Happy Christmas to all my readers!

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

Costume changes - appendix

So far I have had a thorough look at the costume combinations worn by Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor, covering his appearances season-by-season, then in a summary of smoking jackets and inverness  capees.

But what about after 1975 . . .

Following his departure as The Doctor, there were a few more occasions when he donned the velvet smoking jacket and inverness cape.

The Five Doctors
For his first and only return to the role within the official series run, he wore a dark burgundy velvet smoking jacket, with rolled collar and cord-piped edges; a brown tartan Inverness Cape; frilled white shirt; no cravat or tie (see below).

None of this costume was any of the pieces he wore in his original run. The tartan Inverness Cape is not the one first worn in The Curse Of Peladon (see below, left). Note that The Five Doctors cape has two wings (see above, top right), and not a single cloak spanning the back as (see below, left).
Neither is it the one worn only in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, which was a grey coloured tartan (see below, right).

Smoking Jackets and Inverness Cape Index

Having gone through The Third Doctor’s entire wardrobe season by season, I thought it would be a good idea to break it down by the two main garments: smoking jackets and inverness capes, listing where they appeared.
This gives a quick reference to which were worn the most.

Velvet Smoking Jackets

Midnight blue, rolled collar
Spearhead From Space
Doctor Who and the Silurians
The Ambassadors of Death
Inferno
Terror of the Autons
The Claws of Axos
Colony in Space
The Sea Devils

Maroon, rolled collar

Terror of the Autons

The Mind of Evil

The Claws of Axos

The Daemons

Day of the Daleks

Rust Red, notched collar
The Curse of Peladon
The Time Monster
The Three Doctors
Planet of the Spiders

Bottle-green, notched collar

Carnival of Monsters

Frontier in Space
Planet Of The Daleks

The Green Death

The Time Warrior

Purple, double-breasted, notched collar

Planet of the Daleks

Petrol blue,
revered red-piped lapels

The Green Death

Death to the Daleks


also worn in cover shot of Radio Times 10th Anniversary Special

Aquamarine-blue,
notched collar
Invasion of the Dinosaurs

Emerald-green, notched collar

The Monster of Peladon

Charcol-black, notched collar
Planet of the Spiders

Inverness Capes

Black, red silk-lined

Spearhead From Space

Doctor Who and the Silurians

The Ambassadors of Death

Inferno

Terror of the Autons

The Claws of Axos

Colony in Space

The Sea Devils

Black, purple silk-lined
Terror of the Autons
The Mind of Evil
The Claws of Axos
The Daemons
Day of the Daleks
The Mutants

Black, blue silk-lined

The Three Doctors

Red-Green Tartan
The Curse of Peladon
The Time Monster
The Green Death
(Planet of the Spiders as prop)

also worn in cover shot of Radio Times 10th Anniversary Special

Brown, burnt orange silk-lined

Carnival of Monsters

Frontier in Space

Grey checked, mid-blue lining
Invasion of the Dinosaurs
(Planet of the Spiders as prop)

Costume changes - season eleven

It’s The Third Doctor’s final year, and Trine-E and Zu-Zana’s work is nearly done.

But is The Doctor heading for a regeneration in style?

Season Eleven

The Time Warrior
The Doctor kicks off his final season wearing a simple costume of the two-button fronted bottle-green velvet smoking jacket with large collar and lapels, first worn in Carnival Of Monsters the previous year; a frilly apple-green shirt; and dark green velvet bow tie (see below).

NB: The publicity still below shows Jon Pertwee wearing the brown Inverness Cape from Carnival Of Monsters, with the cape draped over his shoulders rather than worn properly. This is an erroneous shot as this Inverness Cape is never worn at anytime during The Time Warrior.

Costume changes - season ten

Well, it’s The Doctor’s birthday – but are Trine-E and Zu-Zana gonna be impressed with his birthday suit . . .

Season Ten

The Three Doctors

The season kicks off with a mix of some old and new.

He wears the rust-red velvet smoking jacket (see below, top row) with a notched collar, black cord piping, with a triple frog-fastening that first appeared in The Curse Of Peladon the season before; a button-fronted frilly shirt, with large collar; for the first time a black velvet bow tie; and for a quick outdoor excursion, a new black Inverness Cape, this time lined with a sky blue silk (see below, bottom row).

Costume changes - season nine

After Trine-E and Zu-Zana got The Doctor wearing a little colour last season, let’s see if this year he can take those rules to a new high and show some style at last!

Season Nine

Day Of The Daleks

The Doctor starts off the season with his maroon smoking jacket with a rolled collar, black cord piping and double frog-fastening; gone is the zip-fronted shirt to be replaced by a button-fronted shirt of a similar style, with an enormous collar; no cravat; the purple-lined black Inverness Cape also gets an outing.

