Jean Olds, Deck Hand
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Jean Olds, Deck Hand

In this photograph Jean Olds is a mechanic’s orange coveralls portraying characters seen in the 2004 television series Battlestar Galactica. The individuals most commonly associated with this uniform are Chief Galen Tyrol and Callandra "Cally" Tyrol—portrayed respectively by Aaron Douglas and Nicki Clyne. This screen accurate costume was made by Jean’s husband, Eric Olds. The screen costume was based on a commercially available, relatively inexpensive jumpsuit. After the jumpsuit was purchased, the costume design became more difficult as the smallest size available was three sizes too large for Jean. To accommodate Jean’s small stature, Eric disassembled the jumpsuit and then reassembled it with less material in the appropriate areas. The yellow ScotchLite stripes seen on the uniform are correct to the screen version although they don’t feature as much stitching as the screen-used costumes. The grey piping used as trim is made from white ScotchLite tape although Eric later learned that it should instead be made of gray vinyl. All of the other details are scratch made. The dog tags Jean is wearing were cut from brass sheet with a rotary tool while the cuffs, chest, and back details are made from a rubber floor mat found at a hardware store. Eric also made comfortable-to-carry foam tools for this uniform but I thought that real tools would look more authentic to the series and thus I pulled a few of my favorites from my toolbox and added them to her costume.

Jen is an energy efficiency consultant who works with public agencies in implementing energy saving retrofit projects for their facilities. She has been a dancer her entire life and has studied ballet, Latin ballroom dancing, and salsa. She also spent time in Spain studying flamenco dancing and currently dances the argentine tango. To help put her relationship with her husband in perspective, Eric asked Jen to listen to a song that he suggested they play for their grand entrance at their 2013 wedding reception. Jen obliged and agreed that the song was great. It was only later that she discovered that the song Eric suggested was the theme song to the original Battlestar Galactica TV series!