Making My Tennant Coat

Louise Page and my Tennant Coat

2012-02-05T08:47:00.000Z

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

2012-02-03T20:42:00.000Z

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

2012-01-18T16:08:00.001Z

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.

I searched and got samples of various suedette, faux suede and moleskin fabrics, and many were close but none quite the right colour. I then randomly found a men’s jacket in a charity shop which was close but still slightly pale, but it would have to do.

I started off much the same as the 11th Doctor jacket unpicking and cutting down to my sons measurements, sticking to the shape of each piece as closely as I could, removing and saving any padding to cut down and re-use.

I also reused the collar and pressed it to the correct length This time I wanted to make sure it hung well and wanted the darts and vent in the back, as the detail is so important and also so when my son ran it flared out behind just like the real Doctor.

With no experience to help me out, I fiddled for hours until it looked just right, padding re-attached and sleeves sewn in, it really started to look like a mini Tennant coat! I then colour washed it with dark brown dye to take the pale colour down a shade. Measuring the completed coat , I made a reverse coat out of the midnight satin lining, once stitched in place, checked for any twisting then hand sewed it in with fingers crossed that it would look as good as I hoped.

Pocket flaps added, buttons stitched on (which I sourced from a haberdashery) I sewed strips of orange ribbon in, to represent the tangerine satin inner pockets and it was complete!
As you can see my son delighted in trying it out with the all important ‘running’ of the Doctor. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge the only part I was slightly annoyed about was the removal of original pockets that spoilt the fall of the coat when hung, but once on and off and running it looks great.

Jamie will love being on the internet :) he is an actor in the making and totally gets into the character of which ever Doctor he is dressed as at the time!

Happy Christmas to all my readers!

2011-12-19T22:08:00.000Z

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!

2011-11-13T17:31:00.001Z

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.

So sadly it is no more, and that photoshoot was probably the last time it was seen in all its original glory.

Farewell trusty TARDIS . . . . you severed your master well.

Carry On Doctor!

2011-10-29T18:40:00.001+01:00

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!

She seems to find The Doctor, well, tasty!

Pass the salt!

Now, it’s when the inflatable Dalek comes out that things get a bit more fun!

Wait a minute - isn’t that The Doctor’s sonic she’s got her hands on there?
It’s got at least three settings, I’m sure . . .

Where’s The Doctor’s coat gone?

Oh, there it is!

I say, that’s an awfully big gun she’s got there.

She seems very please to see The Doctor.

You can read the background to the photoshoot in the dw_cosplay forum.

The full album of pictures can be seen over on Nerd Girl Pinups, along with a whole host of other young ladies for your cosplay-inspired entertainment.

Lining regeneration

2011-08-12T17:02:00.001+01:00

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.

The self-striped lining I had been using came from B Blacks in Los Angeles. They imported it from Italy, so although it went round the houses a bit, it was by far the closest available. The price was pretty keen, but with shipping and import duties made it no more or less expensive than the plain lining I had been using, so it was worth the effort of ordering.

Anyway, earlier this year I was running low so placed another large order, only to me told the fabric had been discontinued and would never be restocked. I was gutted!

There was no way I could now go back to a plain lining now, so I look around for an alternative supplier.

Nothing was looking remotely similar or suitable, so I decided that drastic action was needed: the only thing I could do was get the fabric rewoven! And since I was going to take it that far, I may as well get the fabric spot on and match the SCREEN-USED lining as close as I could get it.

To cut a long story short I found a mill in China who were willing to handle the job, and do me a short run quantity, which made the exercise financially viable.

After many weeks of emailing back and forth, exchanging information and negotiating the price and terms the weaving started last month.

It took a few weeks for the job to be completed and the fabric to by dyed to the correct shade, and after traversing customs the roll of fabric finally arrived this week (see right).

And it has come out FANTASTIC!

Here is a nice photo, showing off how it has turned out.

Finally I thought I’d do a side-by-side comparison between a shot I took of an original coat at the Earl’s Court exhibition, and a coat I am currently working on. Looking good!

Turning the collar

2011-08-01T20:20:00.002+01:00

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.

Below are some comparison pictures with an older design of coat I made previously.

Here you can see the under collar area, and how the older collar (see left, top) sometimes creased, which was not desirable.

Now it is so much firmer, giving good support to the collar (see left, bottom).

You can see how this improves the shape around the back of the neck in the pictures below.

The hand-tailored collar (see below, right) stands a lot more upright, keeping its intended shape compared to the older design (see below, left) which sags.

Finally, you can see the new collar looks very neat on the visible side (see below, left) as well as underneath (see below, right).

I am very excited by how well this has come out, and will definitely be using this method again in future.

Down to a tee

2011-06-07T10:19:00.000+01:00

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.

Also released at the same time will be the Third Doctor’s costume shirt, with Jon Pertwee’s costume from Frontier In Space (see right).

So far Forbidden Planet have issued Four, Five, Six and Seven, and now they have added Three and Ten, the collection is starting to come together!

Customer review - Josianne Morel

2011-04-10T19:59:00.000+01:00

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

By then, I wanted to make the best possible replica of the outfit as I possibly could. I wasn’t certain if I wanted to buy the suit or make it. The choice was pretty much taken from me when Magnoli’s Tailoring shop told me they would not make me a suit because I was a woman. So, I decided to buy their fabric and give it a go myself. But, I didn’t want to tackle the coat. So, I went and took a look at Steven’s web site and was impressed with it, so I promptly sent him an email inquiring as to how I could order a coat from him since I knew the suit would give me a handful. The first thing that amazed me was his customer’s service. He answered me within the hour. And that speed continued through out the whole process.

Photo by Minh Doan

He first sent me fabric and lining samples. I was impressed with the presentation. I settle on the most accurate fabric and lining, the brown Malabar and stripped lining.

Photo by Minh Doan

It needs to be said that I have been more or less looking for a unique trench coat for the better part of 12 years. Nothing seemed to catch my eyes in the stores, and if I found one that I really like, it was not fitted for me at all. So when I received my Timelord Trench coat, I was overjoyed. The first things I notice were the fit and the weight of the coat. The fit was very nearly perfect and the coat had a very nice weight to it. At first I though the waist line was ½ inch to low, but I decided that it wasn’t all that bad since I would wear it most of the time open and I closed it, it fell at the right place. The length was perfect for me, ankle length. Then, I started to look at the workmanship. I was awed at his skills. My gut feeling had been right; he had been the right guy for the job. All the money and all the waiting time had been more then worth it. This was the trench coat I had been looking for all of these years! And the fact that I am a woman didn’t bother him at all. He adjusted his pattern to fit my figure.

Photo by Minh Doan

I have not had my coat for long, but it is now my new everyday coat. To my surprise, it is quite warm too. I could wear it most of winter time with a wool shirt underneath.

I would not hesitate to recommend Steve to anyone, man or woman. His communication is excellent and his workmanship is second to none. Even if the price is steep, the quality of his work is more then worth the price. The coat you will get is the coat M. David Tennant wore as the Doctor, period.

Photo by Minh Doan

Action photos by Minh Doan © 2010

A convention, but not as we know it

2011-02-23T15:03:00.001Z

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.

Anyway, fast forward to Time Quest in March 2010, and Bob Mitsch came over, with appropriate costumes for every doctor attending the weekend. I took his lead and went as Ten. There was a core dozen or so other cosplayers, but again the vast majority were in casual t-shirts and jeans. At least this time around I had a few friends to mingle with and not feel too out of place.

I was starting to get the message that cosplay was not as big as I thought it was in the UK!

So coming bang up to date, I could see some stark differences between UK and US events, the main one being cosplay!
The Americans go mad for it!

I felt that at least 50% of attendees in one form or another dressed up – and many of those had costume changes for the afternoon, evening, next day . . . .

At last I felt at home – but was 8,000 away!
And I was made very much at home at that. I met a lot of friends I know through the forums, as well as many who knew me. To say I was warmly received is an understatement, and I left feeling part of a much bigger family than when I arrived.

Another thing I discovered was the ribbons. If you’re in the US you will know; if you’re in the UK you’ll probably be in the dark as I was.
I had been chatting to some friends, and a mutual friend of theirs had joined us. Before moving on to chat to someone else he pulled out a short length of wide ribbon and handed it to me. I didn’t quite know what to do. I didn’t have any cash to hand. He asked if I had one to exchange. No – I didn’t have a clue.

The ribbon had a gold-foiled message.

Apparently, you exchange these ribbons like calling cards and they have a peal-off sticky strip at the top allowing you to attach them to the underside of your identity pass. Additional ribbons are added below the previous, making a long trailing strip.
They had all be bought from here, MarcoPromitionalProducts.

As the weekend progressed I saw people walking around with twenty or thirty such ribbons attached, others with just a few.

From what I gather the ball had really gotten rolling on this at a previous convention when Tommy Knight attended (see left) and collected enough of these ribbons to make himself what has been described as a kilt, which he wore!

Following his lead everyone got into it big time, and this year it’s bigger than ever!

And it’s possible to collect a LOT or ribbons, cos this convention was well attended. Where in the UK you may get 200, 300, maybe 400 people at a good event, there was in excess of 2,000 people here.

Now, I know America is a bigger place – goes without saying – but it is after all a little olde series from the UK which doesn’t really draw audiences comparable with Desperate Housewives or Mad Men in the US (the broadcast of A Christmas Carol drew 727,000 viewers on BBC America compared with 10.3 million in the UK).

When it comes to conventions, they don’t do things by halves in America!

Coat-o-call

2011-02-20T20:51:00.002Z

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.

We did three poses:

First we all lined up, trying to keep everyone in frame.
Personally I like the tighter cropped ones towards the end (see below).

All photos by Scott Sebring

Left to right, Kevin Coppa; Steven Ricks; Josianne Morel; Daniel Pawlik; and Ramie Tateishi.

All photos by Scott Sebring

We then reformed with Josianne seated, Ramie resting on the back of her chair; Daniel leaving on his shoulder, holding a screen-accurate water pistol; I had my hand on Josianne’s shoulder; and Kevin was engrossed in a Time Lord pocket watch (see left).

All photos by Scott Sebring

Finally we did a pose to my own suggestion.
I quite like taking a little inspiration from period photographs from Doctor Who, the quirky ones with a bit of thought behind them.

I did a similar thing on Hound Tor, when I based a photo-shoot on an original pose of Sarah Jane from The Time Warrior!

This time round I am inspired by a photo from 1975 of Terry Nation with Tom Baker (see left). As I was the maker of all these coat, I am standing over them – puppet master style!

All photos by Scott Sebring

By the end we had some wonderful shots, and I’d like to personally thank Kevin, Josianne, Daniel and Ramie for putting up with endless posing.

Above all I would especially want to thank Scott Sebring for being a fantastic, patient and understanding photographer!

Here are my personal favourites from the shoot.

Photo by Scott Sebring

Doctor Who Experience -Tenth Doctor incarnation

2011-02-19T14:00:00.005Z

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.

CHRISTOPHER ECCESLTON

Although he never appear on the FRONT cover of the Radio Times, he did appear inside a clever barn-door cover, opening the TARDIS to reveal The Doctor and Rose beyond. The cover display does not represent this, though the cover is there, alongside the one for Dalek, which coincided with.

A UK general election. This latter cover was the most popular Radio Times cover of all time. Now there’s a claim!

I am told the Ninth Doctor’s costume at Cardiff was a replica, but I’m not sure of the authenticity of the one on display here. It certainly looks very good, matching the earlier more worn jacket used in the 2005 season.

Moving past the the Doctor’s costumes, the Ninth and Tenth Doctor’s sonic (abet the melted one from Eleventh Hour) can be seen in the props display cases (see right).

But then we do have the real treat of seeing the original console room introduced in the Ecceslton era (see below).

Since the Ninth Doctor never encountered the Cybermen, it’s the Dalek display that provides some contact here, with a bronze version (see left).

Opposite is the Emperor of the Daleks, and further in to the exhibition, a Slitheen looms over you; and from The Empty Child, the gas mask clad Doctor Constantine and Jamie (see below, left); plus a couple of Autons from Rose (see below, right).

You also get to see The Face of Bo, who has been a long standing addition to the exhibitions since 2006 (see right).

DAVID TENNANT

I find it a little sad that the Tennant star is starting to be out-shone :(

The first exhibition (Brighton in 2005) was naturally all Ninth Doctor.
Later exhibitions quickly gave way to a 80/20 split in favour of the Tenth Doctor, and at the last incarnations of the exhibitions you’d struggle to find anything other than Tennant era costumes.
So now we re in the Matt Smith era his dominance is rapidly taking over, with almost every of his 14 episodes to date significantly represented.

That said, the legacy of Radio Times covers doesn’t go unrecognised, with all twenty on show!

When it came to looking at the display for the Tenth Doctor’s costume, I was really pleasantly surprised. There’s a true treat in store for the Tennant aficionados!

As far as I am aware (someone correct me if I am wrong) all previous displays of The Doctor’s outfit have always included one of his blue suits. I know of at least two if not three different versions of these suits used for the exhibitions.

Here we have, for the first time, one of the brown suits made from the GAP trouser fabric.
Having recently worked intimately with the material I can vouch for it, and tell that it is quite faded and worn, which was I gather one of the ongoing problems with the fabric (hence the introduction of the blue alternative).

The tie here is Tie Two from my Tie Index (the Daniel Hechter label).

The coat, for the first time, is a screen-used coat, and not the prototype from the Earl’s Court exhibition. IT does not have the seam 9 inches from the hem where Phil Collinson hacked the length down before realizing it did need to be looong!

Past the costume displays you do get to see a stunning recreation of Tennant’s console room, which looks ever impressive despite the enormity of the new Matt Smith version.

The display of time Lord robes and costumes is firmly in the Tennant era, with Rassilon’s Presidential robes (see left); Derek Jacobi’s costume as Prof Yana prior to regenerating into John Simms (see below); and in the middle a classic Time Lords robe and collar. the latter is with the original Gallifrean seals of the classic series, rather than the reimagined ones from the recent appearances.

In the companions display every single associate of the tenth Doctor is represented.
From a pristine K-9; to Sarah Jane’s reporter cloths from School Reunion; Rose, Martha, Donna, Capain Jack and even Astrid make an appearance (see below).

The entrance to the Monster Zone is flanked by two new series Cybermen (see right), and past the Cyber head displays, Davros leads the line of heritage Daleks (see below).

The Sontaran Line-up is rounded off with General Staal from The Sontaran Stratagem.

Elsewhere, a Pig Man from Daleks In Manhattan; The Sisters of Plenitude’s Novice Hame costumes from both New Earth and Gridlock; ; a scarecrow from Family Of Blood; two Hath from The Doctor’s Daughter; and a Heavenly Hot from Voyage Of The Danmed all remind us of the fantastic legacy the Tenth Doctor’s era has left (see below).

Finally, there is a very impressive display showing how Millennium FX produce some of the amazing full head masks seen in the series.
It shows every stage of making an Ood, from clay sculpture (see below, left) right through moulding; silicone and painting; to a full Ood costume (see below, right).

You can read each of my other Doctor-specific reviews in appropriate blogs by clicking the links below.

First Incarnation
Second Incarnation
Third Incarnation
Fourth Incarnation
Fifth Incarnation
Sixth Incarnation
Seventh Incarnation
Eighth Incarnation

I gotta stop doing this to myself!

2011-02-19T03:53:00.001Z

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

2011-02-16T17:53:00.007Z

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 . . .

Tenth Doctor costume transition

2011-01-16T12:56:00.001Z

If you have been following my blogs you may have seen the coverage I have done of the costume transition scenes at the beginning of a new Doctor’s era.

When William Hartnell became Patrick Troughton, it wasn’t just his face that changed – his costume miraculously regenerated at the same time (see right).

Later, when Jon Pertwee took over, his new clothes were more realistically introduced by having The Doctor lift them from the changing room of the hospital where he is taken at the start of Spearhead From Space.

But it was Tom Baker’s transition scene that was the first to make some play on the anticipation of what The Doctor would be wearing.

Looking through the list of regenerations, I have realised there seems to be two dominant scenarios for these scenes:

The Hospital Changing Room scenario

The Third Doctor steals the clothes of a hospital consultant before stealing his car as well; after the Eighth Doctor emerges from the morgue, he takes the clothes of a surgeon, who is going to a fancy dress party; the latest regeneration sees the Eleventh Doctor lifting a the parts of his costume from the hospital locker room as he strides through.

The TARDIS Dressing-up Room scenario
Although we don’t see the dressing-up room, the Fourth Doctor keep popping out of the TARDIS dressed in unsuitable costumes; the Fifth Doctor finds his new clothes in the TARDIS, almost as if he was supposed to; the Sixth Doctor is the first to be seen in the dressing-up room to choose his new clothes; followed by the Seventh Doctor who goes through a similar selection.

We never saw a transition scene for Christopher Eccelston, so it wasn’t until David Tennant took over did we finally get a New Series spin on this classic key scene.

This fell firmly under the TARDIS Dressing-up Room Scenario, with a fantastically re-imagined dressing-up room, courtesy of The Mill’s special effects gurus!

