The boots on the other foot

When Matt Smith returned as The Doctor in A Christmas Carol, he did so in a totally revamped costume.

Like Peter Davison had back in season 21, it looked unchanged to the casual observer, but every single piece of his costume was different, with only the braces the same!

Gone were the distinctive Paul Smith PS shirts; the off-the-peg vintage Harris Tweed; was no more; and the unique All Saints Layer Boots were well and truly left at the door.

Their replacements, however, have been something of a double edged sword. Instead of highly distinctive - and thus identifiable - items from high street brands, we have either bespoke made such as the Shetland Tweed jacket; or such plain, bland items that almost any similar alternative would do, such as the plain blue shirt.

The new boots are no exception as they are suitably generic to be completely unattributable. Many fans have tried to find the boots, and have had reasonable success in finding alternatives that tick enough boxes to make them more than acceptable.

I have personally found a cracking good image of the new boots, and would put it forward as definitive reference material to work from.

It was taken on the Utah location shoot, and clearly shows the line of fret-worked holes across the bridge of the boot, the full height of the ankle and the number of pairs of eyelet holes: 12.

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

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

Trousers - TopMan

Now the trousers, at the time of their discovery back in late July 2009, were the easiest garment to find and obtain – and cheap into the bargain.

Someone spotted that they were a simple Houndstooth Skinny Jean from TopMan, and they were widely available for £35 at most branches across the UK. The only minor problem was finding a pair to fit.

Most branches stocked the slimmer waist sizes, to target the younger, waif-like shoppers. After trying a couple of stores – and feeling suitably old and out of touch – I retreated back to the safety of a cup of tea and internet shopping to find the trousers fully in stock on the TopMan website, right up to waist 36.
The purchase was painless and within a week I had my pair of trousers – and they fitted!

Result.

Since then, the style has been discontinued (as is becoming the routine with all the elements of Matt Smith’s costume it seems) and stocks rapidly ran out. I did just manage to grab a second pair online before supplies were totally depleted, and at half-price in their autumn sale, so a double result!
Since then they have been totally sold out and are unobtainable.

So my trousers are sorted.
That was easy.

The Beginning Of Time

Today seemed like the best day to start this new blog – the first day we all saw Matt Smith in Doctor Who for the very first time.

I should quickly point out that this is actually a blog I had no intention of starting or writing! I didn’t feel there was much to contribute to the Eleventh Doctor Costume front, but a series of happenstance came together like a celestial alignment and for me the number of pieces that fell into place made what I am about to do become inevitable!

Blimey, that sounds ominous!

Anyway, as soon as the first image of Matt Smith in costume was revealed in BBC Breakfast on 20th July 2009 (see right), I quickly realized it was a costume that took very little to replicate. With it principally being made up of off-the-peg clothing, there were few bespoke, custom-made items to create.

However, no sooner had it appeared, then the chase was afoot to find exactly what those items actually were.
The online costuming forums, when they work, work well! So it wasn’t long before the key items of the costume were identified.

The boots – All Saints

The Shirt – Paul Smith PS

The Trousers – TopMan

All of these items had been gleaned from the then current collections for those retailers, and it quickly became apparent that their time was rapidly passing and they were quickly becoming end-of-line items and hard to track down.

I’ll cover my obtaining of the boots and trousers in a future entry, but for now its the shirt that interests me.

The shirt was part of the Summer 09 Paul Smith PS collection (see left), and I managed to grab mine through a online site called John Anthony.
I usually take a L in shirts, so ordered that, only to get a phone call telling me they had sold out. They did, however, have the XL, so I switched to that instead.
Just as well, cos when it arrived it was a snug fit!

Once various people started getting their hands on the shirts, they soon spotted three minor subtle differences.

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.

My opinion is that these modifications were made to differentiate the Matt Smith shirt from the Paul Smith original.

Well, now the Sonic Screwdriver has been handed over to Matt Smith, the Paul Smith shirts are impossible to find and are becoming as rare as hen’s teeth.

What I need to do now is perform the same modifications to my shirt, in the same way the costume department did to theirs.

Check back soon to see how I get on . . .