Fabric Friday - Paul Smith series six shirt

Last week on Fabric Friday I showed you the series 7b shirt from Hide.

This week I’m going a little further back to series 6 for the Paul Smith shirt first used in The Impossible Astronaut.

There was much debate as to what the true colour of the shirt was, with some seeing it as purple/violet; others seeing it as blue; some thought it was a grey colour.

Ironically in a way all of these are almost correct, as the shirt by Paul Smith was available in a number of colourways, including a grey and blueish purple colour.

It’s very difficult to scan and keep the true colour, so I have had to colour correct theres images, which I’ve done to the best I can.

It’s quite a subtle cloth. If you look real closely you can see there are woven diamond shapes in the tie spaces between the stripes, something that rarely shows up on screen.

Paul Smith shirts on eBay

Just to show they are still around if you look hard, a couple of Paul Smith series five shirts popped up on eBay recently.

After an initial listing at £145, they are both resisted with a BuyItNow of £125.

Burgundy Paul Smith PS Shirt
Size L (CHEST 42")

UNSOLD WITH OFFERS

Item Description
Men’s Designer Scroll Stripes Shirt as Sported by Matt Smith in Dr Who
VERY RARE AND HIGHLY SOUGHT AFTER DESIGN!!
Item Brand
Paul Smith
Item Size
Label States: Large
21" from Armpit to Armpit, giving Chest Measurement of 42”
Slim Fit (Fitted Darts Sewn into Back)
34" Sleeve (Measured from Seam/Centre of Collar Base to End of Cuff)

Blue Paul Smith PS Shirt
Size L (CHEST 42")

UNSOLD WITH OFFERS

Item Description
Men’s Designer Scroll Stripes Shirt as Sported by Matt Smith in Dr Who
VERY RARE AND HIGHLY SOUGHT AFTER DESIGN!!
Item Brand
Paul Smith
Item Size
Label States: Large
21" from Armpit to Armpit, giving Chest Measurement of 42”
Slim Fit (Fitted Darts Sewn into Back)
34" Sleeve (Measured from Seam/Centre of Collar Base to End of Cuff)


Plus, someone managed to pick up this XXL blue shirt for a snip!

Paul Smith Doctor Who Shirt

SOLD FOR £40

A rare original Paul Smith shirt in blue. Size is Xxl, but is slim fit so it fits a 44/46" chest fine.

Cut sleeves - but not entirely cut price!

One of my readers put my on to this.

I’ve seen a lot of original PS Paul Smith shirts on eBay, some of which have been pretty unique with Striped Cuffs; Plain Cuffs; and even French Cuffs – but I’ve never seen one with NO cuffs! In fact NO SLEEVES - well, short sleeves.

It opened with a £14.99 starting price, and in the last couple of days leapt to £72.

An interesting curio on the Paul Smith shirt.

ITEM DESCRIPTION
Men’s Scroll Stripe Shirt as worn by Matt Smith on Dr Who!!
RARE SOLD OUT ITEM, ONLY EVER SEEN A HANDFUL AVAILABLE ON EBAY & CAN FETCH £200+!!

Item Brand
Paul Smith

Item Size
Label States M
21" from Armpit to Armpit giving a Chest Measurement 42"
Slim Fit

RRP
£120

Colour
Light Grey and Blue Scroll Stripes

Series Five items spotted on eBay

I was having a browse on eBay this week and came across a couple of listing showing there is still a supply of ‘original’ series five item, if you look hard enough - and have deep pockets.

ALL SAINTS LAYER BOOTS
11th DOCTOR Matt Smith Series 5

Firstly I found a pair of All Saints Layer Boots, size 10/10.5.

The US based seller started them at US$49, with an undisclosed reserve. From what I can guess, a buyer did a deal with the seller, and the listing was pulled, before being reposted with a fixed price of US$475.
Remember these boots were around the £120 price tag when new.