To start with we see The Doctor scanning racks and racks of clothes, pausing over a red military tunic (see left) before settling on his brown pinstripe suit and stunning long brown coat (sorry, you know how I LOVE that coat!) (see below).

Of note here is a Tom Baker scarf on the right of the picture, which apparently is owned by then producer Phil Collinson – knitted by his mother!

Sadly though, apart from the scarf, there is nothing relating to previous regenerations here, which is a little disappointing.

Anyway, now he’s fully kitted out in his new clothes, do we finally get to see the full extent of the new Dressing-up room! (see below)

But it is THIS shot that houses what we have been looking for . . .
The area to look at first is to the right of centre. This is where the CGI takes over – and the costume spotters can have a field-day!

I have been reliably informed by the effects artist who did the shot that you can see the following, from left to right:

Jon Pertwee’s Inverness Cape from Terror of the Autons

A large brass/gold lamp stand seen in the console room from various Hartnell and Troughton stories including Power Of the Daleks (see right, top)

The Sixth Doctor’s coat in the shadows behind the pillar

Steven Taylors striped jumper as worn in The Celestial Toymaker (see right, middle)

The mirror that the Fifth Doctor viewed his new costume in from Castrovalva (see right, bottom)

In front of all this there is also:

A chest, again seen in the console room from Power of the Daleks, and in front, Second Doctor’s tall hat (see right again, top)

In the silver bucket:

Fifth Doctor’s hat . . . (see right again, bottom)

. . . on the end of the Sixth Doctor’s umbrella, which was used in The Two Doctors (see left, top) (and used again to fend off the Rani in Time And The Rani) . . .

. . . next to Seventh Doctor’s umbrella (see left, middle top) – if you look at the top right corner of Davison’s hat you can see the question mark is facing backwards

To the right of this on the floor is the First Doctor’s hat from Reign of Terror with the big white feather (see left, middle bottom)

And leaning against the right hand side of the mirror is the First Doctor’s twisted walking cane, used in a number of stories including The Aztecs (see left, bottom)

But amazingly that not all.
If you look to the lower level you can also see:

On the spiral stairs is the Fourth Doctor’s hat (brown version)

And hanging up is a Thal cloak from The Daleks (see right)

I am also told there are other bits hidden amongst the the generic stuff, but such that they cannot be recognise, but this did include a kilt to represent Jamie and one of the green coats is intended for the Eighth Doctor.

I never knew that SO much had gone into this blink-and-you-miss-it shot, but I guess this sort of stuff is there for the fans – and the DVD pause button!

You can read my reviews of the other
Costume Transition scenes below:
Fourth Doctor Transition
Fifth Doctor Transition
Sixth Doctor Transition
Seventh Doctor Transition

Merry Christmas to all my readers!

2010-12-17T21:45:00.000Z

I can’t believe a year has flown by since I last wished everyone a Happy Christmas.

Looking back though, a lot has happened and I’ve completed or started a number of amazing projects.

From updating my Tennant Coat; making a Five Coat or two; starting a replica Tennant suit jacket using original GAP Trousers; making a couple of Inverness Capes (must get round to writing that up!); as well as some smaller item such as Five Hatbands, Six Cravats and Seven Hankies.
However, I think the most exciting has been starting work on a replica Six Frock Coat, which I am so looking forward to getting done next year.

I hope you’ll join me in the following months as it starts to come together.

New TARDIS in town

2010-10-28T10:59:00.005+01:00

Had to share this little piece of weirdness with you.

On my recent London tours, I have taken friends to see the three surviving Police Boxes and Posts around town: the Box at Earls Court (see left); the Post at Picadilly Circus (see below); and the Post at St Martins Le Grande.

But now there is a new Box in town.....

I'm working down in Victoria this week, at an ad agency (those that know the advert, this is the agency that created the CompareTheMeerkat.com campaign!)

My route to work takes me past the Houses of Parliament, as a prefer to come street level at Westminster rather than Victoria as it makes for a easier journey and a more pleasant walk.
Opposite Big Ben, on Parliament Square, is a long standing protest village of anti gulf war protesters. Their camp has intermittently been cleared and rebuilt in an ongoing legal tussle.

While we’re on the subject of Police Boxes and Posts, you might like to take a glance at my guide to all the surviving Posts in London. There’s more than you might think!

Eleven TARDISES
for Eleven Doctors

The latest ‘incarnation’ of the camp includes a rather amusing piece of wit, with one side of a shelter made onto a PUBLIC STRIKE PEACE BOX!

UPDATE
24th Jan 2011

The PEACE BOX made an appearance in the London Evening Standard today, along side an article highlighting their continued defiance to being moved on

Bonhams valuation days

2010-10-17T13:02:00.001+01:00

Having attended a number of the Bonhams costume and memorabilia sales lately, especially the dedicated Doctor Who sale, I now seem to be on their mailing list!

Don’t get me wrong – this is a good thing, cos at least I’m being kept up to date with future auctions.

This week I received a letter from Stephanie Connell, the head of the Entertainment Memorabilia department. The next major sale will be on 15th December and Bonhams are holding a series of valuation days out of London to drum up some possible sale items.

As an indication of the type of stuff they are looking for, Doctor Who was top of the list, with ‘horror and Sci-Fi related’ mentioned too.

If you have something they might be interested in, and can’t get down to London to have it appraised, this is the perfect opportunity.
The dates are as follows:

Carlisle – Monday 18th October

Glasgow – Tuesday 19th October

Southport – Wednesday 20th October

Leeds – Thursday 21st October

Manchester – Friday 22nd October

Whitstable – Tuesday 26th October

Oxford – Friday 29th October

Henley on Thames – Thursday 4th November

Here’s hoping something of interest comes to light.

On The Red Button

2010-09-08T09:48:00.001+01:00

This week finally saw the broadcast on BBC Three of the Doctor Who Prom.

It brought back some great memories of two really fantastic performances. I was SO pleased I had got along – and to both of them as well!

Just as I arrived for the Saturday performance I was pounced on my a young girl reporter with a cameraman in tow. I guess it was because I was in full Ten outfit!
She asked me about my costume, as well as my expectations for the Prom. I said I had been last time by the skin of my teeth, so I wasn’t missing out this time, and had been on the internet to buy my tickets the moment they were release.

I kinda hope it was be for the screening or a DVD extra . . .

Well, a couple of people sent me links to a promo clip of the Backstage at the Doctor Who Prom fetureette, which has been running on a loop on the Red Button on BBC Three since the Prom was show.

Here is the promo clip – I am 27 seconds in!

Invasion of the Aussies

2010-08-28T07:43:00.002+01:00

A long term client of mine, Ian Cummins, was in town this week.

He’d been on a bit of a world tour, flitting between the UK, Ireland and the US, inspired by his need to attend a family wedding in Ireland.

In the course of his trip he’s been to the UK, Ireland, over to America, and now back to the UK.

Knowing he’d be around at some point I extended an open invitation to meet up if he had a free day.

Over this past weekend I had a message from him that he was gonna be in London for Monday, and if I was around we could finally meet.
Annoyingly I was still on a placement at a trendy advertising agency on Tottenham Court Road, so I wasn’t free that day, but I suggested we could do lunch if he could be around at 1pm.

I suggested we meet outside the Dominion Tottenham Court Road, which is a good meeting point in the area.
I have often noticed slightly vacant looking tourists standing around outside there, so have assumed they were also waiting for meeting colleagues to arrive!
The dominion is notable at the moment for being where We Will Rock You is running, a stage musical based on the songs of Queen. It’s easy to spot, as it has a near 30-foot high statue of Freddy Mercury outside (see right). “Look out for that!” I told him, “You can’t miss it!”

I broke for lunch as planned at 1pm and headed down to meet him and to be as conspicuous as I could be I wore my Ten Coat, hoping he’d spot it.
As I walked down the road I spied a familiar face, a good hundred yards or so from where we were supposed to meet. “Ian?”, I said. “Yes?” That was lucky – we’d have been standing around wait for each other for ages!

We went to Wagamama, on of my favourite restaurants in the area. Unusually there was no queue and we got seated straight away.

We had a lot to talk about and catch up on, but one thing that did come out of our conversation was regarding the original Six Frock Coat.

My friends who own one of the screen used coats are proud that their coat also has a number of the original silhouette cats inside it.

Basically, Colin Baker is a big cat lover, and it was his input to the costume that it included a broach of a cat on the pink lapel. He also had small black felt cat shapes sewn into the inside of the yellow lapel, one for each adventure (see right). They were sort of like the air kills marked on RAF fighter planes in World War Two!
After a while Colin tired of the idea, and they were all removed for his later season, so none of the screen used coats retained them at the end of filming.

Luckily Colin had kept some and these were acquired are returned to their place inside the coat, though not a complete set.
As it happened, Colin Baker went the Australia a few years back, and had auctioned one of these felt cats for charity. Ian was the lucky buyer.

When he saw the coat on classicdoctorwhoprops.com, he realized the place for it was back on the coat, along with the rest of the litter! He contacted them, and within a few weeks it was back where it belonged (see left).
Small world.

The next day I wasn’t working, so I suggested we could meet up and I could give Ian a bit of a tour of London to see some Doctor Who sights.

We met up for his tour at the Police Post in Piccadilly Circus (see right). Ian had done Trafalgar Square and Westminster the previous day, so we started by taking a little detour through Soho to see the fabric shop I had sourced a number of fabrics for his Frock Coat. He was amused to see the bolt of material still on display, as well as part of the distinctive lining I created.

UPDATE
When I conducted this tour I thought there were only two surviving Police Posts in London.
I have since discovered that there are a lot more.
You can read about all of them under
Eleven TARDISES For Eleven Doctors

We then took a walk down towards The Cinema Store on St Martins Lane, before heading down to The Strand and the Stamps Centre, which has a substantial trade in Doctor Who merchandise. On our way we took in John Adam Street, a house on which had been used as Number Ten Downing Street in Aliens Of London and World War Three back in 2005 (see left). It was heavily dressed, but Ian clocked it straight away.

We then jumped on a tube from Embankment to Tower Hill so we could visit Butler’s Wharf on Shad Thames (see right). Any excuse to walk down this iconic street, and I’m there!
It’s such an inspirational location, and the bridges spanning the street are so dramatic to look at, it give an enormous depth.

Following the riverside walk heading up-river towards The Globe Theatre, we passed Southwark Cathedral, where the closing scenes of The Lazarus Experiment were set (burt not shot); and took in Clink Wharf where part of The Talons Of Weing Chiang had been filmed.

Crossing the Millennium Bridge from outside the Tate Modern art gallery, we took a look at where the St Peter’s Steps once were, site of the Cyberman march from The Invasion.

A sudden deluge of rain meant we had to pause for a few minutes under the bridge until it cleared, before continuing past St Paul’s Cathedral and on to see the other remaining Police Post in St Martin Le Grande (see right). It’s a bit out of the way, and sometimes hard to find amongst the back street of the City, but it is in better nick that the Piccadilly Circus one, so worth a look.

We we only doing a short tour, so we then returned to Soho to catch some lunch, a drink and a long chat in The Coach And Horses (see left), a pub that Tom Baker used to drink in.

It was a pleasant afternoon, punctuated by an unusual number of vagrants who kept coming in and hassling the drinkers. The staff seemed to be seasoned in expelling them, so we weren’t bothered too much.

After a good old chat it was time for me to head off home and say goodbye to Ian. It was real great to meet up with him and put an accent to an email.

Revenge of Les Random Shoes

2010-07-20T16:34:00.007+01:00

This is another one of my delayed entires.

I should have posted this at least a week back, but due to my vertigo attack, I was unable to finish writing it.
Here it is at last.

Here is the list of my week:
23rd June - BONHAMS AUCTION
24th June - CARDIFF TOUR
26th June - LONDON TOUR
27th June - SIX COAT (Cloth Ears)

Today les boot was on the other foot, so to speak.

Back in March I went on a day trip to Paris to see the locations used in City Of Death. This weekend I returned the favour and gave a guided tour of London to Jonathan, the tour guide I had in Paris. All this ironically only two days after attending a guide tour of Cardiff myself!

I had organized a two-day tour back in February for my friend Bob Mitsch while he was over here for the Time Quest 2 event, so I have a good idea of where to go and what to see, though I have a couple of special requests to include as well.

Now, as much as I’m pleased to see Jonathan again, today wasn’t really the best day to choose for this by any means: I have had a manic week which included a Bonhams Auction, a trip to Cardiff, as well as my birthday! - AND tonight it’s Matt Smith’s season finale - and I’m afraid I fully intend to be home for that regardless!

Anyway, Jonathan and his brother had bought their EuroStar tickets before telling me the date, and since they are non-refundable and non-transferable, the day will have to happen as they need, though not as long as planned and I will have to head home by 5pm in time for the episode.

I met them bright and early off the 8:30 train at St Pancras, which was thankfully on time. Our day was pretty packed, so we heading straight off for our first location: an old traditional greasy spoon cafe on the Farringdon Road. So what Doctor Who story was this in?

Well, none actually, but one thing on Jonathan’s checklist was to have a typical English breakfast, which he thought was beans on toast. Now I’ve never had that as a breakfast myself (maybe an afternoon filler or a lazy dinner), and I know of no-one does.
So we had a full English breakfast instead – a real artery-clogger (see left)!

From here we walked to St martin Le Grand, to see the first of the two surviving original period Police Posts in London. It hasn’t been in commission for many years, but it’s great that it has been kept as a reminder of times past (see right).

UPDATE
When I conducted this tour I thought there were only two surviving Police Posts in London.
I have since discovered that there are a lot more.
You can read about all of them under
Eleven TARDISES For Eleven Doctors

We then walked around the corner to see St Paul’s Cathedral.
Jonathan was also interested in Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner, as well as its predecessor, Danger Man. It was just opposite St Paul’s that John Drake would sometimes collect his brief at World Travel, a front for MI5’s agency.

We then walked around to one side of St Paul’s to see St Peter’s Steps, which is where the cybermen proudly marched down in The Invasion.
The building alongside the steps has been demolished, and the site of the steps is now the landfall for the Millennium Bridge, but you can get an idea of what it used to be like by standing under the bridge (see left).

Walking across the Millennium Bridge we arrived at the Globe Theatre, used in The Shakespeare Code.
The theatre also has another tenitive Doctor Who connection: the driving force behind getting it built was American actor and film maker Sam Wanamaker, He founded the Shakespeare Globe Trust and his involvement was pivotal in its completion, though he sadly died before it opened to the public.
His daughter is Zöe Wanamaker, the voice of the Lady Cassandra from The End of The World and New Earth.

Alongside the theatre is a small row of terraced houses (see left). These appeared briefly in The Talons Of Weng-Chiang.
We then took the riverside path down the Thames, walking through Clink Wharf, which also had been used in The Talons Of Weng-Chiang.
We stopped briefly at Hay’s Wharf to catch our breaths, where there is a striking, animated statue of a tall ship.

Continuing our riverside walk, we passing under Tower Bridge to arrive at Butlers Wharf on Shad Thames, the iconic location for Resurrection Of The Daleks.
We took a look at where the TARDIS lands (see right, bottom); where a Dalek was thrown out of the wharf (see right, top right); and the street area where the massacre takes place in the opening of the story (see right, top left).

A short walk back along the riverside took us to London Bridge station, from where we got the northern line south to Oval. This is where the Brandon Estate is located.
I’ve never been here before, and covering some 30 acres, I actually had no clue of where to find the right spot, but somehow we followed our noses and quickly found the small square where the TARDIS crash lands in The Christmas Invasion, the first exterior we see David Tennant as The Doctor. It is also pretty much his last in The End Of Time part 2 as well, where he staggers into the TARDIS before he regenerates (see montage below).

We did look around some other bits of the estate, but having discovered that some of the location had been built from scenes shot in Cardiff, I wasn’t surprised that we didn’t come across any other recognizable spots.

We headed back to Oval station, and got the train to Waterloo. It was around some of the back streets here that some scenes for Remembrance Of The Daleks was shot.
The story was a casebook example of constructing a location for an episode. You would have thought that everything was within a short walking distance of each other, but they are actually distributed across the whole of central London.

The Totters Lane junk jard can be found in Kew (marked A on the map); The Coal Hill school is in Hammersmith (marked B on the map); the cemetery is in Willsden (marked C on the map); and the Dalek battle was shot close to Waterloo (marked D on the map).

The last of these is where we were now. We approached through Theed Street (see below, top centre), where the yard is located. It is now a private house, having been converted (see below, bottom left). It is on this street that the last remanning Dalek has a nervous breakdown and spins itself into destruction. (Having been laid up with vertigo recently, I can relate to that!)

Just round the corner is Wootton Street, site of the Dalek battle (see above, bottom right).
Finally, around the corner is Windmill Walk, a paved area adjacent to it was where the Doctor and Ace hide from a patrolling Dalek (see above, top left), before running off in the direction of a pub at the end of the street! (see above, top right).

From here we walked to the South Bank Centre, which was seen in Frontier In Space as a futuristic cityscape. Anyone who has been to the South Bank Centre will have clocked its distinctive 1960s concrete structure!

After stopping for a snack and a drink outside the BFI cinema, we walked across Hungerford Bridge, stopping off briefly at John Adams Street. With some simple, but clever redressing, the front door of a house opposite the Adelphi hotel became the entrance to No 10 Downing Street in Aliens Of London and World War Three.

