double-barelled shotgun, also common during these times.

The character standing next to the revolver wielder appears to be using a Winchester-type rifle, like these.














Also on the prop-maker's website can be found details of the Bowie knife which one of Ben Wade's gang used in 3:10 to Yuma. It was common for cowboys to carry around a knife for hunting, combat, survival etc.

This shot from Unforgiven also shows a character carrying a a type of knife, confirming it as a convention.