Up for auction is the VERY RARE damn near impossible to obtain pair of original ALLSAINTS SPITALFIELDS "LAYER BOOT", the very same pair as seen on Matt Smith in DOCTOR WHO series, this boot style was also his personal pair off set at the time. These have been long out of production by AllSaints and have been pretty much scarce on the secondary market since. This pair is a UK/EU 44, the rarest and more desirable size to find. If you were a 10-10.5 or even 11 US they should fit great. This pair has the Vibram rubber bottoms professionally placed to match Smith's as the 11th Doctor and also, well, to keep you from slipping. Note: the "worn in" look is part of the style on the boot. Please make sure you know your size and read my description carefully.
Stand out with Cosplay with the REAL DEAL! these are virtually impossible to come by now, don't miss out!
Please be aware of your size as there are no returns accepted. Sold as-is. Thanks! :)

Post Series Five costume index

With filming well underway for Series Six, I thought it was time to catch up on a couple of Eleventh Doctor appearances which have happened since the end of Series Five.

Doctor Who BBC Prom

Jacket Harris Tweed in Mackenzie two-by-two dogtooth weave

Shirt Burgundy Paul Smith

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan
NB. These jeans can be quickly identified by the visible metal waistband button at the top of the fly (see left)

Boots All Saints Layer boots

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 - going, Going, GONE!!

Yesterday I managed to grab myself a Paul Smith shirt in XL.

Someone had emailed me to note that only the Small and XL were left, with the rest all out of stock. It was a lucky tip off, since after I placed my order in the morning, the entire supply of shirts was listed as out of stock.

We’ve been told that the shirt was coming back as a limited run, but I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so limited! The advice to grab them while you can appears to have come to fruition.

I hope everyone who wanted one grabbed one in time.

Paul Smith shirt - Floral Street trip

With the Paul Smith shirts at long last in stock, I obviously now want to get myself one.

When I got mine first time round, I wanted an XL, but annoyingly they were sold out, so I had to buy an XXL. As it happened, the shirt was a very slim, tailored fit, and the XXL fitted me fine.

This time round I thought I should get the same, but despite going online on the first day they were available, the XXLs were sold out.

I had heard that the Floral Street branch in London’s Covent Garden (see above) was due to be the only retail outlet for the shirts, so I went down then to take a look.

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.

eBay madness

Buses can be annoying – you wait for ages, then three come along at once!

Well the same can be said for Paul Smith PS shirts on eBay recently.
In July last year, when news broke that Matt Smith was wearing a Paul Smith shirt, everyone was frantically looking to find where to get hold of one. Supplies quickly ran out, and the old reliable fall-back of eBay came into its own when the occasional shirt did appear ever few weeks. Some went for reasonable prices, others a bit higher if two bidders went head-to-head.

But recently there have been fewer and fewer on offer, until a couple of weeks back.

The recent spate of shirts have all been of the blue flavour, and each has been interesting different from each other.

STRIPED CUFFS - SCREEN ACCURATE?

First to be listed, on 1st July, was a very unusual PS shirt (see below).

It was notable for having striped cuffs, but with a top-stitching unlike any I have seen to date; it also had a unconcealed button-stand; and a slightly fitted back.
It is the first shirt I have seen with a red buttonhole on the placket, which is visible on-screen, especially in The Eleven Hour. To date, this is the closest I have seen to the screen-worn shirts.

It had an amazing starting price of just £1, but sold after 28 bids for £250.

SLIM-FIT, PLAIN CUFFS

Then on 10th July another shirt appeared on eBay (see below).
This was a standard shirt, the same as the ones available from johnanthony.com last year.
It had a concealed button stand; plain cuffs; and is likely to have had a heavily tailored back and a breast pocket as the John Anthony shirts did, but it was not possible to confirm this from the photos.

It had a starting price of £40, and sold after 15 bids for £105, which is in line with the price of some new Paul Smith shirts.

STRIPED CUFFS

Finally worth mentioning, is another shirt that was listed on 13th July (see below).

This appears to be identical to a shirt I bought from tobi.com.

It has striped cuffs; an exposed button-stand; and looks to be the more generous fit.

