Louise Page and my Tennant Coat

As you will have seen, costume designer Louise Page recently visited me again this week so that we could do a proper on-camera interview for my blogs.

While she was with me she got the opportunity to see one of my latest Tennant Coats.

She was most impressed with my work and my attention to detail. The back of the coat, with its complex darts, box pleat and buttoned vent particularly caught her eye.

But she was most taken with the custom lining I had specially woven last year.



She explained how the original had come from the stock room of Angels, and there was only just enough for the prototype (which was displayed at Earl’s Court) and three screen-used coats (one of which is at Olympia, prior to its move to a permanent home in Cardiff Bay).

We had the chance to compare mine with her sample of the original and it was a pretty good match.

I hadn’t had the benefit of access to her swatch, so I did the best I could, which had proved to be very good all things considered.

Watch out very soon on the Tennant Suit Blog, as well as on here, for some choice sound bites from Louise as she talks exclusively about creating the iconic look for the Tenth Doctor, including a tie-by-tie back-story.

EXCLUSIVE COMPETITION: Ask Louise

Today I’m launching a very special competition.

Do you have a question about the costumes of the David Tennant era you’ve always wanted answered?
Well now’s your chance.

You may have read that just before Christmas I had the enormous privilege of meeting costume designer Louise Page.

We had two meetings and I had the chance to chat costumes with her for over five hours!

Earlier today she returned to do a formal interview, which I will be serialising over the coming weeks.

I had lots of questions, but it struck me that I’m sure there are other fans who have more interesting questions to ask.

So I put the idea to Louise, who has agreed to answer twenty questions submitted by my readers, to be put to her during a planned interview this summer.
This gives you plenty of time to think over what you want to ask and submit your question.

I will be shortlisting the best questions, and although can’t guarantee to use them all, I will do my best to put as many as possible.

I will be attending Gallifrey One later this month, as well as both days of the Official Convention in March, so as well as email me you can submit your question in person, if you can catch me!

To submit your question, please email me at tennantcoat@me.com

Please limit your questions to the David Tennant era; be as concise as you can; and above all try and think of something that’s never been asked before.

Making Mini 10th Doctor

Over the three or so years I have been writing my blogs and sharing my experiences making my costumes, I have from time to time received messages from readers who have been inspired to pick up a needle and thread and sew for themselves.
Some have followed the instructions I have written; others have simply been incentivised to start a pipe-dream project they had been putting off.

Well this week I had an email from a reader showing me their Matt Smith and David Tennant creations made for their 4 year old son, telling me it was all down to my blog!


I was amazed. These little costumes are very well observed, executed and fit real well (with a little growing room).


I had to find out more. After a couple of emails I now have the background story to the costumes, so for the first time I’m gonna hand over my blog to one of my reader to tell you more.

This was my first attempt at making clothing of any kind. For many years I had been making soft furnishings for my own home and various other crafty projects, but a small boy with a Doctor Who obsession dictated that I should give costume making a go.

Following my 11th Doctor jacket and a visit to The Doctor Who Experience and actually seeing the costumes in the flesh, I got rather obsessed with the idea of making a ‘Tennant coat’.

I had already gathered the suit, shirt and tie from browsing eBay and various charity shops for the closest tie I could to any of the many 10th Doctor ties (please see the amazing section on 10th Doctor ties!) and down-sizing it to fit a 3 year old.

Happy Christmas to all my readers!

Wow - another year has flown past - and what a year it’s been!

Photo by Scott Sebring

It started back in January with a once in a lifetime opportunity when I made the Ultimate Tennant Suit. To have the chance to put into practice the actual way the suit was made was an amazing experience. The timing was perfect, as I had a couple of months before started learning traditional hand-tailoring techniques, which I put to great use in making the suit.

Photo by Scott Sebring

I had to follow the suit, and with three days notice ended up going to Gallifrey One in LA!
There I met up with a number of my online friends and many of my readers who had no idea I was going. I also had the privilege of arranging a group photograph with four of my Tennant Coat clients, which was the highlight of the trip.

By the end of April news broke that THE Series Six Shetland Tweed fabric had been found, as well as the Series Five Donegal.

It was like the Tennant Suit all over again: making an iconic jacket in the exact fabric. I was lucky to find the correct buttons and elbow patches to finish it off.

In August the culmination of many month work came to fruition when I took delivery of  my rewoven Tennant Coat lining. I had been searching for years to find a suitable alternative, but finally took the plunge and commissioned my own recreation of it.

The past few months of the year have been taken up with making a popular new garment in my repertoire - the Green Greatcoat.

I spent a while carefully researching the pattern, fabric and construction until I got it just right.

Then in late November I attended Chicago TARDIS, where I entered the masquerade competition wearing a test version of the Colin Baker Six Frock Coat. I won Best In Show: Workmanship for my tailoring – for which I am very proud.

This was one of three coats I had made, the other two were for the wedding of some close friends which is due to take place just before Christmas.