From here it was a short walk to The Stand, to stop off at the Stamp Centre (see right). Though its core business is first day covers and stamp collections, they have a big side-line in Doctor Who related merchandise.
Living in Paris, Jonathan does not get the opportunity to see first hand so much memorabilia for sale in one place as there is basically nowhere that stocks this stuff in France.

It was funny to watch, as everything was new and exciting to him, but with a limited budget, narrowing down what he would buy was a difficult task!

While I was in there, not planning to buy anything, I spotted a limited edition print on the wall that I wished I bought when it was first issued several years ago (see left). It was quite expensive at the time and I had limited funds. Not wanting to miss the opportunity this time around, I enquired how much they wanted for it. Being ‘shop soiled’ they asked £15 which wasn’t too bad. Taking it off the wall, we found the back had glops of blue-tack and an enormous boot print in the centre! I bought it anyway, and it now adorns the wall of my sewing room.

We still had plans to visit Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue, so it was decided to hold onto pennies until then.

We heading off to Trafalgar Square.
As I had shown Bob Mitsch when he visited in February, this was seen in the original Dalek Invasion Of Earth in 1946 with William Hartnall when the Daleks patrolled around the deserted city; as well as appearing in the first new series episode, Rose.

From here we walked down Whitehall – along which the decoy Slitheen ship is seen flying just before it hits Big Ben (see left) and crashes in the Thames. This leads to Parliament Square and Westminster Bridge.

As well as being the site of Daleks crossing the bridge in Dalek Invasion Of Earth, and where the Auton transmitter is concealed in the London Eye on the south bank of the Thames, Jonathan was interested in its use in The Prisoner.

In the opening sequence of a majority of episodes, Patrick McGoohan was seen driving across the bridge in his green and yellow Lotus Super 7, before turning past the Houses Of Parliament and descending into the Abingdon Street underground car park.

This marked the first of a few non-Who locations I had been specially requested to show Jonathan, who also has an interest in the ITC series of the 1960s and 1970s.

From the Abingdon Street car park, we cut through some back streets to arrive at Queen Annes Gate. A house here was used as the apartment for Sir Brett Sinclair in The Persuaders! (see right).
Jonathan had wanted to see this door for many years, and it showed in his face has he proudly posed for a photo! (see below)

I was not a fan of The Persuaders!, only ever having watched one or two episodes, but it was interesting to find another notable genre location so close to my often trodden route.

A nearby neighbour to Brett Sinclair is The Prisoner’s Number Six himself, who lived at No 1 Buckingham Place, only a few streets away (see below).

Like queen Annes Gate, this street has hardly changed in the 40 years since the scenes were shot there (though the front door, grey in 1966, is now black).

The same can’t be said for Stag Place which is just across the street.
This has changed quite drastically in the intervening years.

The two tower blocks (see right) that form part of the square are the last thing Number Six sees before collapsing unconscious onto his sofa, having been gassed.

One of these has recently been demolished and the square below has been notably remodeled.
An enormous modern art statue of a stag which used to stand in the centre of the square has been removed and relocated elsewhere.

From here we walked to Victoria station, from where its a couple of stops down to Earl’s Court on the District line.
I could hardly show Jonathan around London without taking him to the Police Box, now could I!

After a quick photocall (see left), we headed back into central London to finally hit Forbidden Planet.

But before getting there, we stopped off at Picadilly Circus to see the third and final public-access Police Box, or post.

I like the two posts left in London, but they are markedly different from each other.
The St Martin le Grade one is in much better condotion, and at least has writing on the front panel; whereas the Picadilly one is getting a bit tatty, though has a much better and mare TARDIS-like lamp on the top.

After this we cut through Soho and reached Forbidden Planet.
If Jonathan was dazzled by the goodies on offer in The Stamp Centre, then his eyes were on stalks here!
The range of five DVDs available in WH Smiths in Paris looked pathetic compared to the shelves and shelves on offer here.

Time was ticking on, and I had to leave him to scour the displays for what he wanted to buy.
Today was the day of the final Matt Smith episode, The Big Band, and I wasn’t missing that for anyone!

So gave Jonathan some directions to where to possibly go after leaving Forbidden Planet, I shook his hand and left him to it!

It had been a long day, and we had done a LOT of walking - a comfy sofa awaited me at home . . . .

What to wear?

2010-06-10T20:53:00.002+01:00

Coming up later this year are no less than TWO official Doctor Who events.

Firstly there is the BBC Promo concert on 24th and 25th July at the Royal Albert Hall.
After just managing to scrape in to the last Doctor Who Prom a couple of years back (see below), I plan to be a bit more organised this time around.

I was a bit more savvy and was on the website the day of the launch and sat patiently as my chance to buy tickets came up. Internet traffic was so high you were held in a queue until you could submit your order. I started at number 1,250 or so in the queue, and watched as I slowly got to the top! As the numbers ticked down I was terrified my browser would crash or something would go wrong, but luckily everything worked.

To hedge my bets I applied for tickets for both days: the Saturday evening and the Sunday morning performance. That way I thought if one sold out before I could buy tickets, at least I might get the other.

As it happened I managed to get both – and fully intend to go to both!

Last time I enjoyed the Prom SO much I really had wished I could have gone again, so this time round I will get my wish!

The second event later int he year is Doctor Who Live: The Monsters Are Coming, which I like to think of as Doctor Who On Ice! (though it isn’t actually that)
The show is touring the country, and I am going to the Wembley Arena performance on the 9th October.

I’m not so sure about this one, but I guess time will tell.

Only thing is, if I’m going to these events – what do I wear!

The Pyramids Of Paris

2010-04-02T11:59:00.006+01:00

After months of planning and arranging, finally the City Of Death guided tour was ready to make a start!
Jonathan had invited me back in January, and before the end of the month I had bought my tickets.

He had planned the tour out to make sure we visited as many of the locations used as possible.

Count Scarlioni’s Chateau
47 Rue Vieille du Temple

First up was Scarlioni’s Chateau, which is number 47, Rue Ville du Temple, not far from where we had all met up.

As we approached I could see the grey stone walling and the imposing, intricately carved wooden doors. It was certainly one of those locations that looks exactly as it appears on screen, and as big and as impressive as you imagined. (Sometimes a location fails to meet expectation, when you find it faces some unattractive view, or has been made to appear larger by use of wide-angle lenses – or is it just me?)

Jonathan explained that the location is far from what it appears, and is not a chateau, though it is very large. I gather it has at some point been a restaurant.
One thing I was keen to see was the skylight window that often follow an establishing shot of the wall and doors. The doctorwholocations.net website does not show this, and I wondered if it had been filmed elsewhere and its location wasn’t known. But sure enough it was right above the door to the left. It would appear there is a courtyard of some sort behind the doors, around which the house is set.

I took my screen-matching photos and it was a good location for all of us to get the first group shot – and what location to take it!

Notre Dame
Towpath + Café Le Notre Dame

From here we moved on towards Notre-Dame, taking in a riverside footpath, along which the Doctor and Romana are followed by Duggan towards the end of episode one.

We then cross a small bridge called Petit Pont, where The Doctor and Romana run to get to Le Notre Dame Brassiere, where they have coffee earlier on in the episode. This was the perfect place for us all to stop for coffee ourselves. Sadly the actual spot where they sat was occupied, but we all found seating right by.

Jonathan explained that the intention had been to film at another cafe, and the studio interior had been designed to match. However, when they came to film, it was a Sunday, the May day public holiday weekend and the cafe was closed. They had to quickly revise their plans to Le Notre Dame Brassiere instead, hence the interior fails to match the exterior they are seen entering.

I took the opportunity to review a couple of parts of the episodes on my iPhone, and showed William the clip set at the very cafe where we were sitting. I could see the recognition in his eyes.

4 - Le Café de Flore
172 Boulevard Saint Germain

We then passed a cafe which can clearly be seen in the background during one of the running-down-street shots. The café still bears the same name, but the signage has long since been renewed.

Galerie Denis René
196 Boulevard Saint Germain

Our next point of call was the Denise René Gallery at 196 Boulvard St Germain. This is where the TARDIS is parked for the duration of the story, though we never see it actually land.
Jonathan explained that although the production manager had arranged the filming with the owners, when it came to it they found that the gallery was closed and locked up. In true acting style, Tom then pretended to enter the gallery with the intention of cutting as he put his hand on the door. He presses with too much force and set the security alarm off! In the professional manner of a BBC film crew, they fled and didn’t look back!

Paroisse Orientale Catholique
(the little Garden) 186 Boulevard Saint Germain

I should mention that on the way to the gallery we stopped at a small park area which was the site of an only recently identified location. When the Doctor and posse are desperately trying to get to the gallery and the TARDIS in episode four, Tom is seen hailing a taxi, waving his hands frantically in the air over some railings. Although many of the shops and cafes behind him have since changed, the railing are still recognizable as the right ones, but it is hard to get a matching picture as the shrubs and trees have grown since the filming.

It’s amusing to see that this is where it was filmed, as the gallery itself is well within walking distance further down the same street!

Metro Line 12 Rue du Bac to
Dupleix on Line 6
changing to Line 10 at Sèvres Babylone to
La Motte Piquet - Grennelle

We then took a short Metro trip to get it to see the Effiel Tower – the exterior of which does not actually feature in the episode, though some scenes were shot on the observation galley of it for the opening and closing of the story.

Effeil Tower
and Le Champs de Mars

It can be time consuming and expensive to get to the observation gallery, so we gave it a miss, but we did, however, get to take one picture I really wanted on my trip – to copy Tom’s pose with the Tower in the background. We found the spot, but annoyingly the bollard he stands on is no longer there.

I had brought along my fur-felt fedora hat and the Who scarf my Mother had knitted me way back in 1977! I had gone for the extra long season 16 look - so it went round my neck and hung to the floor just like the real thing – especially since it had stretched in the meantime!

We then returned to the station and took another little Metro trip to see the Dupleix station, from where The Doctor and Romana get a train, taking in views of the Eiffel Tower through the window in episode one.

Metro - Line 6 from Dupleix to Franklin D. Roosvelt
changing to Line 1 at Etoile

This took us to the Avenue des Champs Elyées, along which The Doctor leads the way back to the TARDIS in episode four.

Place de la Concorde

This leads down to Place de la Concorde, which is seen in episode one, where The Doctor and Romana walk across the square.

Rue de Rivoli

From here we walked to Rue de Rivoli, along one side of which is a colonnade of shops, along which The Doctor and Romana are tailed by Duggan.

In this colonnade is a branch of WH Smith, a well known UK high street book and magazine shop. We all took a dive into here, as this is one of the few places in Paris where you can buy copies of SFX magazine and Doctor Who magazine. A flurry of eager hands all grabbed for the few issues on the news-stand, to be met by a little disappointment: the copies of SFX were plain 2-D covers and not the lectagraphic 3-D (see left) ones on sale in the UK :(

Consolation was found upstairs in the form of the English language bookshop, where you could buy all manner of UK based products, including a plethora of Union Jack emblazoned tourist items. Why you would go to Paris and buy a memento of the UK beats me!
Elsewhere though the shelves of jelly babies proved a perennial hit. So much so stocks were cleared and a member of staff was dispatched to the basement to get new supplied. A notable dent was put in these too, leaving me wondering what the management were thinking looking at sales figures . . . . why were SO many bags bought in one hour!?

Le Louvre

It is then a short walk towards The Louvre itself, where the Mona Lisa is displayed, and in episode four, stolen!

There has been substantial remodeling and additions to the central courtyard of The Louvre, most notably the building of an swanking great glass pyramid! All this has raised the level of the ground, and some of the steps to the gallery have been removed.
The entrance where The Doctor approaches two gendarmes is still identifiable, by a process of elimination of the others, each of which have eliminating features. I have always thought this is one of the most lubricious pieces of dialogue and sloppy plotting: The Doctor approaches them for news and they say “The painting, the Mona Lisa, it has been stolen.” Upon The Doctor’s cry of “What?!”, they happily lead him into the gallery.

How come they seem to know The Doctor suddenly? There has been no scenes to date establishing an advisory link between him and the French police, and besides, if one of France’s prized treasures had been stolen, surely the building would be in a lock-down situation and no-one would be allowed in or out??!!

All this nit-picking drew the tour to a close, and it only remained to get one last group shot of everyone who attended, next to the Pyramids Of Paris . . .

You can see a full album of the photos from the tour below.

CITY OF DEATH TOUR

Les Random Shoes

2010-03-28T21:52:00.004+01:00

Well today I am up at the crack of dawn – actually even earlier – it’s 4am!

I am off to Paris for a special one-day event at the invitation of Jonathan Le Targat, who co-runs a French Who fansite called gallifrance.free.fr.

A funny series of events have got me to Paris.

Jonathan contacted back in November to enquire about buying a Seven Hanky. I sent him the details and he was very impressed with what I was doing.
He then said he wanted to ‘partnership’ my hanky with his website – he said his English was not very good – but let’s be fair, his English is much better than my French!

What he was offering was to advertise my hankies on his site so that his members could get access to classic series replica props and costumes. At least, this would happen when the site was revamped and up and running.
Basically, if I could supply some images and a written text about them, he would translate it and add it to the site.

I was more than happy to oblige and received some free publicity in the process.
In return Jonathan wrote a review of the hanky he bought, and you can read that in my Customer Review page.

Then just after the new year he contacted me again, this time talking of giving me a special members card, which would give me access to future paid events for free. I didn’t quite know what he meant, but he was asking for a photograph of myself to go on this card.

I dug out a picture of me at Crich, posing with the original Police Box they have there, and he was most impressed! (see right)
He later explained that I was a special member of their association – I guess a sort of honorary member. I was very flattered.

At this point he invited me to attend an event he was running on the 27th March 2010 in Paris. It was to be a guided tour of the locations used in City Of Death. Would I like to come.
To start with I wasn’t sure – but since I have been working alone in my little sewing room, with few visitors and only the iPlayer to keep me company some days – I thought it would be nice to get out of the house!
I am also a quick 25 minute train ride from my local station direct to where the Eurostar departs in London and goes direct to Paris. The Eurostar then takes around 2.5 hours to get there – I could do it in a day.

I accepted his offer and looked into getting myself a ticket, which I bought for £89 return. I am one of those people that am more than happy to make a real early start to make the most of a day. To get to Paris by 10am I needed to depart at 6.22am from St Pancras, and allowing for check-in, 4.59am at my local station – hence my 4am alarm call . . .

Jonathan was over the moon and thrilled I was making the effort to come over and join his tour. He was aware of the language difference, and said he would arrange for someone to be with me at all times to translate what was being said, since it would all be in French. He also promised to meet me form the train and make sure I was on my return train for going home.

A final check the week before, to make sure I was still coming, revealed that if I came in my Ten outfit (which I fully planned to do) I would get a lot of attention, especially from the fangirls, who would all want their picture taken with me.

Right.

So – I am now on the Eurostar having easily made my local service and check-in at St Pancras.

The only minor hiccup being as I went though the baggage check where they scan your luggage, I had my Group Buy Sonic Screwdriver in the pocket of my coat. My bag was already through, and my coat was following on behind.

The scanner operator furrowed his brow and asked what had just gone through. “It was just a coat”, his colleague said. “But what’s in it?”, pointing at my coat. I puled it towards me and started to put it on. His colleague just stood around doing nothing, so off I went. Phew.

The train left on time, and it didn’t seem to be long before the warm glows of Saturday morning suddenly fell into deepest night as we entered the Euro Tunnel.
At the time I booked my tickets, the train operator Eurostar was getting very bad press regarding a number of trains that broke down in the tunnel due to the cold weather with a full compliment of passengers on board. Obviously I would be going in better times, but I hope it wouldn’t happen again. Then it did – a matter of a few days later another train broke down in a similar way, trapping hundreds of passengers for hours. Both times a lack of communication or urgency to getting people evacuated was a cause of enormous concern.
But in the time it took be to queue, buy and drink a cup of tea, we were the other side and back in bright sunshine speeding our way through the French countryside.
It wasn’t too long before the sunshine gave way to dark, ominous stormy rain clouds, which for the time being were clinging on to their watery content. As we approached the outskirts of Paris a heavy mist had descended and the far from promising forecasts I had been reading over the past few days seem to be coming inevitably true.
Anyway, I was here now, so let’s make the most of it.

We all creeped our way off the train and slowly towards the exit barriers, where an eager face seemed to be trying to make eye contact with me – this was Jonathan.
He was a lot younger than I had imagined, being around 19 or 20. he was around my height and slim. He welcomed me with a warm smile and started to show me the way to the subway so we could get to meet the rest of the tour group.

First we met one of his friends, Cédric at another station, from where we went to Place George Pompidou alongside the Beaubourg Center to rendezvous with everyone else. Already there were two ladies, Isabelle and Maud plus the young son of one of them. His jaw was nearly on the floor when he saw me. He was a BIG Tennant fan, so to see someone in full Ten outfit made his day.

Jonathan then gave me my VIP members card (see right) to his newly formed Who fan club. I was very flattered.

