A Study in Red

Hello, fellow whovians! 

As you may have seen, Peter was recently seen on set filming with another new combination! 

It consists of the black velvet frock coat, the ink All Saints hoodie, and a new red shirt! 

When the first photos from afar turned up, I thought it was a store bought shirt. I had a look at various shops, and found some decent colour matches, but after seeing more, closer photos of the shirt, I could see that it was most likely not a store bought shirt. It looked like it had been cut to be in the same style as Peter's Budd shirts. So I thought I'd pop into Budd shirtmakers the next day, and ask where the fabric had came from. To my surprise, Budd said that it wasn't their shirt! 

They had explained to me that they were asked by the BBC to make these shirts for the shoot, but were only given 4 days to do it. Obviously, Budd couldn't handle the job in this time period, so the job had to be done in house. Unfortunately, Budd didn't know where the fabric was sourced. 

So with the help of Hayley, and a couple days of tedious searching, I have found the fabric used! It took longer than expected clearly because of the number of floral fabrics that matched the description Hayley gave us, but I got there in the end!

It's a lovely soft cotton!
Now obviously it isn't red, and you may think I've gone mad. But as it turns out, the fabric was actually dyed, which made finding it quite a challenge!

Now come the dyeing tests. Stay tuned! :)

The Day of the Bow Tie

Hello, fellow whovians!

Some exciting (and exclusive) news today! 

The story starts in June. I was at Budd Shirtmakers making a purchase. As you know, this is the place where the White Soyella shirt is made for Peter Capaldi. Budd also provided a number of shirts for Matt Smith during his time as the Doctor. Most notably, the blue end on end shirt worn by him in the Day of the Doctor. This was worn with a purple polka dot bow tie, also sourced from Budd! 

As you may know, Budd Shirtmakers sell a selection of beautiful dressing gowns. These are normally made out of patterned silks, sourced from various makers in the U.K. Often the offcuts were then made up into cravats and bow ties! 

This was the situation with this very bow tie! 

There were only a few of these bow ties made originally, and were never to be seen again - until now!

I was in the process of buying one of their Budd shirts when I just happened to mention the bow tie worn with the blue "End on End" shirt. And it just so happened I was talking to the top man at Budd, who, amazingly, said that it would be no problem to redo the fabric! 

This was way back in June. Skip forward to now, and we now have this!

The silk twill has been made by the same weavers, and the dots printed with the same pattern print, so it is literally 100% exact to the original used bow ties! 

Furthermore, the fabric will be cut into bow ties by the same person who made them back in 2013!

I'm very lucky to have been a part of this, and grateful to Budd Shirtmakers for bringing back the most iconic bow tie! I'll definitely be getting one! What about you?

Black Velvet - if You Please?

Hello, fellow Whovians!

So after finding out that Peter Capaldi, the Doctor himself, would be filming on location on Monday, I decided to bite the bullet and take another trip down to Cardiff! 

As before, no spoilers, but here are some pictures of the filming!

Peter, being the kind person he is, after doing some scenes, came up to fans and started signing and doing photos. This gave me a chance to get up-close photos of his new Black velvet coat!

I’ll start with the not so obvious. This coat is cut way differently to the previous coats we’ve had. Based on the length, and back construction, it is in fact a frock coat! From the pictures you can see how beautiful made the back of this coat is. 

As it is a frock coat, you have a similar construction to Matt Smith’s series 7B frock coat! So that means it has wonderful princess seams, and on Peter’s coat, those seams even line up with the sleeve seam! 

There are also pleats on each side of the lower back, and, unusually, no back vent overlap! 

Again, similar to Matt Smith’s frock coat, the front facing only extends downward to the waist seam.

It also has A LOT of flare! 

The buttons are also quite unusual, and I’m already on the hunt for them!

I must say, though I did not like this coat initially,  I am liking it even more after seeing it i person. I look forward to seeing it onscreen!

Oh, and obviously i had to get a photo with Peter himself! :-)

Thanks here goes to Alex Beard, my consultant tailor who helped with the technical terms! His knowledge of tailoring and the 10 Doctor suits is unmatched! Check out his websites, badwolfcostumes.com and 10thdoctorsuit.blogspot.com for more exciting stuff!

A Glimpse Into the Future?

Hello, fellow whovians! 