The new DVD release contains a fully restored version of the story, and you can see some nice detail on the shirt, which has covered buttons and loops to fasten it (see right).

Costume changes - season eight

Trine-E and Zu-Zana are back to take us through Jon Pertwee’s second year as The Doctor.

Let’s see if he’s taken the advise to bring some more colour into his wardrobe, or has he just slipped back into those same old familiar black rags . . .

Season Eight

Terror Of The Autons

The Doctor opens the story wearing black trousers; a maroon velvet smoking jacket with a rolled collar, black cord piping and double frog-fastening; and an unusual zip-fronted white frilly shirt with no cravat. (see right, and below bottom left). For early exterior scenes he wear a new black Inverness Cape, this time lined in purple silk, with frog-fastening.

This new costume is short-lived, however, as halfway through episode one he reverts to the same velvet smoking jacket and Inverness Cape from his first season, though retaining the new zip-fronted shirt, with no cravat.

Some minor work had been done on the Inverness Cape, adding four frog-fastenings down the front.

The latest DVD release has a new restored image, and it is possible to see that the fabric of his shirt has a satin self-strip (see right).

The lining for the new Inverness Cape is distinctive as it goes right to the edge of the lapels (see above top right), making it very promenant compared to one used the previous season, which has black facings for the lapel (see above bottom left)

The size of the collar on the shirt seem to vary from scene to scene: from 1970s large (see above top left) to looking like blood-hound ears! (see above bottom left)
This shows there was more than one of the new design shirt used.

Costume changes - season seven

Before fabric cutting on my Inverness Cape, I thought I’d take a little look at the costumes worn by Jon Pertwee in his time as The Doctor.

I had been watching a number of his later episodes and noticed he seemed to wear a different smoking jacket or Inverness Cape for each story. I had also noted that for his earlier stories he wore the same thing for every adventure.

So when and how did this transition happen?

Who better to get in to take a look? Trine-E and Zu-Zana obviously!

Yes Doctor – you may hide – but they will find you!

Season Seven

Spearhead From Space

Jon Pertwee’s costume is established in episode one as being stolen from a surgeon at the hospital.

He wears black trousers; white button-fronted frilly shirt with conservative sized lapels; black silk cravat; midnight blue rolled-collar smoking jacket with a single frog-fastening, a handkerchief in the breast pocket; and a red silk lined, button-fronted black Inverness Cape; plus occasionally a black fedora hat.

Inverness Cape - cutting the block

This week I started work on a new Who costume – the Inverness cape worn by the Third Doctor (see below).

I am doing this as part of my college coursework (a tailoring course at West Herts college, in Hemel Hempstead). I picked it for two main reasons: firstly it has a nice, simple design with no tailoring (ie body fitting) so I don’t need to worry about making it fit too perfectly; secondly it has a few key design points I want to brush up on with my tutor, namely collars, back-splits and hemming with a silk lining.
I am already pretty proficient in all of the above by working it out for myself, but I am sure I could be doing many of these things better with the focus and direction the course will take me in.
I also want to learn skills at pattern cutting, as my recent Five Coat suffered from a lack of experience during the early stages.

The Inverness Cape came to my attention after finding a Cutter’s guide for it on the internet (see left) with instructions on how to draw up the design for it.

It is essentially made in three main pattern pieces: a half-back; a front panel; and the cape sleeve, all of which are mirrored to form the cull garment. On top of that I need to design my own collar (with my college tutor) and set a couple of outer welted pockets, which I am adapt at doing now. It then just needs lining.

The early weeks of my course have taught me a methodology to working up a pattern ready for making up.

1. Firstly draw the pattern up at quarter-scale to ensure your measurements come together correctly and to become familiar with the order of how it is drawn.
2. Cut and make-up a quarter-scale paper mock-up to start to understand how things work.
3. Then work it up in full scale, now that you are confident of how to do it. this is done to the finished net size of the pattern, ie without seam allowances.
4. Trace over the pattern pieces, to separate them out. 
5. Add seam allowances using a grading guide to make even adjustments to the pattern ready for making up.
6. Cut the pattern out and then cut it in calico.
7. Make a ‘twill’, which is the first test that it fits and comes together correctly. If all is good .....
8. Make the finished garment using all the knowledge learnt along the way of things to look out.

Today I plan to get a good couple of points into the list.

The Five Doctors

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 the blog you are reading 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 this Third Doctor blog 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.

Back to the Academy

I am so pleased I have finally cracked all the problems I was having with the calico test of the Five Coat.

Having said that, it has been a long journey and for a while I was going round in circles making slower progress than I would have liked – and using more calico and pattern paper than was reasonable.

I need to do something about this, and it needs a little thinking outside of the (police) box, so to speak.

My solution? Well, I have given it some thought and I think although I can pick up new skills quickly by study professionally made garments, because I am self-taught, there are probably short-cuts and simple tricks I could use if I had some structured training.