Gradually we were joined by Jonathan’s brother Joël and three more including Benjamin and Victoria, making our total Ten – out of which eight of us were wearing converses!

Random shoes!

The Photos Of Peril

2010-03-26T09:35:00.004Z

For those who read my earlier entry, All Change, you will know I have radically shaken up the fabrics I am using to make my latest Tennant Coat.

Although I am still using my fabric of choice – Malabar – I have found a much better colour match to the screen used material, which in reality is a lot darker than you might think.

Anyone who has engaged me in conversation about the fabric for my coats will know how much I love Malabar!
My reasoning is because it has a very natural feel to it defying its 100% polyester label; has a luxurious weight; drapes just right when made into a coat; is tough and hard wearing; washable at 30degrees; and is a nice material to actually cut, handle and stitch.
So to find a better colour and still be Malabar was fantastic bonus.

I have been plotting and working on my newest coat since just before Christmas, when a friend pointed me towards the Self-Striped lining on sale at a store in Los Angeles. Later I did a coat for Benjamin Rudman, and he specifically wanted this to be used for his coat (see right). The results were very nice and I had to admit the new lining handled a lot better than the heavy satin twill I had been using to date.

I think it was the idea of making myself a new coat using the more screen-accurate lining that made me take a second look at other fabrics I could revise.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I was planning to go to the Time Quest 2 event, so I had an incentive to get my new coat done in time for this.
Besides, I had recently sold my then current coat to Roland (see left) in anticipation of making a new coat, so for a brief period I did not own a Tennant Coat I could wear – at least not one I actually liked.
I might explain that comment at some future time.

So the pressure was on to get it made!
I have been quite busy of late, making Five Coats, artworking Six Cravats, and attending Bonhams Auctions, so it made for a frantic few weeks while getting it done.
I was sewing it right up to the week before the event, including the day before I met Bob Mitsch from the airport to take him on his Location Tour of London.

At the event I met up with Jann Tarrant, who is doing a degree course in photography and is using the idea of cosplayers who dress as Doctor Who as the subject of her thesis.
My reputation appeared to have proceeded me, and she was keen to take some pictures of me in my new coat to use in her portfolio. How could I refuse?

So we arranged to meet late in the day on the Saturday of the event, and went outside the venue, which was a converted mansion.
We discussed the type of pictures she’d envisage taking, and asked my input. I sometimes find the static posed images a little dull, and I personally prefer something a little more action/adventure, with a bit of energy or at least peril in them!!

Now to understand what I meant, I referred her back to some pictures I took on Hound Tor, wearing my Alcantara coat (see right).
These in turn had been inspired by a great image that appeared in the Radio Times 10th Anniversary Special back in 1973. It had ben taken of Elizabeth Sladen while filming her first story The Time Warrior (see below).

I had always been very impressed with the image and loved the way it told a story in my imagination of how she had got to where she was . . . and what was going to happen next!
By the way, notice the position of Elizabeth’s right hand – it takes on significance later . . .

Jann was quite excited by the idea, and got instantly what I meant and was looking for.
We we went down to the far end of the house, beyond which there is a victorian-style knot garden, and picked a suitable corner to use. The house reminded me a lot of the one used in Rise Of The Cybermen, and a number of people who have seen the pictures taken have ask if it was the house used in Day Of The Daleks, which it sadly is not.

We started to do a few poses to see how far around the wall I could reach and how it would look. Bit of a cliche, but propping the pose with a sonic seemed natural.
The first few were a little rough (see below - click to enlarge), with the occasional closed eyes and bad posing on my part.

Seeing what was starting to work we did some more, but this time I did not like my raised right arm position (see below - click to enlarge). Also I had the embarrassment of my sonic locking up. That never seems to happen to the other fella!

The next batch we took started to get somewhere. I dropped the raised arm, and started to get the target pose in my mind (see below - click to enlarge). Notice I am now getting that right hand around the corner of the wall at last!

Jann felt we could show the coat off a bit more than we were by moving to a portrait format, so we went again, this time a bit wider (see below - click to enlarge).

It was out of this run that we got what I think is the most stunning picture of the lot (see below).

I must say getting a picture like this makes all the effort worthwhile! And the timing was perfect, having just completed what I like to regard as my best coat to date.

I must extend an enormous thank you to Jann Tarrant for taking the pictures; having endless patience and willingness for ‘just one more picture’; and for letting me share the results with you.
I wish her all the very best with her degree and hope it all comes off as she hoped – she deserves the success!

Customer review - Ian Cummins take 2

2010-03-18T17:12:00.006Z

Ian has already commissioned a coat from me, and he wrote a review you can read here:
Customer review - Ian Cummins
But he had to commission another one . . . here’s why.

The story so far ...

I commissioned Steve in July of 2009 to make me a Tennant Coat, the details of which can be found in another review I wrote which appears on his blog. Needless to say, that particular coat exceeded my expectations, as did Steve's customer service. Often when you’re parting with wads of cash to enter into some mail order type transaction, the potential for disaster can be quite considerable. And, often, your fears are fairly well-founded, like when you order the Dark Knight cape and cowl, so you can sweep through the icy night, gazing at the glittering city below from atop churches, your night-black cape whipping against the stars... and you get something made of party hat plastic with a hair-thin piece of elastic stapled to it to keep it precariously perched on your nose. As many of you who read my initial review of my first Steve Ricks Tennant coat can attest, this certainly wasn’t the case with that particular garment.

There was, however, one tiny issue with the coat, which many people would have been happy to overlook, or possibly not have even noticed at all. But to a psychotic perfectionist like myself, it was an insurmountable problem. The hem was about three inches too short. (cue dramatic musical sting ... Da-da-da ... DUUUUUUUUMMMM!!!) I know, I know, who cares, right?

Well, me.

To me, one of the primary features of this coat is the very fact that it's ankle length, which is a rarity in any off-the-rack coat. And three inches makes all the difference (I never believed my partner when she said that, until now). I should reiterate though, that this had nothing whatsoever to do with Steve, his skill as a tailor, or his communication. It was squarely on my shoulders, as I had miscalculated the length of the hem. By THREE INCHES!!! I had supplied Steve with the numbers, and he had cut the coat to exactly what I had asked for.

At first I tried to shrug it off. It’s only three inches or so, who’s going to notice that? It doesn’t even matter, nobody will ever know, you’ll forget about it in no time. But I noticed, it DID matter, EVERYBODY knew because I couldn't help pointing it out to them, and I DIDN’T forget about it. It was as though somebody pointed out to you that one of the diciples in Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper was wearing a Doobie Brothers T-Shirt. You're never going to be able to look at that masterpiece again without instantly seeing that anachronism. I think the deciding moment came when I was browsing around an antique barn in the coat, and there was a full-length mirror leaning against a wall, highlighting in big-screen technicolour, the lower half of my body. And my Chuck Taylors, and, like some 18th century jezzabelle, far too much of my lower leg, were on show. I knew at that moment that the only way to restore order to my ransacked insurance office of a mind, was to re-commission Steve.
Steve was mortified when he discovered I wasn’t one hundred percent happy with one of his coats, even though the mistake had been my doing. He sent me detailed pictures and descriptions of how the hem was constructed, outlining that the unique fashion in which the corners were made made letting the hem out a few inches impossible. Like a man being handed the money found in his dead mother’s pocket by the cops, he almost mournfully accepted the commission, heavy with appreciation for my predicament.

To offset part of the price of my stupidity, I advertised my original coat on one of the Doctor Who forums for sale. Almost before I’d even clicked “Submit”, the coat had virtually sprinted out the door on it’s own. It now lives in Kentucky, USA, and it's new owner is a very, very happy man.
As I am possibly the only person in the world lucky enough to have owned two Steve Ricks tennant Coats, I was in the unique position of having examined the first one enough to request a few small tweaks to it's design. Very minor customisations to make the second coat even better suited to the obsessive prefectionist that is me.

In addition to the hem length being generously lengthened, I asked for the sleeves to be an inch longer (the originals were perfectly acceptable, I just always prefer the extra length in my sleeves), The side pockets to be made the tiniest fraction wider (my ham-fisted soup bones were just squeaking through on the first one), the back to be a little more fitted (purely a personal choice of my own), and for the side pockets to be moved further down the body of the coat, to be positioned between the two lowest buttons. This last point probably caused Steve the largest of his many Ian-related headaches, as I believe he had to tamper with the pattern somewhat to achieve this. Nevertheless, he took care of each and every pedantic point with his usual good humour and Cyber-like precision.

And so, a second agonising wait began. I had been in possession of my Tennant coat for less than one week, and now I had to wait for my second. It was like that scene in the Curse of Fatal Death, where the Master falls into the sewer and spends eighty million years down there or something, then finally gets out, all limping and drenched in crap, only to fall straight back in. But finally, the day dawned, and another Fed-Ex box appeared on my kitchen table, and my partner made a few more wisecracks about my squealing. And a few semi-serious queries relating to my age and gender. I dismembered that box like it was my most loathed nemesis, and the glorious folds of malabar unfurled in our kitchen, sweeping into a mighty brown arc as I instantly slipped into it.

And my partner, all cynicism and sarcasm just seconds before, said, “Now, THAT is NICE.”
Of course, the coat arrived on day one of the hottest week for this time of year in Australia since 1925. The temperature was hovering around the high thirties, so perhaps an ankle-length suede overcoat may not be the most prudent choice for the climate, but I still swirled and span and pirrouetted like some type of questionable idiot for several minutes.

The new coat is, naturally, almost identical to it’s predecessor in appearance, aside from the small alterations I asked to be incorporated into it’s design. At 58 inches, it may even be a tad long, which is profoundly okay with me. Due to the oncoming brutality of the Australian summer, I haven’t yet had a chance to field test the coat, and I'm sure ascending stairs will be challenging, to say the least. Should there be a problem however, I can always have the hem taken up locally. But for now, it’s just fine the way it is, thank you. And when it came to the new sleeves, he even made them so there was a few extra inches of material within the cuff, so I could play with the length later, if I needed to. Which I don't.
The lining is slightly different to my first one. In his never-ending search for perfection, Steve has found a material which is even closer to the original. An almost inperceptible difference to mortals like you and I. Also, as readers of his blog will know, he has apparantly been attending tailoring college (“Now then, Mr Hendrix, this is what's known as a “plectrum”.”) and applied some of his new-found expertise to the collar and lapels of this coat. Again, not something any layman would notice.

It goes without saying that I am extremely happy with my new coat in all it's aspects. It is a testament to Steve’s professionalism and skill, and my confidence in him, that I commissioned him a second time, at no small financial investment of my own. There was never any question about the end result of Steve’s work when it came to forking out that second deposit. I didn’t even hesitate in that regard. And there’s even a third commission in the works (although not a Tennant Coat this time).

In the humble opinion of this very satisfied customer, and speaking as one who has definately tried other avenues when it comes to this type of product, Steven Ricks is the absolute final word in quality, accuracy, professionalism, and service.

Now, we can’t pass on this review without noting Ian’s stunning self-built Police Box which he has used as a backdrop here.
Though Ian likes to think of it as his BARDIS . . .
I wonder why?

All change!

2010-03-09T07:50:00.005Z

I make no bones about it – I am a self-proclaimed perfectionist.
If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing right!

Now, I am also a realist.
That means that sometimes, just sometimes, you have to compromise and use an alternative if the goal you are aiming for is truly unobtainable, or just not justifiable on a budget. But it has to be a good alternative.

But occasionally, even finding the perfect materials can be double-edged sword, especially when it does not live up to expectation.

The Alcantara is a case in point.
Ever since the costume design display at the Earl’s Court exhibition last year, a hand-written note (see right) caused a frenzy of forum activity, and the hunt was on to find out what it meant, and ultimately track down the fabric the coat was made from.

I hunted high and low, and despite the main Alcantara range being easy to find, it lacked the colour needed, and just lacked the texture and feel of the coat I had seen at Earl’s Court.

Ultimately I did find a range from Alcantara that is a good match and I got a swatch to take along to compare to the coat on display (see left).

Under the rules of if it seems easy, it’s not, the fabric soon proved to be from a discontinued range, with no supplies in the UK, so I had to import it across Europe at enormous expense, bringing the cost to over £75 a metre. Ouch!

Although I had found the fabric, this particular range came in two versions: one for ‘fashion use’ which draped quite fluidly; the other for ‘upholstery use’. Annoyingly it was only the latter that I could track down.

Being for hardcore upholstery use meant it came with a bonded hessian backing, which could be torn off in one piece, but this left a coarse glue residue. It proved impossible to remove completely and gave my fabric a stiffness I did not like. The remaining glue also made it a nightmare to work with, since every time I needed to press the coat while making it, the glue would reactivate and stick to any surface it came in contact with.

I did finish my coat (see below), and it looks great, but it is not really a garment I would wear day-to-day. I therefore keep it for best, such as my trip to Hound Tor or my visit to the Land’s End Exhibition.

But I’m a perfectionist – so despite making it of the ultimate fabric, I still wasn’t happy with how it felt to wear.

To be honest, I preferred the feel and drape of the Malabar I had been using since the MkII.
The MkIII was a nice coat, though the pattern was not as refined as I cut it for the MkIV, Alcantara version.

So I thought the best thing to do would be to make myself a new coat, this time using the more screen accurate pattern, but making it in the Malabar that I know and love – besides, I didn’t want to be walking around all the time in a coat made from £700s worth of fabric alone!

I therefore made my MkV!

Then in late 2009 a form of mass psychic-cosplay happened!
I thought it was about time I found a self-striped lining and while on a Soho fabric buying run in central London I stumbled across a near perfect double self-striped navy blue lining (see right) in a shop I had visited a number of times before! How I had not spotted it I will never know. However, there was barely a metre left - not even enough for a single drop of lining inside a coat. :(
I bought what was available and pleaded with the proprietor to restock, but he could not remember where he got it, so it seemed unlikely.

Another shop also stocked a similar fabric, but it was a single stripe and only in a black (see left).

I then had an email from a couple of forum members, firstly from Benjamin Rudman, who wanted a coat made.

He had found a navy coloured self-striped lining, just like the second one I had found in black. It was being sold by a Los Angeles based supplier, and although it was quite cheap per yard, the shipping and import duties bumped up the price a fair whack.
In the same week another forum member, Daniel Pawlik contacted me with a link to the very same fabric, which by now I had on order.

I made Benjamin his coat (see right), and you can read his review of it under Customer Review - Benjamin Rudman.

I was very impressed with how the lining handled and its finished look. I was jealous! I wanted one . . . .

However, this time I thought it a good idea to have one last cast around to see if there was anything else fabric-wise I could improve upon.

FABRIC

I decided to revisit the Malabar colour range and just check that, now I had the more screen accurate Alcantara as reference, I could maybe find a better colour option to use.
Well, after looking through the whole range (of over 40 colours - see left) I did find something that I felt was in a better range.
Below is a comparison between the fabrics: The Alcantara (centre) with the existing Malabar (left) and my new choice (right).

It is notoriously difficult to compare colours purely by on-screen visuals, but I assure you that having the fabric in-hand, it does feel like much more of a match.

As a further reference, here is a picture taken of my in the Mk III Malabar coat next to the real thing at Earls’s Court. You can see how much darker the real thing is by comparison (see right).

Having said all this, despite choosing a new colour, I still feel my original choice was a good one. As I discussed in What’s In A Colour?, it is just as much about how the colour is perceived, than how it actually looks and compares.
After all, I had taken pictures at the Manchester Exhibition (see left) that were a striking match to the Malabar Walnut.

LINING

It was only when I went to the Earl’s Court exhibition I noticed that the lining fabric was actually a little unusual.

Up until now I had been using a plain navy satin lining, but since discovering various self-striped versions, and then being directed towards a reliable supply, I have to use this from now on – despite the expense at importing it from the US.

SILK DUPION

The costume design on display at Earl’s Court was very specific when it mentioned ‘Rust Dupion’ as the coat pocket lining trim (see right).
Dupion is a form of silk, which I found could easily be found at most high street haberdashery shops, and I bought mine from John Lewis.
It was only once it was in the coat and it was finished (see below, left bottom), that I noticed the type I had used wasn’t as shinny or coarse as the screen used fabric (see below, left top).
A little further hunting quickly found a satisfactory replacement (see below, right), which will give me a better result.

BUTTONS

I had spent a disproportionate amount of time trying to find the ‘perfect’ buttons for my coat.

Initially on the MkI, the MkII and Mk III coats I had used standard 1inch (25mm) imitation horn brown buttons (see left, the MkII with 25mm buttons is on the left). These are easy to track down and obtain.

It was when I saw the display coat for the first time ever at Manchester did I realise that the buttons were actually a little bigger than the ones I had used (see right, top). I worked out that they were actually 28mm buttons – ok, I know that there is only a few millimetres in it, but believe me, it makes all the difference!
This was the period when I search literally the world (via the internet, or course) to find them. Ultimately I tracked them down to The Button Queen, only a short walk from London’s Oxford Street.

You can read about my switch to the 28mm buttons in The Mk II - I’m a perfectionist, it’s still not right!
These are the buttons I have used ever since. (see left, the MkIII with 28mm buttons is on the right)

Until now that is . . .