So as some of you may be aware, Series 10 of Doctor Who had it’s first location shoot yesterday, and as I was visiting yesterday for a meet up with Thomas (DoctorWhoCollector on Instagram). I’ll keep it as spoiler free as possible, but here are a couple pictures I snapped of Pearl Mackie yesterday:

So obviously as this is a costume blog, I’m going to talking about costumes. I’ll leave the Bill costume to the other fans (though I have already identified the jacket thanks to some photos I took of the tag!).

While taking a stroll down the unit base, which is where all the trucks hide, we stumbled across the costume trailer! 

Having a camera on me, I snapped a picture of what was inside, and upon later analysis we have found some very interesting stuff!!

There appears to be a new bottle green velvet waistcoat!

The good thing is that I am almost certain where this velvet comes from. In fact, just by chance, I happen to have a swatch of it already on me!

It’s another Holland and Sherry velvet! Some of you may remember it as one of the fabrics considered for series 9! 

It’s the same quality as the burgundy velvet, and I’m sure it will look brilliant on Peter.

Next to it, you can see a hoodie.

Thomas remembered seeing this very hoodie in an eBay listing ages ago!

It’s another all saints merino hoodie, but in a sold out colour, annoyingly! 

Then it’s the burgundy velvet, and then………. 

IT’S ANOTHER COAT!

I first confused this for a holes jumper, but later inspection with my brilliant friends revealed it to be a new black velvet coat! It seems to be a 4/4 length crombie, with blue lining!

Now this is very interesting! 

Further along the costume rail you can see a couple shirts plus a (possibly green) jumper. 

Lastly, you can see the Pink Henley from the Magician’s Apprentice/Witches Familiar! So maybe a return for the Misty Mountain shirt?

In any case, this is only a couple of many possible variants to be worn on episodes, so I look forward to seeing more!

The Navy Trousers

Hello, fellow whovians! 

As some of you may know, I recently had an in-depth chat with Chris Kerr, the tailor who made the series 9 coats, some of Matt Smiths coats, and, as it turns out, some other stuff as well. The chat revealed a lot of interesting things, which I’ll get to eventually.

But for now I want to focus on one particular item from the Doctor’s wardrobe - the trousers.

As you all know, series 9 brought us 3 pairs of new plaid trousers. Two of them were bought in shops, and one custom made.

As well as these plaid trousers, there were also black chino-style trousers worn with the velvet coat, which were also bought from a shop, Paul Smith. 

But there was one pair of trousers that were a mystery - the ones worn in the Zygon Invasion/Inversion, as well as Sleep no More.

This is a mystery which I am going to solve today.

While asking Chris questions, he mentioned he made some navy trousers for series 9. Intrigued, I asked him more about it. It turned out not only to be the ones made for the Zygon two-parter, but also that the fabric used was still readily available, and the shop was on the very street he is located on!

Being on Berwick street, there weren’t many shops to look around in, so I quickly found the needed fabric. 

It’s a navy wool with a hint of lycra for stretch. It is very expensive though, at almost £80 per metre. 

It looks quite dark in most pictures and on screen, and even may be mistaken for a black colour, but you can see in some pictures how clearly navy blue it is - 

I bought a small length, and can do small swatches for anyone that asks!

 

funnily enough, it turns out to be an alternative colour of the fabric used for Clara’s waitress dress from Hell Bent!

I've included a scan I've colour corrected to more or less the right shade for anyone who's looking for alternatives!

 

So that’s one mystery solved, and a couple more will follow soon :)

Velvet coat - the fittings

Hi, fellow Whovians!

As some of you may have seen from my Instagram account (gallifreycostumes, for anyone who is interested), the velvet coat, apart from a few modifications, is finished!

Before posting detailed pictures of the coat here, I wanted to take you through the process.

As some of you may know, the tailoring process is quite complicated, and it is also very time consuming!

Once I handed in the fabrics, it was a not-so-long wait until I was called back for the first fitting. I was offered this "body" of the coat, with only a handful of things done to it.

Once I put it on, it was pinned in various places to get the A-line fit of the original coat. We also had the chance to get the lapel length right.

I was also asked to try on the left sleeve to decide the length, as well as figure out the cuffs.

as far as the first fitting goes, that was the most exciting it got!