Looking back it has been an exciting year, with more projects than I could have thought to have taken on.

And as the year comes to a close, an even more exciting development is breaking.

More on that in the New Year, but trust me, it’s gonna be worth the wait . . .

The BIG Bang!

I got some sad news this week.

My friend in Canada – he of the Tennant Coat I made him; home-made TARDIS; and that photoshoot – told me his said TARDIS had fallen on hard times.

I mean, REAL hard times.

Shockingly bad hard times.

He had not been able to store it properly since moving house earlier this year, so it had to be stored flat-pack style in a pile outdoors at a friend’s house.

Over the months it got an infestation of bugs, which ate their way through the structure, from the inside!

Like the painting in The Pandorica Opens, his TARDIS has completely fallen apart.

Carry On Doctor!

Well, my coats are starting to get seen places!

My friend in Canada, Justin Monk, was recently approached to be part of an unusual photo-shoot for a new website. Called Nerd Girl Pinups, it certain does what it says on the tin!

To kick off there’s some nice shots of Justin in full Ten outfit, posing by his home-made TARDIS!

Some great coat action going on there!

Then up pops our Nerd Girl Pin up!
Or is it Rose ...?






And - well!

Things seem to start to get a little - how shall I say - steamy?

And I had Justin down as a happily married man!

Lining regeneration

Early last year I totally revamped the Tennant Coats I had been making by changing pretty much all of the materials I was using.

Originally I was using Malabar in walnut (see below, top left); a plain navy blue satin lining (see below, top right); a standard orange silk for the pocket welts (see below, bottom left); and a run of the mill one inch faux horn button (see below, bottom right).

The revisions I made were to improve the colour of Malabar I used to Teak, which is much more screen accurate (see below, top left); I sourced a self-striped navy lining (see below, top right);  found the exact orange silk that had been used for the real coats (see below, bottom left); and discovered a supplier for more accurate buttons in the right size and design (see below, bottom right).

But as ever I am always striving to get things better, and I recently had a bit of a unexpected push which has improved things even further.

Turning the collar

You may know that I have been attending College in Hemel over the past year or so, and have been learning many new skills and techniques.

This past term was devoted to hand tailoring used in jacket and coat construction – just the sort of thing I have been keen to expand my knowledge of.

I have been putting these skills into practice, and in the past couple of weeks I have applied this to a Tennant Coat I have been working on.

I have used a very stiff, coarse canvas specially designed to use under collars. I cut it on the bias so it stretches and shape of the collar I am making, and cut it to the net size, without seam allowance (see below, left).

This is pad-stitched to a piece of thick felt that will form the under collar (see below, right).

Notice how just sitting on my workbench, the collar already wants to keep its shape.
The way it is sewn makes the fold sharp and resistant to falling flat. No amount of fusible interfacing can create this effect so efficiently.

Once this is put in place in the coat, the upper collar drapes over this firm support and gives a much better finish and look.

Down to a tee

Forbidden Planet’s relentless release of The Doctor costume t-shirts continues with the upcoming Tenth Doctor (see below).

It represents David Tenannt’s costume as seen in either Smith And Jones, The Sontaran Stratagem, The Poison Sky, The Wedding Of Sarah Jane Smith (from The Sarah Jane Adventures).

It’s an odd choice and you would have thought they would do the brown suit, not the blue, however, it does depict one of the most sought after ties from the Tenannt era.

Customer review - Josianne Morel

Photo by Scott Sebring

Earlier this year I got to meet a number of my clients when I attended the Gallifrey One convention. We had the chance to get together for a unique photo-shoot with five of the Ten Coats I had made!

One of the group, Josianne Morel (see left, seated), is one of my more unusual clients – a woman who cross dresses as Ten.

Here is her review of the coat she commissioned from me.

Photo by Minh Doan

This whole adventure started early this summer when I discovered Doctor Who. At first, I didn’t want to cosplay The Doctor, as I am a woman and that I really don’t have the same body structure as David Tenant, but I soon figured out that I loved the character way too much not give it a go.

So I started to look around for others who had done the outfit before. A few names popped up: Magnoli’s tailoring shop, Baron Boutique, etc. When I started to enquire about the trench coat, one name kept popping up over and over again: Steve Ricks. A lot of fans and costumers were telling me that he was making the best replicas of Tennant’s trench coat out there.

Photo by Minh Doan

A convention, but not as we know it

This is gonna be an interesting entry to write.

You got to remember I am a UK based fan of a British show, but the majority of my readers reside in the US. Nonetheless, I write with a UK perspective and UK terminology (they are TROUSERS, not pants; it ’s a COAT, not a jacket!). So what follows is a British view of how the US handles my precious series.

I am not actually a big convention goer, a least not to the format of events such as Gallifrey. Back in the 1990s I used to run and organise conventions for The Prisoner appreciation society, with Portmeirion (the principle location for the series) as our venue. There was nothing like it. We would watch episodes in the village town hall, and if you glanced out of the window you could see the buildings you were seeing on the screen.