I did notice that although The Button Queen versions were the right size, the proportion of the rim was a little large and could do with being a smidgen thinner (see right, centre).
Well, after another search I have found a near perfect, screen accurate match (see right, bottom) – though it obviously goes without saying that yet again I am having to specially import them from across Europe to get them, making them over £2 each. Since there are 12 buttons on a coat, that hurts!

So – new fabric choice (see below, top left) – new lining (see below, top right) – new silk pocket trim (see below, bottom left) – new buttons (see below, bottom right) – NEW COAT!
I would say the only thing not changing is the interfacing . . . but I have plans on how I do that too!

It’s a bit like the old adage:

This is the same hammer my Great Grandfather used, all I’ve had to change is the handle and the head!

Customer review - Roland

2010-03-01T12:39:00.001Z

So, another happy costumer who has no idea what he can write about Steve’s gorgeous work that has not been said already. So I’ve dicided to have a look back at how I came to buy one of his coats at all.

I’m from Germany and Doctor Who is almost unheared of here. The 2005 Series ran in television two years ago but with very little success and was cancelled very fast. Still I watched some episodes and liked it quite a lot. When David Tennant took over from Christopher Eccleston, I found that rather strange (having no idea about this whole regeneration stuff) and I gave up on the series. Quite a mistake, as I found out a few month later, when I remembered the show and gave it another try. I really liked Tennants Doctor and what very soon cought my eye was the Doctors new look. This long, smoothly flowing coat did just look amazing and worked just well with a suit. I always liked long coats, but never saw anything like this. Everything I’d found before was somehow looking like from an old Western and that was just not the thing.

So, after seeing that coat on Tennant I kept looking for anything like it in the shops, but, of course, there was nothing there. I had never been into cosplay so not knowing where else to look I considered google and ended up with the obvious sites. Magnoli was the first thing I found, but at that time spending such a fortune on a piece of clothing seemed rather ridiculous. Besides, the pictures of the Magoli Coat didn’t make me want it that much, it looks way to stiff, the colour didn’t seem right and after looking at some costumer images i was sure that this was not it.

Next place to go was ebay, and drawn in by the cheap price I ended up ordering a coat there form the seller tssy2005. Those people were nice enough and the coat arrived quite soon. It does look ok, considering the price, but it was nowhere near the real deal (see right). Just to start, the lining was black and it didn’t really fit around the shoulders (which was probably my mistake in measuring).

I wore it a couple of times, but it felt more like a costume than anything else and I was looking for something that I could wear on an everyday basis without feeling strange and dressed up. So the search began again, considering Magnoli again (by now I was willing to pay the price for something that would feel just right) and only now I found Steve’s blog.

I was intrigued by the pictures that I could see there. I started reading and was even more intrigued by the amount of detail that he put into his work, analizing pictures from the show, finding the right fabric (or a close enough substitute) and improving here and there as he went.

Then I got to the entry about him making a coat for someone else. And this was it, here was someone who knew what he was doing and there was the possibility that I could get one costum made by him.
I got into contact with him and the communication was very friendly, he offered sending fabric samples and everything you could ask for.

But after the experience with the coat from ebay I had doubts about me being able to get the measurements right. As well, I wanted to get a close up look at his work before I went spending the money.

Since I went to London in January anyway I asked Steve if he would have me over to get a look at his work and to take the measurements himself. His reply couldn’t have been more inviting and so, one day in January, I went to his place, we had a nice chat, a nice cup of coffee (I’m still sorry for spilling some on the carpet) and then I got my close up look. At the moment I saw that coat hanging on the wall I was lost, there was no question I would leave without ordering my own. It just did look like right from off Tennants body. You know how tricky the original coat is with the light and it’s colour changing, but what I saw there did look just the way I imagined it.
Steve offered me to try it on and it was a perfect fit! Man, this thing felt great! Just like it was made for me. Since Steve had mentioned that he was about to make a new one for himself I just had to ask: Would he sell me this one? Would it be possible to get this coat right here and now? Of course, it was. So I had to decide, would I take his coat now, or would I wait for one that would be made to my measurements, perhaps try a different fabric that might be even closer to the original coat?

Well, I guess you can imagine that there was no way I could walk out of that place without the coat ;-) Why wait for six weeks when this coat was a perfect fit? So, after a little trouble with paypal I managed to draw the money from ATM and went back to London with a Tennant coat. Couldn’t quite believe it then. I just had wanted to look at Steve’s work and then decide if I would order one and here I was with that coat under my arm.
An evening later it had it's official introduction when I went to see Wicked in London and I just knew the decission had been right, wearing it felt so much different then with the eBay-thing.

I guess that around this time I would have gotten the coat if I had ordered a new one, but I never regretted the decission to buy that used one from Steve because the material is really good and there was no sign of wear at all on the fabric. And besides, this way I had the opportunity to wear it much longer before the weather gets to warm for an overcoat. And each day of wearing it was a real joy. As I said before, here in Germany almost nobody knows about Doctor Who, so here the coat is just some extraordinary piece of clothing and I got a lot of compliments on it from friends and colleagues.

So, as I final word, if you are looking for a Tennant coat, this is where you should get it. As someone else mentioned before, Steve’s work is second to none! Every time when I watch an episode these days I might spot some detail of the coat and think that he can’t have noticed that. Of course, he has! Steve work ist the closest you will get if you’re not going to steal the Original from BBC archives. And besides his brilliant work, Steve is a very nice and friendly guy, the contact via email was always very fast and meeting him was a real pleasure. Especially because he doesn’t just wan't to sell you his stuff and make some money. He wants you to be happy with what you spent your money on and is very open in talking about any problem that might come up (not that there has been any problems).

So Steve, thank you very much for your hospitality, and keep up the good work. I’m still looking forward to seeing a coat with the darker colour.

Bonhams costume sale - viewing

2010-02-26T07:13:00.003Z

Well this week was the latest Doctor Who sale at Bonhams, and on Sunday I went along to the viewing. The write-up below features the Tenth Doctor items, and I have written about the other Doctor eras under the appropriate blog.

I had arranged to meet a couple of friends, who had been to visit me a few weeks back so I could pattern trace their screen-used Colin Baker Costume. They were at the auction with the serious intention of bidding on some items. I won’t divulge what, as that would be telling, but suffice to say it does not clash with anything I have my own eye on! Phew!

The main thing I wanted to have a look at were the Doctor’s ties, which were in a glass display case (see right), just along from Sylvester McCoy’s hat with hatbands, something else I have my eye on.

Below this were the ties including the TimeLord tie that Magnoli has copied – twice now! Knowing the tie was there I took advantage of the opportunity to compare and see how close the copies were.

Firstly the original printed tie, which although a good effort, is clearly very off from the real thing (see below, left).

Then I compared the latest version Magnoli has done, which is woven rather than printed. It is a much better tie and has a more accurate feel . . . or so I thought (see above, right).
For when I put it side-by-side I found, even to my own surprise, that it left a fair bit to be desired. The original has a chain-link fence pattern in diamond shaped squares; whereas the copy is distinctly in hexagons with the detail design at the cross points not matching at all (see right).

I must say I was a tad disappointed, as I always felt this latest draft of the Magnoli tie was a vast improvement on the original. I am guessing he had limited source material to work from, so had made the very best job he could.
That said, it is still a very good tie.

Elsewhere around the room were most of the costume-based lots, with the original series on one side and the new series on the other.

I was in two minds about the new series stuff, as the majority of it was simply of-the-peg high street bought clothing, so not really that special.

It was nice to see some of the more iconic New Series items close up for a change, such as the Jackson Lake Next Doctor costume (see left), which was a very nicely made frock coat in a bold tweed pattern.

I also noticed, somehow only for the first time, that the pattern of the fabric is very skillfully matched across the chest to the sleeves, as well as over some of the seams of the body.

That said, one thing I did spot was the buttonholes on the coat, all of which were just surface decoration and did not go through to the underside of the coat, so could not be used as practical fastenings!

I guess sometimes things are just done for show and their visual look.

The fabric for the waistcoat was nonetheless very nice to see first hand (see right). It would be interesting to track down where the fabrics came from.

The vast majority of the New Series items were from Rose Tyler’s wardrobe, and all this was housed on clothes racks in a corner of the room, so were only viewable on request – something I was happy to pass on for now!

Some items were on mannequins and included David Tennant’s dinner suit and Kylie’s dress from Voyage Of The Damned, as well as Donna’s leather coat from series four (see below).

There were no aliens or monsters on offer in this auction, and only a couple of props, such as a massive speaker form The Runaway Bride.

Looking through the catalogue it’s been a general opinion that the estimates are way below what they should be, and that many of these items will sell for considerably more.

As ever, we shall see . . . .

Customer review - Benjamin Rudman

2010-02-15T21:59:00.007Z

I have no idea what I can possibly say about Steve Ricks’ Tennant Coat, that hasnʻt already been said. But I shall certainly give it a go!

I have always been a big fan of unique clothing. Whenever you recall a lovable or popular TV character, they always wear such unique designs rather than off the peg, mass produced items. And it’s part of this that makes them stand out and helps us remember them. We like this so much we often want to dress like them ourselves! This is something I have always tried to dress by. I have always wanted things people couldn’t have in order to feel unique, and have thus searched endlessly to find these things!

One thing I have found myself partial too is long coats. People rarely wear them outside of the movies these days and I adore them. The trick was finding one that seemed just right. In my house I have a few long coats, that I have found over the years from thrift stores. And though these items are different than that of which is sold now. I have never found my perfect coat. The coat I would wear all the time. My second skin. That, was until I saw the tenth Doctor throw on his overcoat in The Christmas Invasion! It was perfect! The lapels and length, though different, were exactly what I had in mind. But where would I get this dream coat?

Those who have eagle eyes may have spotted my Magnoli Tennant Suit hung up in the background of one of my pictures. This was my first port of call. Having purchased from Magnoli in the past, and liking what I had received. I rushed to find if he did a Tennant Coat to match!

I excitedly clicked through his overcoat section to find, yes! He had! The pictures loaded up, and immediately my heart sank. To the casual eye it looks the part, but something just didnʻt feel right. I could see something was wrong with the coat but I just couldnʻt tell what it was. It felt I was looking at something new, it felt like something else, not the coat I was looking for. And I knew from then that this was NOT the place to get it from. (Little did I know of HOW much was wrong with it).

After giving up on Magnoli for it, my searchings eventually led me to tennantcoat.blogspot.com (though by this point I had no intention of finding someone to make me a coat, I simply found reading up on cosplayers and other who fans making their own, interesting). I read through Steve’s blogs, seeing all the posts dedicated to little details, just wishing I could have it. Then I came across a customer review! HAPPY DAY! When I finally got together the funds I immediately set down my deposit. And believe me I have NEVER spent or sent this amount online to a paypal email address in my life! I was terrified and excited at the same time!

I loved a quote from a previous customer review so much on how nerve racking it felt. “...crippling paranoia...”. My mind played over every possible scenario on how I would lose my money, or not get what I payed for. But Steve was there to respond to any emails or questions I had. And boy was I wrong!

To not drag on with my story too much, I just have to say Steve, you are amazing! To anyone thinking about buying one of Steve’s coats, if you have the money and seriously want something that is pretty much identical to the real thing, you have nowhere else to look. Because I swear you wont find it.

Those of you who think the AbbyShot coat is accurate are far from reality. This is not a biased opinion, as I would gladly have bought from somewhere else if they did a good job. Such as Magnoli, as I have purchased from there before. I have no vendettas against any of the options. Iʻm sure in their own right they do a fine job in coat making or quality. But they seriously DO NOT do the coat justice. I have had an HonestDragonChina coat for years, and my friend purchased a Magnoli coat. The HonestDragonChina coat is perfect for cheap cosplay or dress up, and the Magnoli coat is a fine option. But if you truly want the ACTUAL screen used coat. And not something that looks like it. You seriously need to consider Steve as your only option. To this day I have not come across anyone who makes a Tennant coat to the level this man has done. And because of this, I am storing all of my costuming faith in him for future purchases.

The only thing I had done differently in my order was the striped lining.
After seeing it in a photo in an earlier blog entry, I felt it gave the real coat more of a personality and character. Rather than a big blank canvas of blue on the inside.

So I searched endlessly to find some. I believe Steve is thinking about using this as an option for further coats. If so I highly recommend adding this option to your coat. It really makes it all the more special!

Since buying this coat I have worn it every day. I have worn it out; for lunch, for birthday meals, and even just to go to the shop at the end of my street. It’s my new best friend. My girlfriend and I absolutely love it and cannot commend you enough.

Before I round up my pretty mashed together review, I would briefly like to mention Steve’s customer service. My coat was a few inches too long (my fault I can assure you). And yet he was happy for me to return it free of charge (minus the cost of shipping of course) to be altered. It came back and fit as I had wanted it.

I cannot stress enough the lengths that have been taken to make this coat as accurate and as perfect as possible.

Thank you Steve, you’ve made my year!

Bonhams costume sale - 24th February 2010

2010-02-02T07:50:00.013Z

In a few of weeks time there is another costume sale at Bonhams in Knightsbridge, this time selling off a vast number of items which have featured in the various exhibitions that have been held around the country.

Since I covered the previous auctions at Bonhams on the 16th June 2009 and 16th December 2009, I felt I should do the same for this, but because there are SO many items on offer, I have split them up by Doctor.

Bonhams sale 18192
(24th February 2010)
Doctor Who: The Auction –
Costumes and Props from
the BBC Archive

Lots 1 to 60
New Series (2005-2009)

Lots 61 to 91(also 118 to 120)
Seventh Doctor (1987-1989)

Lots 92 to 108
Sixth Doctor (1984-1986)

Lots 109 to 141(also 95)
Fifth Doctor (1981-1984)

Lots 142 to 165
Fourth Doctor (1975-1981)

Lot166
Third Doctor (1970-1974)

Here are just the lots relating to the New Series

The most fascinating thing about their descriptions is the notation of the clothing labels, which once and for all explain the origins of where they came from.
A lot of the items had been identified by eagle-eyed members of the forums, but this now fills in a lot of the gaps.

To know that The Doctor gets his shirts from John Lewis (Lot 47), or his tuxedo from Paul Smith (Lot 17), long before the Eleventh Doctor shopped there, is perversely curious to know.

Lot 1
Torchwood, 2006 - 2009
The Torchwood SUV - 2002 Land Rover - Range Rover, Vogue V8 Auto
Registration No: LP02 AOA
Date of First Registration: 30/05/2002
Chassis No: SALLMAMA32A103434
Engine No: 55642705830045
Cylinder Capacity: 4398 CC
Includes V5C Registration Document
MOT Certificate - Expires April 1st 2010
Road Fund Licence - Expires November 30th 2010
The black Range Rover, with tinted windows and futuristic body kit, bearing the ‘Torchwood’ logo to side (see illustration)
Estimate: £10,000 - 15,000
Sold for £18,000

Lot 2
The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant), 2007 - 2009
A Vacform/Steel frame section of Tardis, the extremely large frame of steel, of four sections, each with moulded spherical design, width 71 inches, height approximately 176 inches (4500cm)
Sold for £3,840

Lot 3
This Lot has been withdrawn
Planet of the Dead, April 2009
A Red/ Cream Bristol(BLMC) Double Decker bus,
Registration No: RUA 461W
Date of First Registration: 01/04/1981
Chassis No: VRT2875
Engine No: 224326
Cylinder Capacity: 10450 CC
with V5 Registration Document
The bus with half of roof having been removed, the roof was removed as during the course of the Story it is torn off
Estimate: £500 - 800

Lot 4
This Lot has been withdrawn
Planet of the Dead, April 2009
A Red/ Cream Bristol (BLMC) Double Decker bus,
Registration No: HJB 455W
Date of First Registration: 17/11/1980
Chassis No: VRT2658
Engine No: 223164
Cylinder Capacity: 10450 CC
with V5 Registration Document
A complete bus used for early London scenes of the Story, with advertisments applied to side as per those shown on screen
Estimate: £500 - 800

Lot 5
The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant), Unknown Episodes, Series 2 - 4
A collection of miscellaneous T-shirts, including; one brown and one grey and two navy blue ‘H&M’ T-shirts, a beige/ grey ‘GAP’ T-shirt, a faded purple ‘Fahri’ T-shirt and a purple coloured T-shirt, all of cotton with round necks
Estimate: £120 - 180
Sold for £576
Footnote:
It is believed that these T-shirts were worn by David Tennant under shirts during various episodes throughout the series.

