Costume index - appendix

With filming well underway for Series Six, I thought it was time to catch up on a couple of Eleventh Doctor appearances which have happened since the end of Series Five.

Doctor Who BBC Prom

Jacket Harris Tweed in Mackenzie two-by-two dogtooth weave

Shirt Burgundy Paul Smith

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan
NB. These jeans can be quickly identified by the visible metal waistband button at the top of the fly (see left)

Boots All Saints Layer boots

Doctor Who Live

Jacket Harris Tweed in Mackenzie two-by-two dogtooth weave

Shirt Burgundy Paul Smith

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan

Boots All Saints Layer boots

Death Of The Doctor
(The Sarah Jane Adventures)

Jacket Donegal Tweed

Shirt Pale Blue contrast dress shirt from TopMan

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan

Boots All Saints Layer boots

Series Five costume index

A while back over on my Third Doctor Blog I ran a series of features about Jon Pertwee’s costume changes during his run as The Doctor.
I wrote it because I was curious to work out the transition from his first year when he wore the same clothes all season, through to his last where he rarely wore the same thing twice!

Matt  Smith’s costume appeared at the outset to be a fairly fixed affair, but as the series has progressed a number of subtle variants have emerged. What follows is an attempt to document these in one place.

All of the images below have been grabbed from the HD transmissions. Click on them to view in full resolution.

The Eleventh Hour

Jacket Donegal Tweed

NB: There is a minor continuity error in the closing scene, where a close-up shows The Doctor wearing the Harris Tweed jacket (see right) which does not appear for two episodes.

Shirt Burgundy Paul Smith

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan
NB. These jeans can be quickly identified by the visible metal waistband button at the top of the fly (see below).

Boots All Saints Layer boots

The Beast Below

Jacket Donegal Tweed

Shirt Burgundy Paul Smith

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan

Boots All Saints Layer boots 

Victory Of The Daleks

Jacket Harris Tweed in Mackenzie two-by-two dogtooth weave

Shirt Blue Paul Smith

Trousers Plain charcoal skinny jeans
NB. These jeans can be distinguished from the dogtooth jeans by their clean closure at the waistband with no visible button (see right).


Boots Unidentified brown boots

The Time Of Angels
Flesh & Stone

Jacket Harris Tweed in Mackenzie two-by-two dogtooth weave

Shirt Burgundy Paul Smith
NB. The cuffs have two buttons (so it is not the French Cuff Shirt I featured last month - sorry Ryan), but Matt wears the shirt with only one of these buttons done up (see below, bottom left)

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan
NB. These jeans can be quickly identified by the visible metal waistband button at the top of the fly (see above, top left).

Boots All Saints Layer boots

Vampires Of Venice

Jacket Donagal Tweed

Shirt Blue Paul Smith
NB. The matching blue bow tie has an interesting woven knot (see above, top right)

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan
NB. Note the visible metal waistband button at the top of the fly (see above, top & bottom left).

Boots All Saints Layer boots

Amy’s Choice

Upper Ledworth scenes

Jacket Donagal Tweed

Shirt Blue Paul Smith
NB. The blue bow tie Matt wears, as well as being narrower than the burgundy one, appears to have a faint woven pattern in it (see above, bottom right). Bow ties are cool!

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan
NB. These jeans can be quickly identified by the visible metal waistband button at the top of the fly (see above, top left).

Boots All Saints Layer boots

TARDIS scenes


Jacket Donagal Tweed

Shirt Burgundy Paul Smith

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan

Boots All Saints Layer boots

The Hungry Earth & Cold Blood

Jacket Donagal Tweed

Shirt Burgundy Paul Smith

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan
NB. These jeans can be quickly identified by the visible metal waistband button at the top of the fly (see above, top left and bottom right).

Boots All Saints Layer boots

Vincent And The Doctor

Jacket Donagal Tweed

Shirt Navy Paul Smith

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan

Boots All Saints Layer boots

The Lodger

Jacket Donagal Tweed

Shirt Navy Paul Smith

Trousers Dark grey skinny jeans from Top Man

Boots All Saints Layer boots

NB. This episode has probably the best close-up of The Doctor’s watch (see right).