I have looked around and found that a local college network runs courses in dressmaking and tailoring to a variety of skill levels. It is not long before courses start and enrolment is very soon, so I a few weeks back I made some enquires and got myself along to West Herts College in Hemel Hempsted to sign up.

Because I have worked in my own little bubble with no contact with others, I truly do not know my skill level.
I am certainly above the ‘beginners’ level, but am I ‘intermediate’ or “advanced’? Which would I get the most from? I don’t want to be on a course that teaches me how to thread a needle; likewise I don’t want to be lost trying to learn couture fashion with corsetry as a speciality!

As it turned out, both the beginners and intermediate courses were full, and had been for some time as they are constantly over subscribed to, leaving me just the advanced as an option. After telling the tutor about the commissions I had been taking on recently, she was perfectly happy to accept me for the course and thought the others would have been too basic for me anyway, which is sorta good to hear.

Green Velvet Smoking Jacket

This week’s auction at Bonhams has a real star item on offer: for me it’s not the cape Christopher Lee wore as Dracula in the classic Hammer Films, but the green velvet smoking jacket worn by Jon Pertwee in a handful of stories.

The catalogue listing states it was worn in The Time Warrior, which it was, but this was its last outing.
It first appeared in Carnival Of Monsters, and was worn again in Frontier In Space, before briefly appearing in the openings of both Planet Of The Daleks and The Green Death.

With the jacket in the viewing, how can I resist the chance to see it close-up.

This is the first time I have ever had the chance to see an original screen-used Pertwee jacket to touch.

It was smaller than I had imagined, and was showing its age at the corners. I was surprised to find it has a peach coloured silk linking.

It was a great opportunity to get some detail photos, and here is a montage of the best ones I took.

Bonhams costume sale - 16th June 2009

This coming week there is an auction at Bonhams in Knightsbridge of Film and Entertainment memorabilia.

Amongst the James Bond and Beatles items (and Christopher Lee’s original cape from his first Dracula film) are a number of original Doctor Who costumes, some dating right back to the very first season in 1964.

Also on sale are three Doctor costumes; one from Jon Pertwee’s last series; Jon Pertwee’s jacket when he appeared in the Children In Need special, Dimensions In Time; and a near complete Colin Baker outfit (sadly missing the coat).

This is an opportunity I can’t miss, if not to bid, but to at least go along to the viewing and take a closer look, and maybe some decent photos.

Ironically I have just done a replica (to a slightly different pattern) of the Six trousers, so now I will get the chance to check out my work against the real thing close-up. I will take a swatch of the fabric I used and compare it.

The viewing is Sunday 14th and Monday 15th June, so I will go on Monday and take some more detailed pictures, particularly of the Doctor costumes.

In the meantime, below is a full list of the items on offer, taken from the online catalogue so they can be seen all together and long after the listing on Bonhams will have been removed.

Bonhams sale 16808 (16th June 2009)
Entertainment Memorabilia including items from the Angels Collection of Television & Film Costumes

I have separated the items by Doctor era, and you can see the rest of the items here:

Lots 1 to 4
First Doctor (1963-1966)

Lots 6 to 13 & 464
Fourth Doctor (1975-1981)

Lots 14 & 15
Fifth Doctor (1981-1984)

Lots 16, 462 & 465
Sixth Doctor (1984-1986)

Lots 17 to 18
Seventh Doctor (1987-1989)

Lots 17 to 18
Ninth Doctor (2005)

Here are just the lots relating to the Third Doctor era

Lot 5
Jon Pertwee as The Doctor from Dr Who: The Time Warrior series, first broadcast December 1973 - January 1974.
A velvet frock coat, of moss green colour, with plastic square shaped buttons, pockets with self flap, lined with orange coloured watered silk.

Footnote:

The Time Warrior series was the first to feature the character Sarah Jane Smith, played by Elisabeth Sladen. The episode is also the first time Gallifray is mentioned as the Doctor's home planet.

This jacket can be clearly seen on screen during the series.

Estimate: £7,000 - 10,000

Sold for £8,400

Lot 463
Dr Who: Jon Pertwee's velvet jacket, purple, with matching lining signed and inscribed in black marker by “Jon Pertwee Doc No 3 1994”, lapels and pockets with black braid edging, as worn in the episode “Dimensions In Time”, 1993, together with related letters from Pertwee and a copy of Doctor Who Magazine, 26th December 1990, which includes a photograph of Pertwee wearing the jacket.

Footnote:

Apart from being worn in the 30th anniversary episode, Dimensions In Time, this jacket can also be seen on the cover of the Radio Times, 1993, in the Doctor Who Annual, 1995, in several BBC videos (The Pertwee Years/The Troughton Years), and in the Doctor Who and Panopticon magazines.

Estimate: £5,000 - 6,000

Sold for £5,400