Lot 6
The Tenth Doctor - David Tennant, Various Episodes
An iconic pale blue shirt, the ‘Uni Qlo’ shirt, of linen mix fabric, with make-up staining to collar, and cream coloured buttons
Estimate: £250 - 350
Sold for £1,260

Lot 7
The Tenth Doctor - David Tennant, New Earth, Age of Steel, Impossible Planet, etc
Four neckties, including; a brown and blue geometric pattern tie, labelled ‘Daniel Hechter’, cut in half with applied Velcro®, used for an action sequence, a brown ‘Duffer St. George’ tie, with repeating floral motif in blue and white, a brown tie with repeating s-shaped motif, labelled ‘Thomas Nash’, used during ‘The Idiot’s Lantern’ and a black tie with brown and blue stripes, labelled ‘Rocha.John Rocha’
Estimate: £250 - 350
Sold for £1,620

Lot 8
The Next Doctor, December 2008
Jackson Lake (David Morrissey), a complete costume, comprising; a frock coat of checked mustard coloured wool, with applied brown velvet detail to collar, a red coloured brocade waistcoat, with repeating gold coloured floral motif, and brass buttons, a pair of black coloured wool trousers, all pieces labelled inside ‘Angels The Costumiers’ and inscribed ‘David Morrisey, April 2008’ a cream coloured Victorian style shirt, of cotton, together with a pair of braces in beige and brown colour, and a gold coloured silk effect cravat of brocade type fabric and a further brown and blue checked great coat, of wool, with blue lining and labelled as before
Estimate: £500 - 600
Sold for £3,120

Lot 9
Journey’s End, July 2008
Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), a stunt/ wire work complete costume, comprising; a ‘Marks & Spencer’ brown leather coat, with round collar and press stud fastenings to front, a grey ribbed jumper, of synthetic mix fabric, labelled inside ‘Oasis’ and with over label inscribed ‘’Stunt’, a purple ‘United Colours Of Benetton’ vest, a pair of ‘Seven’ jeans, of dark navy denim, with additional elasticated side panels
Estimate: £350 - 450
Sold for £780

Lot 10
The Doctor’s Daughter, May 2008
Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), a complete broken down costume, comprising; a brown leather jacket, covered in mud stained detail, labelled ‘Miss Selfridge’ and with further label applied over inscribed ‘Martha, Dirty’, a wine coloured ribbed vest, of cotton, labelled inside ‘Jigsaw’, and a pair of black ‘GAP’ jeans, again with applied mud detail and labelled inside inscribed ‘Martha, Dirty’
Estimate: £300 - 400
Sold for £840

Lot 11
Unknown Episode, Series 4, 2008
Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), a brown leather jacket, with brass coloured buttons and zip, with gold coloured satin effect lining
Estimate: £150 - 250
Sold for £504

Lot 12
The Sontaran Stratagem, April 2008
Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), a complete costume, comprising; a teal coloured suede jacket, with stitch detail, labelled inside ‘Precis Petite’, a grey v-neck top, of cotton, labelled inside ‘Jigsaw, M’ inscribed with a * in black ink, and a pair of trousers, in Prince of Wales check, labelled inside ‘Warehouse’
Estimate: £250 - 350
Sold for £384

Lot 13
The Sontaran Stratagem, April 2008
A selection of steel frame ‘Sontaran Spaceship’ lightboxes, of fabric and metal construction, six small and one large, all width 24 inches, depth 24 inches, the smaller height 16 inches, the larger 32 inches
Estimate: £200 - 300
Sold for £240

Lot 14
The Fires of Pompeii, April 2008
A Sibylline Acolyte’s costume, comprising; a wine coloured dress, of heavily pleated silk effect fabric, in two sections with hood, labelled inside ‘Jade’ with quilted twist belt to waist, and gold embroidered ribbon to sleeves, together with a pair of red coloured suede effect pumps, labelled inside ‘Jade’, and a black bead necklace, with a pair of matching earrings and buckles
Estimate: £200 - 300
Sold for £600

Lot 15
Partners In Crime, April 2008
Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), a black pinstripe two-piece suit, of wool mix fabric, with satin effect lining labelled inside ‘Karen Millen’ and both labels with inscription ‘Donna Hero’
Estimate: £250 - 350
Sold for £600

Lot 16
Voyage of the Damned, December 2007
Astrid Peth (Kylie Minogue), a complete waitress costume, comprising; a waitress dress, of black satin effect fabric, with ruched overlaid black taffeta style sleeves, A-line with white coloured net detail to neck line and applied rhinestone buttons to front, with pleated skirt, with label inside inscribed ‘Astrid-wire, Kylie’, together with a matching pair of bloomers, of black cotton with overlaid taffeta effect fabric, with label inscribed inside ‘Standin Stunt Double’ and a pair of lace up knee length heeled boots, labelled and inscribed inside ‘15580. 3 1/2 BMIR, Astrid Big’
Estimate: £2,000 - 3,000
Sold for £3,120

Lot 17
Voyage of the Damned, December 2007
The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant), a complete costume, comprising; a ‘Paul Smith’ two-piece dinner suit, of black wool-mohair mix, with patterned silk effect lining, with self buttons to front and cuffs, labelled inside ‘Paul Smith, London’ and ‘The Byard’, together with a white cotton ‘Paul Smith’ shirt, with pleated detail front and blue embroidered button holes to cuffs
Estimate: £2,000 - 3,000
Sold for £5,040

Lot 18
Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), Unknown Episodes, Series 3
A collection of miscellaneous costume, including; five blue coloured vests tops, all identical each labelled ‘GAP’; two with additional inscribed label ‘Stunt’, with lace to sleeves and neck, an orange coloured ‘Jigsaw’ vest with red lace to neck, and a gold and black stripe vest top, labelled ‘Miss Selfridge’, and two dark orange coloured ‘Jigsaw’ vests, with chiffon type detail to neck, two pairs of ‘Seven’ jeans, both identical in dark coloured denim, one pair with original purchase label (unworn), a black wrap type knitted cardigan, a crochet ‘Ted Baker’ brown cardigan, a ‘Ted Baker’ maroon coloured cotton skirt, with pleats, beads and crochet detailing to top and crochet detail to hem
Estimate: £250 - 350
Sold for £312

Lot 19
Last of the Time Lords, June 2007
Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), a complete costume, comprising; a black suede effect military style jacket, with belt and metal buttons, labelled inside ‘All Saints’, a pair of black ‘Dorothy Perkins’ combat pants and a purple coloured elasticated cotton vest top
Estimate: £350 - 450
Sold for £780

Lot 20
The Lazarus Experiment, May 2007 and an unknown episode
Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), a collection of items of costume, a dress, of old mauve coloured heavily pleated chiffon type fabric, with satin tie to waist and detail to neck-line, a plum coloured suede handbag labelled inside ‘Hobbs’, a pair of matching plum coloured suede shoes, again labelled ‘Hobbs’ inside, together with a pink and white stripe towelling dressing gown, with matching pink polka dot towel from an unidentified episode
Estimate: £250 - 350
Sold for £600

Lot 21
Smith and Jones, March 2007 onwards
Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), a complete costume, comprising; a maroon coloured ‘biker-style’ leather jacket, with red coloured satin effect lining, with label inside inscribed ‘Martha 1’, a dark pink coloured vest top, with applied velvet floral motif, labelled inside ‘Ted Baker, 1’, together with corresponding black bra, attached to vest, and a pair of ‘Levi’ jeans, labelled inside ‘Levi, 551 Flare’ and inscribed ‘Martha 4 *Favorite*’
Estimate: £500 - 600
Sold for £1,320

Lot 22
The Runaway Bride, December 2006
A giant speaker, textured board and plastic, painted black, width 48 inches (128cm), height 72 inches (184cm), depth 36 inches (92cm)
Estimate: £150 - 200
Sold for £42

Lot 23
The Runaway Bride, December 2006
CarBodies type LTI FX4 Fairway ‘Taxi’,
Registration No: P227 JVP
Chassis No: SCRF3B3MXVC086725
Engine No: TD27 - 526396

The black ‘London Taxi’ with original Hackney Carriage plate to back, featuring throughout the episode.
Date of first Registration: 05/03/1997, includes V5C Registration Document,
MOT Certificate - Expired January 1st 2010
Estimate: £500 - 800
Sold for £1,920

Lot 24
Army of Ghosts/ Doomsday, July 2006
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), A jacket, a dark grey coloured nylon ‘Diesel’ jacket, with faux sheepskin lining to hood and faux fur edging
Estimate: £500 - 700
Sold for £1,800

Lot 25
Doomsday, July 2006
A pair of levers/ magnetic clamps, of gold painted wood, with metal and tubing applied, handles in the form of motor bike handle bars, each lever depth 50 inches (153cm), width 47 inches (128cm), height 62 inches (158cm) (2)
Estimate: £400 - 500
Sold for £720

Lot 26
Army of Ghosts/ Doomsday, July 2006
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), a nightwear costume, including; a pair of white and multi-coloured polka dot pattern pyjamas, by ‘Per Una’ (Marks & Spencer), of cotton, together with a ‘Per Una’ matching polka dressing gown, of towelling type fabric, and a pair of pink Tote type slipper/socks (4)
Estimate: £150 - 250
Sold for £600

Lot 27
Army of Ghosts/ Doomsday, July 2006
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), a collection of pieces of costume, including; three pairs of synthetic fabric and cotton mix ‘Topshop’ trousers, three turquoise coloured angora-mix ‘Punky Fish’ knitted hooded tops, one having had label removed and paint chips to zip, two ‘American Apparel’ black v-neck vest tops, of cotton mix together with a dark grey coloured nylon ‘Diesel’ jacket, with faux sheepskin lining to hood and faux fur edging
Estimate: £500 - 700
Sold for £1,320

Lot 28
Army of Ghost/ Doomsday, July 2006
Jackie Tyler (Camille Coduri), a collection of pieces of costume, a ‘Wallis’ denim jacket, with zip to front; a pair of ‘Esprit’ jeans; two identical navy blue velour tops, labelled ‘GAP’; a lilac coloured lycra and cotton mix T-shirt; a maroon coloured lycra and cotton mix long-sleeve top, labelled ‘United Colours of Benetton’; and a pink knitted scarf with further silver thread
Estimate: £280 - 340
Sold for £336

Lot 29
Army of Ghosts/ Doomsday, July 2006
Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke), a collection of items of costume, including; a grey long-sleeved hooded top, labelled ‘Puma’; a pair of black ‘GAP’ jeans, with label inside inscribed ‘Mickey’; a pair of black ‘Puma’ trainers; a black Neoprene ‘Puma’ jacket, with blue detail patches; a grey coloured ‘Topman’ long-sleeved top; a pair of black jeans; and a pair of ‘Nike’ trainers
Estimate: £250 - 350
Sold for £264

Lot 30
Fear Her, June 2006
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), a collection of items of costume including; three orange coloured ‘Diesel’ T-shirts, with v-neck, two having original shop labels attached, one without, and two pairs of navy coloured heavy cotton ‘Topshop’ trousers, with button detail to top
Estimate: £300 - 500
Sold for £480

Lot 31
Love And Monsters, June 2006
Jackie Tyler (Camille Coduri), a collection of items of costume, including; three hooded tracksuit style tops: one fuchsia pink velour, labelled ‘BHS’; one of dark grey cotton, with winged heart motif to front, labelled ‘Marks & Spencer’; one of turquoise velour, with butterfly motif to front, labelled ‘Firetrap’, together with a pair of tracksuit style trousers, of dark blue velour labelled ‘GAP’
Estimate: £180 - 220
Sold for £300

Lot 32
Love And Monsters, June 2006
Jackie Tyler (Camille Coduri), a collection of items of costume, including; a blue jumper, of knitted cotton, with v-neck, labelled ‘Topshop’, a fuchsia pink long sleeved T-shirt type top, of cotton, labelled ‘United Colours of Benetton’, a grey cotton vest, a cream coloured floral motif long sleeved top, of knitted cotton, labelled ‘Phase Eight’, two identical ‘Topshop’ puff-ball type skirts, of brown coloured elasticated cotton, with green coloured stitch detail, a pair of ‘Bertie’ heeled sandals, of brown leather, with woven raffia and stud detail soles
Estimate: £180 - 200
Sold for £264

Lot 33
Love And Monsters, June 2006
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), a costume, comprising; an orange and grey ‘Topshop’ checked shirt, of cotton with press stud fastening to front, a pair of ‘Oasis’ denim jeans, and a distressed effect ‘Lee’ denim jacket
Estimate: £450 - 550
Sold for £780

Lot 34
Love And Monsters, June 2006
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), a part costume, comprising; a lilac coloured knitted cotton hooded top, with ribbed detail to sleeves and waist, labelled inside ‘Sandwich’; a Pirate motif T-shirt, in pink coloured cotton, labelled inside ‘Urban Renewal’ and a black ‘Diesel’ jacket, with multi-coloured buttons to front
Estimate: £400 - 600
Sold for £504

Lot 35
The Impossible Planet/ The Satan Pit, June 2006
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), part costume, comprising; a fuchsia pink ‘Biker’ style ‘Diesel’ jacket, of cotton mix fabric, with various dry cleaning labels attached inside and a wine coloured ‘Levi’s’ T-shirt, of cotton, with ribbed body and button detail to neck (2)
Estimate: £400 - 600
Sold for £696

Lot 36
Rise of the Cybermen/ Age of Steel, May 2006
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), two waitress style dresses, both identical, of polyester and cotton mix fabric, with white coloured collar and sleeve trim, having press-stud fastenings to front and two large pockets, labelled inside ‘Alexandra’, one inscribed ‘Billie 1’, the other inscribed ‘Billie 2’
Estimate: £500 - 700
Sold for £900

Lot 37
Rise of the Cybermen/ Age of Steel, May 2006
Mickey Smith/ Ricky (Noel Clarke), a costume, an all black outfit comprising; a ‘G-Star Raw’ jacket, of quilted heavy synthetic fabric; a pair of combat trousers, inscribed inside ‘Mickey Double’; a long-sleeved hooded ‘Puma’ top and a pair utility lace-up boots, bearing label inside ‘Mickey Double’, size 9
Estimate: £350 - 450
Sold for £540

Lot 38
Rise of the Cybermen/ Age of Steel, May 2006
Jackie Tyler (Camille Coduri), a collection of pieces of costume, comprising; one embroidered black satin dressing gown with matching bra, both labelled ‘La Perla’ and further under bra labelled ‘Debenhams’, two identical black satin dresses, both labelled ‘Karen Millen’, with diamante and bead detailing to front and boned bodice, originally being cap sleeved, with later addition full length sleeves in satin effect fabric, and a pair of shoes, of black satin effect fabric with rose detail applied to front, labelled inside ‘Russell and Bromley’, together with various scraps of black satin effect fabric
Estimate: £350 - 550
Sold for £600

Lot 39
Rise of the Cybermen/ The Age of Steel, May 2006
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), a costume, comprising; a yellow coloured v-neck ‘Marks & Spencer’ vest top, of cotton, together with a red coloured ‘Diesel’ jacket, with zip details to front, and two pairs of navy coloured ‘Topshop’ trousers, one pair inscribed ‘2’
Estimate: £450 - 550
Sold for £660

Lot 40
Age of Steel, May 2006
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), part costume, comprising; an orange coloured ‘Topshop’ hooded top, of elasticated cotton, together with a blue coloured, long-sleeved top, labelled inside ‘Per Una Dué, 12’ (aka Marks & Spencer), with applied button and stitch detail to front, the sleeves and back fabric with raised pattern, and mustard coloured false under-vest to neck
Estimate: £400 - 600
Sold for £360

Lot 41
The Girl In The Fireplace, May 2006
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), two T-shirts; the identical T-shirts (slight colour variation), of blue coloured elasticated cotton, with ‘Wichita Falls’ logo to front, labelled inside ‘realitee’
Estimate: £120 - 180
Sold for £384

Lot 42
School Reunion, April 2006 and The Girl In The Fire Place, May 2006
Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke), items of costume, including; a Nintendo controller motif ‘Fruit Of The Loom’ T-shirt, a pair of jeans with belt detail to back
Estimate: £220 - 280
Sold for £264

Lot 43
School Reunion, April 2006
The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant), a collection of items of costume, comprising; a blue/ grey ‘French Connection’ shirt, with pale blue stitch detail, a grey ‘Uni Qlo’ shirt, with white buttons and two identical ‘H&M’ dark blue T-shirts
Estimate: £400 - 500
Sold for £1,020

Lot 44
School Reunion, April 2006
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), part costume, comprising;
a lemon coloured v-neck vest top, labelled ‘Marks & Spencer’, and a dark grey coloured Diesel jacket, with cream coloured lining, of synthetic fabric, with embroidered motif to back and front left
Estimate: £400 - 600
Sold for £480

Lot 45
Unknown episodes, circa 2006 - 2008
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), a collection of items of costume, comprising; a dark grey canvas ‘Diesel’ record type shoulder bag, with copper coloured zips, a brown leather belt, with large brass coloured buckle and decorated with floral motif and nine pairs of jeans (two Lee, two Rock & Republic and five Oasis), various sizes
Estimate: £120 - 180
Sold for £624

Lot 46
Unknown Episodes, circa 2006
Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke), a collection of miscellaneous items of costume, comprising; a pink coloured cotton T-shirt, labelled ‘Ocean Pacific Sunwear’, a grey cotton ‘Tailgate’ T-shirt, with Texas logo to front, a navy blue ‘Puma’ T-shirt, with red and white detail to shoulders, a blue ‘Puma’ tracksuit type top, with applied ‘Love’ badge, and two pairs of jeans, one ‘Levi’s’ the other ‘Topman’ together with a brown belt (7)
Estimate: £150 - 200
Sold for £144

