Paul Smith reissue shirt - the review

Well, my reissue shirt arrived yesterday, and I’ve now had a good chance to look it over and can venture some opinion on how it looks, and it’s not entirely positive I’m afraid.

I had high hopes for the shirt, and to be honest I’ve been left a little disappointed. If someone knew the exact cut and details of the shirt, it would be Paul Smith, but sadly they seemed to have missed a trick here.

Paul Smith shirt - BACK IN STOCK!!!!!

This week is one of the few times dreams come true for Doctor Who cosplayers!

The much demanded and anticipated Paul Smith ‘scroll stripe’ shirt worn by Matt Smith in series five is now finally back in stock, having been brought back by popular demand.

Paul Smith Shirt | ‘Scroll Stripe’ Shirt

Paul Smith PS shirt - reissued!

Great news has finally been confirmed for those wanting a Paul Smith PS shirt identical to the one worn by the Eleventh Doctor.

Paul Smith announced this week that the shirt has been brought back by popular demand and will be available via their Internet store and in the Floral Street branch in London's Covent Garden.

All change!

I’m not referring to the Number 11 bus – but the Number Eleven Doctor!

The new series of Matt Smith episodes is currently in production, and some on location pictures have emerged, showing The Doctor’s NEW costume!

Some pictures were knocking around when the Christmas special was being lensed, but they were quite distant and not top quality. These new ones, however, have been taken by paparazzi and so are much higher res and show a lot more detail.

What they do show are the complete change of costume assembled for the new series. Now, it doesn’t at first glance look that different, but like the season 19 vs season 21 Fifth Doctor chance, it is a revisiting of the constituent parts.

So, what’s changed?

11 shirt - pattern cutting

A couple of months back I started work on producing a replica Matt Smith shirt.
To make it work I need to pull two aspects of the shirt together before I can make my first one.

Firstly, I needed to match the squiggly pattern design, which I have now done (see left), as well as the stripes for the cuffs.
You can read about that under Pattern Repeat and Screen-accurate Cuffs.

The other thing I need to do is sort out the pattern for the shirt itself.

Although I have a couple of Paul Smith shirts, each to a differing fit, my plan is to make a shirt that is much more of a classic size, rather than the over-tailored tight fit of the Paul Smith originals.

But instead of pattern trace my shirts, I am going to use a commercial pattern by Burba (see right) as a starting point.

It is a fairly straight forward shirt pattern with a number of permutations of style, but I will be making my own adaptions based on what I have learnt on my recent college course, as well as how the real Paul Smith shirts are cut.

I also have a cunning plan to make the cutting of the shirts a lot easier in the long term. I was originally going to have the fabric printed, then cut it out to my adapted pattern.
However, I have realized I need to make quite a few changes, so my plan is to make all those changes in a digital format, then directly apply the pattern shapes to the printed fabric itself.

First thing I need to do is scan the entire Burba pattern, which I have to do in A4 bits and patch together (see left).
To aid matching up, I spray-mounted it onto dot and cross paper first, giving me alignment reference. This also made it more robust for scanning.

I will not be using all the pieces. For example the collar comes in three styles (see on the left edge of the image), but none of them are to the right shape. This I will crib directly from my Paul Smith shirts.

I then retouched to remove the background paper colour so it was easier to trace in Illustrator (see above).

The pattern contains a range of sizings, from S to XXL, all of which are superimposed on top of each other. You can see this in the sleeve shape.

To start with I will trace the L size and make sure the pattern works. Adapting it for the other sizes will then be a very simple job.

The Third Way

After everyones excitement of find the Paul Smith PS shirts last year in burgundy and blue; then the discovery of another shirt in blue, but with more screen-accurate cuff; there now comes yet another variation!!

This time it has cuffs with stripes, but these cuffs are french-style cuffs, intended for use with cuff links, though there does appear to be a button to do them up with as well (see below, left).

Paul Smith shirts often like to have little hidden details that only the wearer knows about and can see. The striped fabric is on the inside of the french-cuffs, and when worn conventionally cannot be seen (see above, left).

They could be folded inside out to display the stripes, though it would make them a bit bulky.

Thanks go to Ryan for sending me the pictures and sharing with us his amazing find.
Well done Ryan!!!
(And well done for wearing your watch face down.)

11 shirt - Screen accurate cuff modifications

As the broadcast of the first Matt Smith episode drew nearer, we started to get more publicity images of Matt in costume.

The only image til now that showed the cuffs on the burgundy shirt had the jacket over the top, so it was only possible to see the edge of the cuff and two stripes burgundy around it (see right). At this point it was thought that the sleeve straps had been butchered and adapted to modify the cuffs, which at the time made sense.

Later, through a reader of my blog, I found another variant of the shirt in the blue, which appeared to have a lot of the modifications needed already done – and the cuffs were pre-striped into the bargain.

The stripes, however, covered all of the cuff, not just a couple around the edge (see left).

This had caused a flurry in the forums, as it started to look like I had acquired a more likely Paul Smith shirt compared to what had been found to date.

A clue to confirm this then appeared a few weeks later in the 3-D trailer, where it was very briefly possible to see that the blue shirt had more than just a couple of stripes on it (see below).

My new shirt was looking more and more like the real thing. But we still had not seen all of the cuffs on the burgundy shirt. Could this be fully striped too, like my blue shirt?