The second fitting was about two weeks or so after. this was much more exciting!

All pins from the first fitting now turned into actual seams on the fabric, and the collar piece and lapel facings were cut. both sleeves were also made. This fitting is when I handed in the buttons.

Apart from coming in a few times to check on the progress, as well as to work out some other small details, it was a torturous wait.

I now have the coat with me, and it is brilliant!

Until I post the final coat, here is a sneak peak! :-)

Day of the Doctor tie!

Hello, fellow whovians!

I'm happy to say that I will be starting the velvet coat on Wednesday! As pattern reference, I am also going to be using some small measurements from the Abbyshot 12 Doctor coat, such as lapel and vent lengths, as they did a very good job on the coat! 

Unfortunately, the price of the fabrics and tailoring  has put a dent in my costume budget, so to compensate that dent, I'm reluctantly selling off a few Doctor Who items that I've decided to let go of, and I'll be slowly posting them across the next month. 

I'll be starting with the St George by Duffer tie from the 50th Anniversary episode The Day of the Doctor. 

These ties were actually what got me into cosplaying, as I heard everyone around me talking about it being used in the episode, and I thought I would get one, so I could boast to my friends that I had the exact tie used by David Tennant himself! 

Later down the year I decided to stock up on the ties, as they were becoming rarer and rarer. 

I have 3 accurate ties that I can sell. I say accurate, as there were 2 versions of this tie, slim and wide, the slim being accurate. 

So if you'd like a tie - do message me, and I'll get back with details! :)

Velvet coat - it begins!

Hello, fellow Whovians!

Sorry for not updating the blog recently, I've been so busy with other projects that i haven't had time to write anything for the blog!

I wanted to give a little sneak peak of what I'll be working on for the next month -

It is, if you haven't guessed, the Doctor's Velvet coat!

As I myself am still inexperienced with sewing, and because of the price of the velvet, I've decided to take this project to the professionals!

My tailors I'm going to be working with are amazing at what they do, and were the ones I trusted to reline my navy coat with the Series 8 lining.

So to help them make the coat as accurate as possible, I've compiled a 4-page document with loads of high quality pictures of the coat that I snapped with my camera at the Doctor Who festival.

I will be using the exact velvet, lining, horn buttons, and the buttons from Cardiff, so this will hopefully be one of the most accurate coats outside of the TARDIS! :-)

For anyone thinking about it, I will eventually be making these coats available for sale, as I have a trade account at Holland and Sherry, and have regular access to the velvet, so if you want a coat out of all the exact fabrics and buttons - drop me an email, and I'll tell you more about time frames and pricing.

I will be starting the process at the start of next week, so I'll be updating with pictures once there's something worth doing photos of!

Until the next time :-)

New Year Goals

Greetings, fellow Whovians! 

It’s a brand new year, and I wanted to wish all my readers a very Happy New Year!

I’ve had fun finding and showing my various findings over these past few months, and I’m really grateful to everyone who takes time to read this blog!  

I’ve gotten to know loads of new and interesting people through here, and I would like to continue doing so in the New Year! 

So to start the New Year, I’d like to tell you about some stuff I have planned to write about - 

Every chance I get, I will be doing an in depth comparison between the original Tennant ties (or colour variants I’ve acquired) to replicas of them made by Magnoli Clothiers, and I’ll be starting off with a tie I’m very proud to have - 

I’ll be doing a few more dyeing experiments, but for a very specific and often unnoticed part of the 12 Doctor’s costume

I’ve been working with my local tailors for a while, and after getting all the details right (and using Budd Shirtmakers collar patterns as a guide), I will hopefully be bringing you a replica of the White Capaldi shirt, using the exact Soyella fabric from Budd! 

I will also be making some special frames with Peter Capaldi in costume, and the appropriate swatches to go with it. I’ve sent a photo of a test version to Ray Holman, and he said “Brilliant”! 

Hopefully later in the year, I will be announcing something very exiting for 10 Doctor tie fans, and it will be something you will not be able to find ANYWHERE else! 

And as usual, I’ll be trying to hunt down the fabrics worn by our favourite hero! 

So I wish you a Happy New Year, health, happiness, and lots of Doctory-costume-goodness :-)

I’ll leave you with this picture of me in one of my favourite Costume variants -