The Magician's Lining

Hello, fellow Whovians! 

Last week I wrote about the fabrics used for the 12 Doctor’s coat, tried to find the best alternative, as well as gave a little insight into the progress of my costume. As I promised, today’s post is about the lining! 

Most people believe that the lining is a plain red. In actual fact, the lining is a quite unique weave of two colours - red and blue! If you look closely in the photos of Capaldi in his costume, you can see the pattern woven in. 

The costume was revealed in January, and the costume itself would have been made slightly earlier. Because of this, much like the coat fabric, the lining is out of stock. Back in June, after many hours of walking up and down 29 fabric shops (yes, I counted), I managed to find 2 shops that used to sell the fabric. According to the one of the shops, the fabric was woven in Italy, then sold to John Lewis for a while, until the remaining stock was bought up by the first shop. I have not tried to contact John Lewis, so cannot validate this, but it’s an interesting idea anyway. I bugged the sellers about samples, but they had nothing left of the fabric. 

The second shop also could not provide me with any samples, although I did have an interesting chat with the sellers about the Doctor Who fabrics, and was told that designers Louise Page and Howard Burden were regular customers, and would often buy things from them. When I asked exactly what they had bought, the sellers shrugged their shoulders, and said “way to many things! We can’t remember!”. So with this information I left.

Recently, I found the time to visit those same shops, but this time to try and find the fabrics from the 12 Doctor’s new tartan trousers, but more on that later :) While looking through the fabrics in the other shop, where the lining fabric was sold, I saw something familiar in the distance. I walked up closer to check… “No!” - I thought to myself. “Can it be?!!”…

… And, surely, I was not blind! In front of my eyes where two variations of the lining! In a purple and green colour variant! 

I ran back to get the seller, and asked him whether this was the lining. He confirmed it, saying that they were all made at the same time. I instantly bought as much as I could. As I, honestly, wasn’t expecting to find anything, I had a small amount of money with me, so I used that to buy 1 metre of each colour. 

After stroking the fabrics for 5 hours, I then moved on to contemplating whether it were possible to dye these fabrics. I had a pack of yellow dye lying around, so I decided to try it. And it worked perfectly!

As this test worked perfectly, I then proceeded to buy red dye. And, well… It turned pink -

 I then ran back to the shops to get a darker shade of red. And… That didn’t work well either -  

After this, I had lost all hope of dying the fabrics. Until a friend suggested trying a mix of a few colours. I adjusted the formula for this, and after I did a test swatch, and after being happy with the result, dyed the rest of the fabric. And it came out like this - 

Perfect! Red and blue, just like the original!

As I only had a couple metres, I instantly rushed back to the shop to buy the remaining stock.

As you can see, comparing it with the photo, it matches up quite well!

As I have a fair bit of the fabric now, so if you would like a couple metres, or a commemorative swatch to stroke for 5 hours (it’s such a lovely fabric!), then please do get in touch, and I’ll do my best to help! 

‘Till the next time :) 

My New Journey

Hello, fellow Whovians! 

Right, this is my first ever blog, and I thought I would write about various Doctor Who Costumes, share some photos and information about separate parts of the costumes, and, hopefully, soon, I will be offering some exclusive screen accurate fabrics and items! But more on that later on :)

For now, let’s talk about something different. As you may be aware, the upcoming Doctor Who Festival is not too far away now, and I imagine most people are planning to go in costume. My goal here is to hopefully provide some helpful information, post pictures of screen accurate items, try to find the best alternatives, and, when possible, give you a chance to grab yourselves a screen accurate item or fabric! I’ll also be posting some extra goodies from time to time. 

As I myself will be going to the Festival as the 12th Doctor, until November I’ll mainly be covering  his costumes, but I’ll be trying to post other costume pieces as well. I’ll start with one of the most important things - the coat.

Many people call this coat a Crombie, but as you may know, Crombie did not make the coat, although for a while, people theorised that the coats were custom made with the “Bespoke made Crombie service”. 

As far as I know there are two different versions of the coat, made with two different fabrics. Both of these fabrics are from W. Bill in London.

W Bill are fabric sellers, not far from Regent Street, recently bought out by Harrisons of Edinburgh, specialists in Pure Cashmere suitings and coatings.

The first fabric to be used for series 8 was a dark navy wool and cashmere blend.

This fabric is unfortunately now out of stock. I have been told at W Bill that this particular fabric will not be remade, and all the fabrics at other fabric merchants are only a “close substitute”.

So as far as the series 8 fabric goes, in terms of acquiring enough to make myself a coat - I’ve hit a dead end!

In the process of filming the costume designer added a waistcoat to the Doctor’s look. This waistcoat, although thought to be black, is in actual fact a dark blue. This is the fabric used - 

This is a pure Camel hair fabric, and VERY expensive, going for about 240-260 pounds a metre. This fabric, first used for the waistcoat, was then used to make a new batch of coats. This is the reason people seem to confuse the colours of the coats in various episodes, as they are in actual fact different fabrics! I have been told that the BBC recently placed an order for 20 metres of this fabric. So although it is still available, it may soon be gone! I do have a supply of this fabric, and can get samples if requested! 

Here is also a photo, comparing the two fabrics (the first used on the left, and the darker “waistcoat” fabric on the right.

By far one of the best replicas of the coat is one made by a seller on eBay - Tssy2005 -

For the price, this coat is custom made to your measurements, the right colour, and the red lining goes right up to the edge of the coat, something that many coats do not feature. 

For my cosplay, as I will be doing certain modifications, I will be choosing this alternative, as I currently do not have the funds to make myself a coat using the screen-used Series 9 fabric -

The pattern is quite good, and the lapel shape seems a good match. The outer seams are also flat felted, just like the actual coats. The collar also is a good length, as the original has a surprisingly short collar. The buttons seem to be quite good, but I’ll be getting replaced with the screen-accurate horn buttons later on.

As you look at this alternative, you’re probably thinking one thing - the lining is not red.

Yes, I have obviously noticed, but I have a specific reason for this, and a very exiting reason too! 

In the next couple of days I’ll do a separate post on the lining, as well as announce something that will be available EXCLUSIVELY from this blog! But for now, here’s a small teaser…

‘Till the next time :)