Lot 47
Tooth and Claw, April 2006
The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant), three items of costume, including;
a brown coloured pullover, with press-stud detail to neck, labelled inside ‘River Island, S’, a dark blue cotton shirt with white pearlised buttons, labelled inside ‘HIJKLMUVWXYZ’, and a ‘Reiss’ dark blue cotton shirt with dark blue buttons
Estimate: £300 - 400
Sold for £1,080

Lot 48
Tooth and Claw, April 2006
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), a two-piece costume, comprising; a Crown motif T-shirt, of elasticated mauve coloured cotton, with embroidered Crown motif to front and further applied Crown motif badge, labelled inside ‘L Urban Renewal’, together with a ‘Topshop’ denim dungaree dress, labelled inside ‘Moto’, with corresponding ‘Moto’ logo on copper coloured buttons and studs
Estimate: £600 - 800
Sold for £1,560

Lot 49
New Earth, April 2006
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), four purple tracksuit style tops, the identical ‘Atmosphere’ (aka Primark) tops, of elasticated cotton, with ruched detailing and silver zips to front, one with cuffs stained with make-up, each with ‘Active’ label inside
Estimate: £150 - 250
Sold for £504

Lot 50
The Christmas Invasion, December 2005
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), part costume, comprising; two matching grey hooded tops, both of cotton with applied embroidered ribbon detail and zip to front, labelled inside ‘Tree People’, together with two white vest tops, both of white elasticated cotton, with applied button and chain motif to front, labelled inside ‘Miss Milne’ and ‘M’
Estimate: £400 - 600
Sold for £900

Lot 51
The Christmans Invasion, December 2005
Jackie Tyler (Camille Coduri), various items of costume, including; two pairs of identical grey tracksuit trousers, with pink stripe to leg, two ribbed turquoise jumpers, with v-neck, labelled ‘EDC by Esprit’, three pink tracksuit type tops, with zip fastenings to front, labelled as before, a red cardigan, of wool mix fabric with floral and bead motif to neck, a pair of ‘Sketchers’ trainers, with pink and lilac stripe and laces
Estimate: £350 - 450
Sold for £336

Lot 52
The Christmas Invasion, December 2005
Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke), a collection of costumes, comprising; a pale blue long sleeved T-shirt, labelled ‘Topman’ of elasticated cotton, three identical yellow ‘Topman’ T-shirts, of cotton, one khaki cardigan, of knitted wool-mix fabric, with zip front and a one black hooded ‘Topman’ jacket, of quilted synthetic fabric and a beanie hat
Estimate: £250 - 350
Sold for £264

Lot 53
Bad Wolf/ The Parting of the Ways, June 2005 and The Christmas Invasion, December 2005
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), a complete outfit, comprising; a ‘GAP’ white vest, of elasticated cotton with ‘GAP Stretch, M/M’ label inside, a red coloured ‘Punky Fish’ tracksuit style top, of cotton with zip front, with embroidered ‘Punky Fish’ logo to reverse and ‘P’ and further zig-zag motif to shoulders, and a pair of black ‘Topshop’ trousers, of synthetic fabric with applied button detail, labelled inside ‘Topshop, Tall, 12’ and inscribed ‘Rose Xmas’
Estimate: £600 - 800
Sold for £1,140

Lot 54
Boom Town, June 2005
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), a two piece outfit, comprising; a fucshia pink ‘Punky Fish’ tracksuit style top, of elasticated cotton, with white zip and detailing, and a ‘GAP’ denim mini-skirt, with frayed hem
Estimate: £250 - 350
Sold for £480

Lot 55
The Empty Child/ The Doctor Dances, May 2005
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) a collection of costume, including;
two Union Jack designed T-shirts, one labelled inside ‘Soll’, of elasticated cotton fabric, and a ‘Firetrap’ jacket, of quilted nylon and polyester mix, with zip and press-stud fastenings to front
Estimate: £300 - 400
Sold for £1,200

Lot 56
Dalek, April 2005
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), a collection of items, including; a red and grey hooded tracksuit style ‘Punky Fish’ top, with cream coloured lining and hood, together with eight white ‘Topshop’ vests, seven identical, each of ribbed design in cotton, and one labelled inside ‘Joe Browns’ and with paper label ‘KIM STUNT’
Estimate: £220 - 280
Sold for £1,080

Lot 57
Aliens Of London, April 2005
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), a collection of items, including;
two cream coloured ‘Diesel’ jackets, of heavy cotton fabric and two pink ‘Mambo’ T-shirts, with printed blue floral motif to front
Estimate: £250 - 350
Sold for £540

Lot 58
The End of the World, Aliens Of London and World War Three, April 2005
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) costume, including; a knitted purple and grey hooded top, with cream coloured cotton lining, labelled ‘Uttam’, together with two grey coloured cotton T-shirts, with cut-away shoulder detail
Estimate: £400 - 600
Sold for £660

Lot 59
Rose, March 2005
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), part costume, comprising: a dark pink hooded tracksuit style ‘Diesel’ top, of cotton, with cream coloured inside, with embroidered reverse logo to back ‘Forever Yours Diesel’; a pink cotton ‘GAP’ v-neck vest; a ‘Pucca, Funny Love’ bag, of synthetic fabric, printed with Japanese inspired cat and angel motif; a pair of white ‘Converse’ trainers, with red coloured trim; a pair of red knitted fingerless gloves; a pair of blue trainer socks; three wooden beads and a ‘Lee Jeans’ logo badge
Estimate: £600 - 800
Sold for £1,020

Lot 60
Rose, March 2005
Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), a pair of pyjamas, of cotton, comprising; a blue stripe vest and a pair of blue shorts, both labelled ‘Marks & Spencer’ and further labelled ‘Relax at Home’
Estimate: £60 - 80
Sold for £384

You can watch a BBC News report on the auction here:
Fans snap up
Doctor Who costumes at auction
There is also a selection of pictures from the auction here:
In pictures: Doctor Who props to be auctioned in London

Geronimo!

2010-01-03T15:35:00.000Z

This week marks the start of a new era: Matt Smith as The Doctor.

It also heralds the start of another unintended project of mine – on as you may come to read, I had no desire to begin.

At first glance, the new Doctor’s costume is somewhat arid of reproducible, unique items, so though I find it interesting (but not to my taste) I could see little I to indulge my sewing skills on.

But as time progresses, the off-the-peg costume he wears has become increasingly difficult to track down, and I have been approached by a number of cosplayers asking if I would be looking to replicate the shirt he wears.

My first thoughts were that it was out of my capabilities, having never made a shirt before.
But I hadn’t made trousers before making my Five and Six Trousers, so maybe I just need to learn.

As a coincidence, the set-learning part of my recent college course covered shirt-making, showing me it was actually a little easier than I thought.

So, I’m up for the challenge . . .

You can start to follow my progress on my new blog:

eleventhdoctorcostume.blogspot.com

Customer review - Rick Crouse

2009-12-30T22:00:00.003Z

Back in October I had an email from a lady who wanted a coat made for her husband for his Christmas present.
As well as being an unusual request – especially since it was being kept a total secret from the recipient - it proved to be the largest coat I had ever made . . .

I got the best Christmas gift this year – a Doctor Who coat! Not just any coat but one made with such attention to detail that it could/should have been worn by David Tennant himself!

My wonderful wife, Kirsten, commissioned a coat by Steve Ricks in the UK. We live in the cultural crossroads of Conroe, Willis and Cut-n-Shoot, Texas in the US. Yes, you read that correctly, and yes it is as culturally barren as the names imply. Anyway, she was a little apprehensive of ordering something from someone we had never met and who had no storefront – you know the usual concerns with sending wads of cash to some unknown email addy 5,000 miles away.

After Steve’s referrals (thanks Ian!) and several emails back and forth, the coat was commissioned. Steve’s communication was so frequent that I wasn’t allowed to use her computer until after Christmas. Kirsten typically would leave several tabs in Firefox open for me to see after I got home. Now I get email with links – like that’s something to look forward to. ;-)

She had to measure me and was quite nervous that I would guess what she had in mind. This is a bigger deal than one might initially think as I am over 6' 6" (a hair past 2 meters) and around 225lb (100kg) So lots of fabric was harmed in the making of this magnificent coat!

I figured I was getting a coat but did not fully appreciate what that meant. I thought it might be a period swashbuckling type coat as we are getting ready to vend at a new Renaissance Faire this spring. Christmas came and I opened the box to find the most amazing coat. A full on Doctor Who coat complete with Sonic Screwdriver (available at Think Geek).

The attention to detail is stunning! After having read Steve’s blog about his adventures in Doctor Who costuming, I understand why Kirsten commissioned him to make the coat. Only a true fan could create such an amazing garment. Steve’s obsessive attention to detail has made for a truly remarkable coat and experience.

I couldn’t wait to put it on! My boys couldn’t wait for me to open the Sonic Screwdriver. I won and put the coat on first. The only change that Steve made expressly for my coat was the left breast pocket is now split to hold my iPhone and Sonic Screwdriver in separate pockets. Both fit perfectly.

I have never had a custom coat made before and am thrilled at the outcome. I have worn the coat almost daily (quite a feat with our normal temperatures) to work as well as just knocking about since opening the box. For all considering a custom coat – run to your nearest email box and send Steve an email. He will do you a fine job!

Rick Crouse
www.fireflyitpc.com
www.rickcrouse.com

Happy Christmas to all my readers!

2009-12-19T12:12:00.004Z

You may have noticed that I recently added some hit counters to my sites, and I have been amazed as to how many readers I have out there!
When I started out I was writing it mainly for myself and one or two friends who knew I was about to make a new, and possibly ultimate, Tennant Coat.
From there my blogs have grown, and I never really knew how many cosplay enthusiasts were bothering to look.

Well, now I know it is more than just a few, I want to thank you all for taking the time to follow what I have been up to this year, and hope you will continue to see where I go in 2010.

I have pretty much written the last entry for 2009 (don’t worry, I’ll be back in January fired-up with ideas!) so all that remains now is to wish everyone a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

I wish to especially thank a few people for
their support this past year:

Ramie for showing faith in my work

Lisa for aiding the breakthrough with the GAP trousers

Timelord25 for his faith in me to make him a new Five Coat

Seth for his invaluable input and eye for detail, giving me something to live up to

Finally Primrodo for being a sounding board for ideas and direction, and for the use of the image of his TARDIS,
which appears above

A new blog - but not mine

2009-11-24T09:28:00.002Z

There is a new blog on the block, and for once it’s not one of mine!

George Chase (see left), aka Seventh Doctor Fan on the forums, has started his own blog, tracking his thoughts and ideas for wider consumption.

George has been a follower of my blog for some time, especially, it goes without saying, my Seventh Doctor Costume Blog!

I’d like to think I inspired him into taking the plunge and starting the blog, though I am sure we all have it in us to write our inner thoughts and enjoy sharing them, not-so-secret diary style.

You can find his blog at:

seventhdoctorfan.blogspot.com

Do take a look, and support you fellow fans!

Tennant Coat - customer review

2009-11-23T23:12:00.008Z

“I should like a coat
like that!”

If I can just paraphrase the Second Doctor there, as that is pretty much the thought that was running through my mind from the moment the Tenth Doctor stepped before the press in 2005.

I’ve always been a coat person, more specifically, I’ve always been a long coat person, but in the past this predilection has been confined to mere mid-length coats; long but not long. Not until I saw Tennant’s trench coat did I realize that THAT was the coat I had been looking for. And you just can’t find it anywhere – it’s unique.

To cut a long story short, I, like Mr. Steven Ricks, was searching eBay and came across the Honest Dragon ‘Tennant Coat’. Could this be the answer to my search for the perfect coat?
No.
Read Steve’s blog for the reasons why, but suffice to say, it’s really not a workaday coat or a good replica.

Two years down the line, I’m reading Steve’s blog and notice that he does commissions and his ‘jewel in the crown’ is most certainly that coat. I looked at all the pictures of both the work in progress and the finished article and it looks good. Very good. Impossibly good! (I must stop paraphrasing Doctors!)

After a little bit of deliberation, I took the plunge and upon the initial flurry of e-mails that were exchanged, I could tell I was dealing with a gentleman and one who really knew his stuff at that. Measurements were given and a clear time scale was agreed from the outset and then the wait…

It really was an excruciating wait, not because of any problems with the coat-making process, but simply because I knew what was coming was going to be it and I just had to have the coat there and then.

Throughout the whole process, Steve was never less than professional, but in addition to that he was always willing to answer any questions I had (which were many!) and provided constant progress reports and any unexpected delays that were met along the way. I felt confident that my money was well spent.

Onto the coat itself; it arrived, nicely packaged and it was a marvelous moment when it unfolded – such lovely fabric, beautifully heavy and very very LONG! Oh and yes, it fit perfectly, my coat.

Many others have commented much more lucidly than I ever could regarding the coat’s many qualities, but I’d like to point out its overwhelming accuracy to the screen coat: pockets, lapels, vent, buttons, stitching etc. I was simply speechless with admiration and do you know what – I really didn’t think once about the price I’d paid; that’s how good the finished coat was. It hangs perfectly, billows magnificently in the breeze and the pockets really are bigger on the inside – everything you need for your day will be contained within! Steve, you are a craftsman!

So now I have it, THE coat that I’ve been pining for for nearly five years and what does it mean to me? Well I am a teacher at a primary school and when I turned up for work the first Monday after the coat’s arrival, I was met by a seven year old at the gate:

“Can you beat the Daleks?”
he asked, wide-eyed and admiringly at my attire.

“Oh yes!” I replied with confidence,

“I can now!”

I need say no more.

So there we go, can I just say a big thank you again for great service and friendly communication - oh and the coat itself of course! Hope to maybe buy from you again in the future!

The Five Doctors

2009-10-24T18:58:00.001+01:00

No, the title of the posting is not a reference to the classic 20th Anniversary special from 1983, but to collectively the Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Tenth Doctors!

Confused?

Well, I have been having a lot of fun recently, slowly expanding the costume pieces I do.
To start with, they all appeared together in the original Tennant Coat or Tennant Suit blogs, but I have since started building separate blogs to cover the costumes of each Doctor, so they are easier to find and digest.

So far I have added a special blog for the Fifth Doctor to cover the Five Trousers and Five Coat I have been working on.
I also added a blog for the Sixth Doctor, to pull out the information about making my Six Trousers.

This past week I have added the Seventh Doctor blog as I have been working on a replica of the Hanky that goes around his hat (see left).

Now I am adding the Third Doctor to the portfolio! This is because I am starting working on making the Inverness Cape he is often seen wearing.
I am doing it as part of the college course I am currently on.

So start checking out my other blogs as I slowly add to them.

Smaller on the INSIDE!

2009-09-12T18:44:00.006+01:00

This week signals a special landmark in my tailoring work.

Up until now all my tailoring has been done in classic cottage industry fashion on the kitchen table - literally! In fact that was a step up from when I did the Mk I Tennant Coat, which had been made on the floor of our spare room, spending my whole time hunched over the sewing machine. Not good for your posture I can tell you!

From the Mk II I managed to get promotion to the kitchen table, as it was the only decent space in the house where I could lay out a large enough expanse of fabric to properly cut the cloth for a Tennant Coat and that has been where I have worked ever since (see above, while finishing the last garment made in the kitchen).

This has been all very well, but after a while, and an increasing amount of work being taken on, it started to become a little unpopular with my partner, who would repeatedly find a light dusting of fabric fluff covering the work surfaces of the kitchen . . . There wasn’t really much I could do about this, as cutting and working with fabrics produced dust and fluff as well as stray off-cuts of cotton.

Since I have started offering Five Trousers for sale, and knowing of some other projects I have in the pipeline, it became inevitable that I would need to find a dedicated room in the house to work in.

Currently we have been using the third bedroom as a study/computer room, and our second/spare bedroom as general laundry room.

A quick rejig moved the computers upstairs to the spare room, freeing up the study to become my sewing room, but I would need some proper furniture to work on.

When I was using the kitchen table, it served for both laying out and cutting, as well as sewing (see right, while laying out the back of a Tennant Coat). This meant I had to plan my day and do all my cutting first before setting up the sewing machine for work. However, if I needed to re-cut a pattern piece and had to clear the decks from sewing before doing the cutting then set the sewing machine up again to sew. In this move I wanted to have a separate sewing and cutting table.

Luckily the kitchen table was pretty sturdy, especially since my sewing machine is a fairly chunky, and when I am had been cranking away it set up quite a rocking action on the table.

However, when buying a new table to use in the sew room, we needed to find something up to the job, but not too expensive - a cheap Ikea table would just not do it.

I then had a minor brain-wave, and realized the best thing to do would be to find a proper Singer treadle sewing table on eBay!

As most stipulate a collection-only I had to limit my searches to a reasonable striking distance. It wasn’t too long before I found the “perfect” table. It had only been used as a piece of decorative furniture in a country cottage, so had been polished and looked after (see right, in-steu at seller’s house). It also, and more important for me, had three drawers either side where most only had one, giving me six drawers to store my bit and pieces as well as my treasured buttonhole attachment. This would make my move to the smaller sized study even more space efficient.