This opened with a £10 staring price, but quickly spiraled out of control, and by the time it closed 10 days later, it had reached a staggering £650!!!!!

FRENCH CUFFS

In September 2010 Ryan put his unusual burgundy PS shirt with French cuffs up for sale.

There were some nice detail pictures of the shirt, including those cuffs.
From a starting price of $99, the bidding soon was creeping up, and by the end of the auction it had reached $350 (£226 to keep it in context with the other shirts above).

A bit of a hint – I can’t wait to see those cuffs at first hand . . .

Finally, as a reminder, here is a list of the variations I have seen in the Paul Smith shirts using the distinctive squiggly design.
If you have another variation not listed here, do drop me a line.

1. John Anthony
These were available in both colours; no button-stand, concealed buttonholes; plain cuffs; sleeve straps; slim fit, heavily tailored back; breast pocket; embroidered PS on sleeve placket

2. Tobi.com
Only available in blue; visible buttons, but no button-stand; striped starched cuffs; standard fitting, no back tailoring; embroidered PS on sleeve placket

3. Found by Ryan
Blue shirt; French double-cuffs

4. eBay - sold for £250
Very similar to (2) but top-stitching on cuff set much further in from edge; red placket buttonhole

Series Five costume index

A while back over on my Third Doctor Blog I ran a series of features about Jon Pertwee’s costume changes during his run as The Doctor.
I wrote it because I was curious to work out the transition from his first year when he wore the same clothes all season, through to his last where he rarely wore the same thing twice!

Matt  Smith’s costume appeared at the outset to be a fairly fixed affair, but as the series has progressed a number of subtle variants have emerged. What follows is an attempt to document these in one place.

All of the images below have been grabbed from the HD transmissions. Click on them to view in full resolution.

The Eleventh Hour

Jacket Donegal Tweed

NB: There is a minor continuity error in the closing scene, where a close-up shows The Doctor wearing the Harris Tweed jacket (see right) which does not appear for two episodes.

Shirt Burgundy Paul Smith with matching burgundy bow tie

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan
NB. These jeans can be quickly identified by the visible metal waistband button at the top of the fly (see below).

Boots Replica All Saints Layer boots

Meanwhile In The TARDIS

Disc 1 of complete Series Five DVDs

This bridging scene, which links The Eleventh Hour directly to The Beast Below, maintains perfect continuity between the two episode.

Jacket Donagal Tweed

Shirt Burgundy Paul Smith with matching burgundy bow tie

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan

Boots Replica All Saints Layer boots

The Beast Below

Jacket Donegal Tweed

Shirt Burgundy Paul Smith with matching burgundy bow tie

Trousers Dogtooth design skinny jeans from TopMan

Boots Replica All Saints Layer boots 

Victory Of The Daleks

Jacket Harris Tweed in Mackenzie two-by-two dogtooth weave

Shirt Blue Paul Smith with matching navy bow tie

Trousers Plain charcoal skinny jeans
NB. These jeans can be distinguished from the dogtooth jeans by their clean closure at the waistband with no visible button (see right).

Boots Unidentified brown boots

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.)

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.

11 shirt - Paul Smith modifications pt4

I’ve now finished the three main modifications I needed to do no my Paul Smith PS shirt to make it into a Matt Smith shirt: Breast Pocket, Cuffs and Buttonstand.

There is, however, one more modification I am going to make, which may not be strictly screen-accurate – but it’s for my own personal comfort!

The Paul Smith PS shirt is very tailored, in that it is very fitted and quite tight around the middle, being intended for a considerably slimmer frame than most normal body sizes.
The shirt I bought was an XXL, which for me is ludicrous, as I normally wear a simple L. As a result, the sleeves are bordering on being too long and the collar is slightly too big for my neck, BUT the body of the shirt is tight around me.

Having studied the shirt carefully, I realize there is an easy way that I can make it fit better. The back of the shirt has a dart on either side, taking in around and inch each side (see above).

Notice how the shirt is quite taught around my tailor’s dummy.