Then finally, as the broadcast of the series drew even closer still, one particular image published in The Sunday Telegraph Magazine caught my attention (see left). It shows Matt wearing the shirt, but without the tweed jacket, so for the first time we got to clearly see the cuffs, and yes, they were just like the blue shirt I had!

There was then some criticism of those who had done the sleeve strap modification, saying it was all wrong – which in truth it was. However, the straps are not that long, and even when pressed out fully, they only gave enough fabric to add two stripes around the cuffs. It would never have been possible to add stripes to the entire cuff using this method.

This calls for a plan B.

Paul Smith modifications - a review

As the proud owner of one of Steve Ricks’ famous Tennant Coats, it was only a matter of time and money before I commissioned him again. This time though, it was the Matt Smith look I was working on.

A bit of background: when those pictures were published of that Southerndown beach shoot in July last year, a lot was made of the tweed and bow tie. However, for me, the two most striking elements of the costume were the boots (oh those elusive All Saints...) and the shirt; such a strange but stylish pattern, when combined with the bow tie and tweed gives a strangely modern but retro look at the same time. In fact, when I first snapped eyes on the shirt I thought ‘old-man’s shirt’ - kind of knackered, charity shop style. It wasn't until you venture up close and see that design that you realise there is more than meets the eye.

My good friends on Gallifrey Base went into costume over drive and we soon worked out the various brands: All Saints boots, Topman trousers, Harris Tweed jacket and... a Paul Smith shirt. Yes PS by Paul Smith to be precise, but I was surprised.

I checked out the John Anthony website and they were selling the burgundy shirt, but only had S, M and XXL. Now if I knew what I know now about the sizing, I would've snapped up the XXL there and then, however I decided that at £55, I wanted a good fit. So I noticed an alternate colour, navy blue and grabbed an XL and was disappointed to find it was very very snug. Now I don’t consider myself a particularly large chap, but I was making this thing bulge out in a not too attractive manner! So, in the wardrobe it went for a while.

PostScript to PS Shirt

A little while ago I had a tip-off from one of my readers.
He sent me a link to a website called tobi.com selling designer clothing, including a range of Paul Smith garments.

What he had spotted was the Paul Smith PS shirt as worn by Matt Smith – but not a version that had been seen so far (see below).

The only colourway available was the blue, with no sign of a burgundy option. When I looked at the site there was a S and a L option available with a drop down to chose how many, though only 1 was given.

I choose the L and made a purchase. When I returned to the page, the L option had gone, so I guess I grabbed the last one!
Within 24 hours I received an email saying it had been dispatched, and within the week it arrived by UPS courier (with an import duty charge, darn!)

This new look Paul Smith PS shirt has some design points to differentiate it from the previous version.

• There is no breast pocket
• The sleeves do not have straps
• The buttonstand is constructed differently, with large wide fold-backs half lining the fronts
• The cuffs are entirely made form the striped sleeve strap fabric
• The hem of the shirt is tailed rather than straight
• There is a small embroidered PS logo on one of the cuff plackets

11 shirt - Paul Smith modifications pt2

After spending some time removing the breast pocket and the sleeve straps, I am now ready to start doing some sewing and sort out the cuffs.

Luckily the first image of Matt in costume (see left) was of very high resolution and it’s possible to see a lot of detail around the cuff (see below).

The fabric I have harvested from deconstructing the sleeve straps, although fairly substantial (see below, left), is not in a single piece long enough to run the circumference of the cuff, falling short by some four inches. I will therefore need to splice the fabric down the centre (see below, centre) and create a longer strip (see below, right).

11 shirt - Paul Smith modifications pt1

Today I start work doing the modifications needed to make my Paul Smith PS shirt (see right) as screen accurate as possible.

I manages to get hold of one that fits – which is a bonus!


There are three modifications to make to get the shirt looking right:

Breast pocket – The Paul Smith shirt has a breast pocket, which is not present on the Matt Smith shirt.

Cuffs – The Matt Smith shirt has a couple of bold burgundy stripes around the cuffs, which are not on the Paul Smith shirt.

Button stand – The Paul Smith shirt has a flap, concealing the buttons from view when it is worn, but on the Matt Smith shirt they are clearly visible.

I am working on the basis that no-one has a Paul Smith PS shirt for themselves, so I intend to go through these three modifications in as much detail as space permits, which may make them a little patronising. Sorry for this in advance, but I thought it worth covering it all.

The first modification I need to make is real simple: the Paul Smith PS shirt has a breast pocket, which is not present on the version Matt Smith wears.

I need to very carefully unpick the stitching around the pocket (see above) and remove it in one piece (see left).

This gives me a nice fabric swatch sample to use. I have also retained the cotton I removed, as I will need to get a colour reference for sewing later.

While I am in an unpicking mode, I now prepare for the next modification, which is on the cuffs.

In the first publicity still which emerged of Matt Smith in costume (see right), it is possible to see the cuffs of his shirt.
Curiously these are different from the Paul Smith PS shirt, in that they have two rings of burgundy stripes around them (see right, insert).
In fact, if you look very closely you may also be able to see that the wiggly line between the stripes does not seem to be as red as the rest of the shirt, instead looking quite dark, almost black.

Once I got my Paul Smith PS shirt, the mystery of the cuffs was solved.