The Pandorica Opens

Jacket Donagal Tweed

Shirt Burgundy Paul Smith

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan

Boots All Saints Layer boots

The Big Bang

Jacket Donagal Tweed

Shirt Burgundy Paul Smith

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan

Boots All Saints Layer boots

If you spot a variant I have missed, please drop me a line at tennantcoat@me.com so I can amend my information.

Trousers - TopMan

Now the trousers, at the time of their discovery back in late July 2009, were the easiest garment to find and obtain – and cheap into the bargain.

Someone spotted that they were a simple Houndstooth Skinny Jean from TopMan, and they were widely available for £35 at most branches across the UK. The only minor problem was finding a pair to fit.

Most branches stocked the slimmer waist sizes, to target the younger, waif-like shoppers. After trying a couple of stores – and feeling suitably old and out of touch – I retreated back to the safety of a cup of tea and internet shopping to find the trousers fully in stock on the TopMan website, right up to waist 36.
The purchase was painless and within a week I had my pair of trousers – and they fitted!

Result.

Since then, the style has been discontinued (as is becoming the routine with all the elements of Matt Smith’s costume it seems) and stocks rapidly ran out. I did just manage to grab a second pair online before supplies were totally depleted, and at half-price in their autumn sale, so a double result!
Since then they have been totally sold out and are unobtainable.

So my trousers are sorted.
That was easy.

Then amazingly there was a second dip at getting a pair of matching screen-worn trousers.

Some photos emerged of the filming for the last few episodes to go before the cameras.
This time Matt could clearly be seen wearing trousers that were not a houndstooth pattern.

Had he changed his trousers? Well, yes, apparently he had!

The forums kicked in again and within a few hours it was spotted that they were again a pair of TopMan skinny jeans, but this time a grey plain colour.

Again these were reasonably priced and available in all sizes. No point going to high street branches (after last time) so I opted for the online purchase as before.
Dispatch was equally quick and another costume element is acquired and bites the dust!

At the time or writing they are still on the TopMan website, but a slowly depleting range of sizes are on offer.

Grab them while you can guys!!!

The Beginning Of Time

Today seemed like the best day to start this new blog – the first day we all saw Matt Smith in Doctor Who for the very first time.

I should quickly point out that this is actually a blog I had no intention of starting or writing! I didn’t feel there was much to contribute to the Eleventh Doctor Costume front, but a series of happenstance came together like a celestial alignment and for me the number of pieces that fell into place made what I am about to do become inevitable!

Blimey, that sounds ominous!

Anyway, as soon as the first image of Matt Smith in costume was revealed in BBC Breakfast on 20th July 2009 (see right), I quickly realized it was a costume that took very little to replicate. With it principally being made up of off-the-peg clothing, there were few bespoke, custom-made items to create.

However, no sooner had it appeared, then the chase was afoot to find exactly what those items actually were.
The online costuming forums, when they work, work well! So it wasn’t long before the key items of the costume were identified.

The boots – All Saints

The Shirt – Paul Smith PS

The Trousers – TopMan

All of these items had been gleaned from the then current collections for those retailers, and it quickly became apparent that their time was rapidly passing and they were quickly becoming end-of-line items and hard to track down.

I’ll cover my obtaining of the boots and trousers in a future entry, but for now its the shirt that interests me.

The shirt was part of the Summer 09 Paul Smith PS collection (see left), and I managed to grab mine through a online site called John Anthony.
I usually take a L in shirts, so ordered that, only to get a phone call telling me they had sold out. They did, however, have the XL, so I switched to that instead.
Just as well, cos when it arrived it was a snug fit!

Once various people started getting their hands on the shirts, they soon spotted three minor subtle differences.

Breast pocket – The Paul Smith shirt has a breast pocket, which is not present on the Matt Smith shirt.

Cuffs – The Matt Smith shirt has a couple of bold burgundy stripes around the cuffs, which are not on the Paul Smith shirt.

Button stand – The Paul Smith shirt has a flap, concealing the buttons from view when it is worn, but on the Matt Smith shirt they are clearly visible.

My opinion is that these modifications were made to differentiate the Matt Smith shirt from the Paul Smith original.

Well, now the Sonic Screwdriver has been handed over to Matt Smith, the Paul Smith shirts are impossible to find and are becoming as rare as hen’s teeth.

What I need to do now is perform the same modifications to my shirt, in the same way the costume department did to theirs.

Check back soon to see how I get on . . .