We would all dress up in the colourful costumes from the programme and parade around the village recreating key sequence. The clothes were fairly easy to replicate, and no-one went in for excessive detail – it was the overall look they were going for, and the mass effect was than the eye needed.

It was awesome, and having been spoilt like this for over a decade,  I never really took to the hotel-based events, since they could never compare to a live Portmeiricon event.

So when I started to get into the new Doctor Who I found a thriving community of cosplayers, all showing off their costumes and swapping tips and discoveries they had made. It didn’t occur to me that most of them were in the US. The internet makes the world seem so small!

The first event I went to was a pub screening and after party for Journey’s End. I had not long finished my latest coat a the time (the Mk III), so was keen to show it off with my newly bought Magnoli suit. We arrived a little late just as fifty t-shirted people turned to look at us. I tell you, it was an OK Corral moment! NONE of them were in costume, except for me. It was mid June and hot, and crushed together in a room with fifty other sweaty bodies made for a less than comfortable evening!

I naively thought all the dressing up happened at UK conventions too. Oh dear – emphasis on the naively.

Coat-o-call

One recent fixture of the Gallifrey conventions has been Scott Sebring, who provides a photoshoot service to cosplayers and their costumes.

Photo by Scott Sebring

Where most conventions would make a charge and rush people through, Scott (being a fan himself) takes his time to make sure everyone gets the shot they wanted, and does not charge them a cent for doing so!

GO SCOTT!

Using professional lighting and a decent background, he churns out quality shot after shot, giving a gloss to the efforts of every costume maker.

While at Gallifrey I bumped into a couple of people I had made coats for, and they were proudly wearing them too! They weren’t expecting me to be there and were suitably surprised.

It was an opportunity I could not miss, as when I am asked to make a coat it is done and gone, and two are rarely together at once – this weekend we have FIVE of my coats (including my own).

Scott was dressed in an excellent replica Peter Cushing costume while taking our photos, which was a bit weird, but only added to the atmosphere of the day.

Once we co-ordinated everyone to be at the same place at the same time, we just about squeezed onto the background, and with a bit of nudging up we fitted in frame.

Doctor Who Experience -Tenth Doctor incarnation

This weekend (Sunday 20th February) sees the official opening of the Doctor Who Experience exhibition at London’s Olympia.

Amongst the displays is a definitive collection of costumes worn by The Doctor through his regeneration (see left and right). Some out of necessity are replicas, but many are original and screen-used.

On Thursday I went to the first of the paid previews, following on from a couple of weeks of tester days to iron out teething troubles. While I was there I took a good set of photographs of all the costumes on show.

I have already written a Full Review of the exhibition itself, but here is a more targeted write-up focusing on the items of interest to a Tenth Doctor fan and giving them a more detailed look.

As I don’t run a blog for the Ninth Doctor, I’m including him here - after all, he pass the baton to the Tenth.

I gotta stop doing this to myself!

The busiest week of last year was in late June, when I went to the Bonhams Auction on the 23rd; a Tour Of Cardiff on the 24th; a Tour Of London on the 26th (clashing with the broadcast of The Big Bang); and reviewing the Cloth Ears Six Coat on the 27th.

Well, this week has been the 2011 version – and it’s only February!!!

It all started off on Monday with a sort of downer, as I finally had to ship out the Tennant Suit I had made for Kevin Coppa so he had it in time for Gallifrey.

Tuesday was - well I’ll come back to that later, but the evening was fun. I had the offer of free tickets to the Brit Awards at The O2 (see right).

It was hosted by The Lodger star James Corden.

For those that don’t know, The O2 was built in 1999 as The Millennium Dome and formed the centrepiece of the UK’s year-2000 celebrations. It has since been turned into a concert venue. It featured in the pre-credit scene for the Bond film, The World Is Not Enough.

Thursday was the official opening of the Doctor Who Experience exhibition at Olympia, near Earls Court (ironically where the Brits were held for many years, until this). I had pre-booked tickets for the first entry on the first day, paying a bit extra for a premium package. You can read about that under Doctor Who Experience Preview.

Then there was Friday.
Well this was’t planned - well not prior to Tuesday at any rate, but after waving the suit off on it’s journey to the US, I was just compelled to follow it and see how it all went at Gallifrey. So on Tuesday I had gotten myself a Visa Wavier, return flights, and a room at the LAX Airport Marriott Hotel, so today I flew out, landing at 2pm.

I cleared customs by 3.30pm and went straight to the hotel, checked in and dropped off my bags to then change into my Ten outfit. I was then ready to track down that suit!
I found Kevin in the cosplay room, giving him the shock/surprise of his life – he never expected me to show up!

Come to that – I never expect me to show up!!!

Doctor Who Experience –press article

Had to share this nice little article from yesterday’s London Evening Standard.

I can’t wait to get to along to the preview days next week . . .