The item was described as follow:

HAS BEEN USED FOR THE PAST 8 YEARS AS A PIECE OF FURNITURE IN A PERIOD PROPERTY. STILL IN WORKING ORDER ALTHOUGH THE RUBBER BELT THAT DRIVES THE TREADMILL HAS NOW BROKEN AND WOULD NEED REPLACING. HAS 6 SMALL DRAWERS AND MEASURES 37" WIDE, 29" HIGH AND 18" DEEP. A FEW KNOCKS AND SCRATCHES IN THE WOODWORK AND MACHINE HAS BEEN WELL WORN IN YEARS GONE BY. STILL A LOVELY PIECE OF HISTORY AND A GREAT LOOKING PIECE OF FURNITURE. PLEASE NOTE: THIS ITEM IS READY FOR COLLECTION BETWEEN TUESDAY 1ST SEPTEMBER AND TUESDAY 9TH SEPTEMBER ONLY - DUE TO HOUSE MOVE.

I bided my time and bid for it on the last day and managed to snipe it for £77, which although it was maybe a little more than I had hope to pay, did give me a table in good condition with above average drawer space. I was pretty chuffed to have won it.

There then followed the irritating story that sometimes is all to familiar with eBay purchases. It was clearly mentioned in the listing that collection had to be between certain dates as the seller was moving house and this item would not fit in the living room of their new property. This was to be a good two weeks after the auction closed, which is all fine and up front. I paid straight away to ensure my part of the bargain was kept. I was given the sellers phone number and I called her to work out a date, which we set and I was to await the address when we confirmed a few days before collection.

I waited until the week before to find I could not raise her on her mobile, and she consistently failed to respond to my messages and emails. I was getting worried. I didn’t want to loose out on this table so did not want to file a non-recipt claim.

Then, suddenly two days before the planned collection date I got a text message from her to confirm the pick-up, but with no address details. I replied with no response and it wasn’t until the night before collection did I finally get an address to go to to collect.

We went along and picked up the table with surgical precision - in and out with minimum of fuss - I was just relieved to finally get my new sewing table after waiting for nearly three weeks.

We got it home, lugged it up the stairs and put it in its final resting place in pride of place in my new sewing room. It looked fab!

The table came with a 99K machine already in place which had never been used (see left). It is a much later machine to mine and has a pill-box bobbin rather than the shuttle type I am used to and prefer.

The machine was no real use to me, not even for spares, so I took it off and put my prized 27K in its place (see right).

I knew from the listing that the leather strap that would power the sewing machine had perished and was no good. A quick eBay search found a seller who stocks newly made spare parts and had a suitable treadle belt I could use. It was on a Buy It Now, so I had possession of it in a couple of days and I was able to give it a go.

I had never operated a Singer using a treadle before, so it was a steep learning curve to say the least. After finding that you need to manually start it off to get it turning in the right direction, I was soon rocking away with my feet with both hands free to handle the work being sewn.

Great as this is, I think even when I am proficient at it, I will still hand-crank some of the more delicate and critical part of my tailoring, as the treadle can run away with you and before you know it you are steaming though beyond where you wanted to stop.

Finally, we had a spare drop-leaf table, which although was not as strong as the kitchen table, did give a equal opened area on which I could cut. Since the sewing machine has its own dedicated stand, this table is more than suitable for what I need, so I now have my desired separation between cutting and sewing (see right).

I now have an area where I can work (in peace) and out of the way, though it is smaller on the inside compared to the kitchen.

Wish I had Time Lord technology . . .

After some searching I found the official User Manual for the Singer Treadle, which after a couple of pages digressess onto the contents of a Singer Puzzle box. If you want to read it, you can download it here:

Singer Treadle User Manual

Launching a new blog!

2009-09-07T22:52:00.011+01:00

This week I am launching a new blog to run along side the Tennant Coat and Tennant Suit blogs.

As part of my research into making the Tennant Suit, I practiced making trousers before embarking on my Tennant Trousers by first doing a pair of Six Trousers, and then a pair of Five Trousers.

The Five Trousers (see left) were a real hit with readers, and before I had even finished the first pair I was taking enquires from people keen to commission me to do them a pair, which I have now done a few times and you can order there HERE.

I have subsequently expanded to include both designs of trousers worn by Peter Davision.

I then started making a Five Coat, which again I have had enquires for commissions - even without anyone (including me) seeing the finished result!

With all these Five costumes I have been doing, as well as some in the pipeline which I have yet to announce, I have decided it would be better to dedicate a blog to all this new costume work.

I have therefore created fifthdoctorcostume.blogspot.com

(see right).

On it you will already find pooled together all the Five Trouser and Five Coat entries to date, and in future this is where I will be posting.

When milestones are reached, I will cross-promote from this blog so you will know when it is worth taking a look!

You will also now find a permanent link to the new blog in the right-hand sidebar, along with any other new blogs I create for future work.

Please feel free to subscribe or join the new blog - it gives me some idea that at least it is being read and it is worth keeping up to date.

Tennant Coat - customer review

2009-08-23T11:46:00.022+01:00

I have been a little slack at posting in the blog this past week or so as I have been doing a little commission for a Tennant Coat for a guy in Australia.
He had been thinking about commissioning me for a while, then decided to take the plunge.
I delivered it this week and he is pretty happy with the result, and wrote the following review about his coat.

If you’re reading this while toying with the idea of commissioning Steven Ricks to make you a Tennant coat, you’re probably thinking, as I did, “Wow, this is quite the outlay. I hope it’s worth it.”
It is.

It has to be said from the outset that this is a pricey endeavour for anyone. I don’t know what you do for a living, but I certainly don’t have six hundred quid just lying around for a rainy day. Having said that, however, Steve does offer a payment plan which anaesthetises the pain a little, if prolonging the agonizing wait. Also, there is no fine print or hidden extras, no surcharge for the brownness of the coat or the roundness of the buttons, it’s all up front, BS-free.

The number he gives you at the start is the same number at the end. I’d suggest that if you’re just looking for something long and brown and vaguely Tennant-shaped, and aren’t particularly interested in screen accuracy or overly obsessed with quality, then investigate one of the several online options that are available. That’s what I did, originally. If you do that, however, only your wallet will thank you, and you’ll be back. Oh yes, you’ll be back.

Rest assured, you are buying something for your money. Go into the other room and get out one of your Doctor Who DVD’s, one which stars David Tennant. Pop it in. See that coat he’s wearing?

That’s what you’re buying.

In terms of screen accuracy and workmanship, the coat is difficult to fault. The fabric and buttons have been painstakingly sought to be as close a match as possible to the real thing.

Neither the outer material or the lining are exactly as they appear on screen, but these fabrics are both discontinued, and anyway, the original fabric cost even more than this, so don’t worry about that.

Steve has scoured the globe and located a lining which, again, is as near as is humanly possible to the onscreen coat.

The internal breast pockets have also been lavished with the sort of obsessive attention to detail only a fan is capable of; the pocket’s trim is the same orange as the real deal, and even the inside back panel of the pocket has been matched to the slightly darker material of the original. Who the hell’s going to see that anyway? You will.

The pleat which runs down the back of the coat, along with those little triangles at either end of it, are exactly as you’ve seen them, and every other seam on the outside of this thing, even ones you never even noticed or cared about, are there. Some are even top-stitched, again, just like the real one. That’s right, even the stitching is the same.

Believe me, I’ve ploughed through a DVD or two myself checking all this.

The side pockets on the original coat are a bit odd. The pocket itself is placed a little below the actual flap which covers it, a unique design which isn’t common to your everyday suit or overcoat.

And guess what? Steve’s on top of that too. The guy mustn’t have much of a life going on.

The material itself is a type of suede, but it’s a tough suede, a suede you’re not afraid to knock around and crease and spill stuff on and punch on at the pub in. It’s durable, and, I’m assured, resiliant to the elements.

This coat has been my second skin since I bought it, and, like the Doctor, I tend to fight a few monsters here and there.

On the negative side, apart from the fact your Mum has to go on the game for six weeks to cover the cost ... well, there’s very little to complain about. There are a few tell-tale pinholes around the pockets and the lining, which I assume is a necessary evil of the coat-making process. These are especially prevalent in the orange rims of the inner pockets. And I would strongly suggest that when supplying Steve with your measurements, you measure very, VERY carefully. Then measure again.

I made a small error which resulted in the coat being around two inches too short. Granted, it’s not something anyone will ever notice except me, but when you’re going to this expense and this trouble to have something as accurate as this created, it’s a shame to allow your mathematical ineptitude cause even the slightest disappointment. I must stress though, that this was entirely my own fault, and Steve was following my directions with his usual meticulous accuracy. I’ve spent some time since I recieved the coat comparing it not only to David Tennant’s onscreen costume, but also against the best of the other replica options out there. This coat is second to none. To NONE.

I should touch on Steve’s customer service. In my case, I am blessed with an irrational and crippling paranoia, especially when it comes to parting with wads of cash when there isn’t a door I can go and pound upon should matters become askew.

From the beginning however, Steve was prompt, courteous and professional in response to my queries. Once I had commissioned him, he sent updates every few days, sometimes containing photographs, detailing the work he had done that day, and outlining the work he planned to do the next.

He was professional, good-humoured, and, above all, above board! The parcel was trackable all the way around the planet to my kitchen table, and Steve was emailing me to find out whether I was happy with the coat almost before I’d even opened the box!

The bottom line is, if you can possibly spare the cash, and you are agonizing over whether or not to bite the bullet, agonize no more. If you are serious about screen accuracy, attention to detail, and professional tailor standard quality, this is the route for you. I guarantee you you will NOT be disappointed. Expensive? Sure. Worth it? Absolutely. Take it from me, hand on hearts. You can trust me, I’m the last of the Time Lords.
I’ve got the coat to prove it.

Wow - I am blushing! Thanks Ian. That is the sort of comments that make doing a coat worthwhile.
And I just love the mash-up way of wearing it with casual clothes.
The first Whoodie!

Five Coat - calico pattern testing

2009-08-01T11:50:00.003+01:00

First thing I need to do is check that what I have transcribed from the Buckaroo pattern is sizing up correctly. It is also good to have a dry run to understand how the coat will go together and iron out any problems I may encounter.

Time to do another trusty calico test!

I must admit that when I first started making Tennant Coats, I was so desperate to have the finished result there and then, I would storm in and design on the fly as I was cutting final fabric and correct for any inaccuracies as I went along. I always knew calico tests were what I should be doing to start with, but it was only when I was getting ready to cut the £75 a metre Alcantara, that I stopped myself and went down the calico route first.

I found it very useful and it encouraged me to transcribe a proper pattern which I then have if I want to make another. I would now never do a coat any other way.

So, for the Five Coat I quickly cut the pieces that form the body of the coat, as well as one of the outside pockets as I want to get to grips with this unusual method I am not familiar with.

Version One

It was easy to follow how to put it together and within an hour I had a wearable shape I could test. There were immediately a number of issues I could see with the pattern that would need to be fixed: the fiddle-back was pushing the buttons too far apart (see below, top left); the underarm area was not as fitted as I would like (see below, top right); the seam on the shoulders was angled backwards more than I would like (see below, bottom left); the skirt was not as full as it should be; and the pocket flaps were too small (see below, bottom right).

Version Two

I put the first version on my tailor’s dummy and could mark onto the fabric the changes I wanted to make, which I translated back to my pattern, reshaping it as I went.

I reduced the base of the fiddle-back, bringing the buttons closer together (see below, left); re-angled the shoulder seam to run straight (see below, right); added some fabric to the skirt; and sized the pocket flaps up by about a quarter.

When I put this test on the dummy I pinned some of the piping to the rear split and I think I got the buttons too close together, so that needs to be fixed; the shoulder seam is now fine.

I then turned my attention to fitting the sides, which were badly gaping (see above, left). I first pinned the middle of the panel to pinch in the fabric to see how much needed to be taken out (see above, middle). I had seen in a picture that on the real coat this panel should be in two parts, and this I realized was the reason.

It is not just a simple case of cutting the panel in half, because I need to include seam allowance for this new seam.

I took the existing pattern for the panel and drew a pencil line along where I wanted the new seam to be (see far left). I then traced over each of the new halves, adding seam allowance over the pencil line at the top and bottom, but curving in to go tight and over the line in the middle. This produced the two new pieces, which when laid together show a gap in the centre (see left).

Once I cut these in calico and sewed them in place, the side fitted a treat (see above, right).

Elsewhere in the test, I thought the skirt was hanging too straight and was not flaring enough.

time to move on to a new version.

Version Three

Through all the cutting and recutting I thought it a good idea to cut a new test to clean the slate and add in some further adjustments.

This time round I curved the skirt so it flared properly (see above); the pockets are now a better size; the revised side panels are fitting nicely (see left); the base of the fiddle-back is wider, though not as wide as the first version. I have, however spotted a school-boy error on my part. The pattern has an overlap across the back, around which the piping is attached.

This dog-leg starts at the middle seam, and now I have it wider to give space for this, the buttons feel too far apart (see right).

Reviewing a picture of the back of the real coat, I now see the dog-leg starts to the left of the middle seam, so I have widened it just a little too much (see far right). Looking back over all the versions, my dog-leg is too far to the right and should be centered between the buttons. I need to recut this part to be a bit narrower and find a way to cut the dog-leg to start left of the centre seam.

These three versions were quickly knocked together to establish the pattern and resolve any obvious problems, which they have certainly done.

The amends I now need to do are all manageable, so I think it is time to move on to a new, more finished version of the calico test which will be a full dry run and be fully lined.

Check back soon to see how I get on.

A Ten Coat divided by Two

2009-07-24T19:26:00.006+01:00

I have been a bit fired up recently while making all the Six Trousers and Five Trousers over on the Tennant Suit blog.

They all started out as practice runs before making the Ten Suit Trousers, but I have ended up with half a wardrobe of some of the earlier Doctors.

So I have decided to have a go at making a Five Coat to go with my trousers. After all the work I have done on the Ten Coat, making a Five Coat should be a lot easier as there is much less to it. The only part I am daunted about before hand is the red piping as that will undoubtably have to be sewn by hand, but I am sure once I get to it and start knuckling down, it won’t be as bad as I thought.

Looking back, I have always wanted a Five Coat, right from when Peter Davison was playing the part in 1982. I suppose it was the first item of cosplay I ever wanted, though at the time I’m sure it wasn’t called cosplay.

I was quite taken with the simple style of the coat and I tried to find something similar without success.

I went several times to the King’s Road in London where there used to be a number of vintage clothing shops to try and track down something even of the same style. I wasn’t expecting to find the exact same coat, but maybe something that some red piping could be sewn onto.

Each time I came home a disappointed teenager and was very glum.

My mother came up with a plan: her one claim to fame was that she had been at school with someone who had later become a famous tailor and maybe we could ask him if he could make one for me.

The tailor concerned had an amazing career in which he dressed The Beatles and The Rolling Stones - he was Tommy Nutter (see left), a name you may not know, but he was a innovative and respected Saville Row tailor.

We hoped to call in a favour. After several attempts she managed to finally get him on the phone and although he remembered who she was and chatted over old times, the best he could offer was to do it for around £1,000 - which in 1982 was an absolute fortune - so sadly it never ever happened.

Tommy later went on to design the costume for Jack Nicholson for Batman (see above, click to enlarge, and take time to see some of the great details, such as the playing card buttons on the waistcoat and use of fabrics).

The first thing to sort out is the pattern. A friend has suggested to me a couple of patterns for frock coats that could easily be used with little revision.

The first is from Laughing Moon, who did the pattern I followed when I was making my Six Trousers. Their California Pants pattern was easy to follow, and I learnt a lot from making them. Their Frock Coat, however, is a little more fancy than I need, with a double breasted option with silk-faced lapels (see left).

Another suggestion was a pattern from Buckaroo Bobbins, who also have a Frock Coat pattern. This is just a single breasted option, and has all the features I need including the horizontal flapped side pockets and (as I was to find later) the detail surrounding the lower back (see right).

Their website is really basic, and looks like it has not been updated since the inception of the internet. I found an email address hidden away at the foot of one of the deeper pages and enquired about obtaining the pattern. I got a very quick and polite reply giving me details of how to pay and international shipping costs. I paid and within a week the pattern duly arrived.

First thing I need to do is copy the size of pattern I will need and create my own paper version to cut from.

I do this by tracing through the Buckaroo pattern to my paper below using a tracing wheel, which puts a line of fine puncture marks, not enough to cut the paper, but such that you can see the line to cut. This was I preserve the original pattern in case I need to go back and use one of the larger or smaller sizes.

The pattern is a little tricky to work with, as it is an amateur effort (but published with a passion) and the paper they have used is on several occasions smaller than the pieces I need to cut.

They have therefore sliced larger parts in half and left the user to paste them back together to make whole pieces. This includes the back and tail (see above); upper and lower sleeves; and worst of all the skirt, which requires four pieces to be joined together to make it whole (see right).

Having said all this, don’t let it put you off, the joins are easy to follow as long as you are careful, and I soon had the pattern transcribed as needed.

Next I plan to do my usual calico test. This will help check fit; make sure the overall cut is right; and most of all give me some hands-on experience of the pattern before cutting the final fabric and making any avoidable mistakes.

I will show you this calico test being made next time.

The images of the pattern are copyright © and shown with kind permission of Buckaroo Bobbins.
I wish to thank them for agree for their use and for making such a great pattern available for sale.