Batty Costume?

[Rob McCow]

The Doctor plans his TARDIS team batting order...

What do you think of the Doctor's outfit in his fifth incarnation? Is it a design classic? Or is it taking the whole cricket thing a bit too far?

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

Yes and ......er.....Yes!

[Rob McCow]

I rather like it, personally. Yes, it's over-designed and yes, maybe nobody would ever wear an outfit like that under any circumstances in human history. It still looks good though. I think it's kind of stylish and suits Davison's Doctor perfectly. It's light, pleasant on the eye and only slightly quirky.

Red socks though - not so good!

[SiHart]

I don't mind it. It's distinctive and it seems to suit Davison. I like the S21 version ehtter with the thick piping on the V of the cricket jumper and the thicker stripes on the trousers. It's just got some extra oomph.

The best bit of the costume is the hat. It's my favourite Doctor Who hat. It folds up and fits in his pocket- that's cool. It looks good, love the red dotty piping round it. Davison looks really good in it. Well chosen!

[duncan]

I've always liked it and it definitely suits him.

I got invited to a fancy dress party once and this was my first choice outfit but I couldn't find anything like it in any of the hire shops.

[J.R. Southall]

Hated it then. Hate it now. Sorry folks! It's just not "the Doctor"!

[Andrew Curnow]

I know what Si means about the hat - is it in The Visitation that we first see it rolled up? Whenever it is, I can remember thinking it very cool that he had a fold up, pop out hat!!

[Paul Monk]

Its superb and the only Who costume I would ever be happy wearing.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

Hated it then. Hate it now. Sorry folks! It's just not "the Doctor"!

Agree but we're not talking about the Ninth Doctor's outfit

On a serious note my Dad seems to think the whole cricketing thing is out of character for the Doctor (we haven't reached Black Orchid yet so we'll see if he changes his mind then) but I really don't see how. After all regeneration is a lot more than the same person just having a slightly different appearance...

[J.R. Southall]

Sorry, I was in a real hurry yesterday and didn't get time to post further.

The thing I most dislike about Davison's costume (apart from the absolute "beige-ness" of it all!), is the fact that it is the only Doctor's costume in the entire run of the series (and yes, even including the nightmare of the sixth's) that is a purpose-built uniform (or costume), as opposed to just clothes.

I mean, it's fair enough to imagine the Doctor would have better things on his mind than deciding what to wear every day (hence deciding upon "a look" and sticking with it - even if that "look" involves such unusual combinations as the sixth or possibly tenth Doctors might wear) - there are any number of films which include a "comedy moment" when a higher-thinking character opens his wardrobe only to reveal several identical sets of the same clothes - but the fifth Doctor's costume is the only one which was actually designed to be worn for a purpose ... and that purpose something other than as either smart or casual dress.

Now, think about the fifth Doctor's costume for a minute...

...and now imagine how you'd feel if the eleventh Doctor were to have worn his Lodger football kit (or a variation thereof) throughout his entire tenure.

[Dirk Gently]

Its superb and the only Who costume I would ever be happy wearing.

I'd be happy to wear the 8th Doctor''s outfit myself, or 4th, but yeah it is a good costume & very iconic; which a costume should be.

[Stuart Wallis]

I know what Si means about the hat - is it in The Visitation that we first see it rolled up? Whenever it is, I can remember thinking it very cool that he had a fold up, pop out hat!!

As long as it's just the hat that pops out...

Pretty good. Suits him, sir!

[SiHart]

but the fifth Doctor's costume is the only one which was actually designed to be worn for a purpose ... and that purpose something other than as either smart or casual dress.

True, but people have worn cricket jumpers or variations of them as casual clothing anyway for years. They were fashionable again fairly recently.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

I might've been inclined to take J.R.'s point if the Davison costume had been more of a contemporary version of the cricketer's outfit. The fact that it was clearly an Edwardian design fits in with the tone of the first four Doctors' costumes whilst being distinctly iconic in it's own right. It needed to be clearly different to the previous incarnation's Bohemian gentleman with the ridiculously long scarf.

[SiHart]

I think it might have been better if they'd gone with the orignal idea of black tails and baggy trousers with the cricket jumper perhaps- more thrown together than designed. This would have meant no lovely panama though, as that wouldn't have worked with those clothes.

Maybe even plain trousers would have worked with the frock coat? Or maybe a Sylvester-ish baggy cream jacket with the striped trousers?

All this and no mention of ornamental vegetables!

[Jeff]

[J.R. Southall]

True, but people have worn cricket jumpers or variations of them as casual clothing anyway for years. They were fashionable again fairly recently.

Fair enough - and all good points. But it wasn't just the jumper, was it? And Edwardian-style or no, it was the fact that it was the whole outfit that rankled me. They could easily have got away with dressing him in similar cuts and colours and just making it clothes.

It's June Hudson I blame; her burgundy makeover of the fourth Doctor's ensemble started the trend towards Doctors that looked like they'd been dressed, rather than had simply got dressed. Prior to Season 18, even Pertwee managed to look 'natural' in whatever he had on. That finished with The Leisure Hive.

[SiHart]

I think it's more JNT really and his sensibilities. June Hudson (and subsequently Colin Lavers, Pat Godfrey and Ken Trew) were working from the brief given to them from JNT and he ultimately had the say so to authorise the final version.

[J.R. Southall]

I think it's more JNT really and his sensibilities. June Hudson (and subsequently Colin Lavers, Pat Godfrey and Ken Trew) were working from the brief given to them from JNT and he ultimately had the say so to authorise the final version.

Absolutely true; JNT didn't have a clue when and what to say No to, most of the time. But all ideas come from somewhere, and I suspect it was Hudson (or her creation) that planted that particular seed in JNT's head.

[Logo Polish]

Now, think about the fifth Doctor's costume for a minute...

...and now imagine how you'd feel if the eleventh Doctor were to have worn his Lodger football kit (or a variation thereof) throughout his entire tenure.

The only element of it that's specifically cricket is the jumper. The trousers aren't the kind worn by cricketers, they're just striped trousers. The coat is a basic summery kind of one that fits with the overall colours, but it's not in itself something which only means anything in a cricket context. So I don't think comparing it to a football outfit works.

I can understand this argument when applied to the question marks, and celery, both of which I would agree are unrealistic and unnatural, but otherwise, I don't think there's anything about the rest of it that looks any more artificial or uniformlike than any one given set of clothes worn by the earlier Doctors. To consider it in terms of its constituent parts. Pale yellow coat with red lining - one of a large number of similarly cut coats he's worn before, so that's fine with me. Cricket jumper - again, no more unrealistic than wearing any other jumper, so also fine as far as I'm concerned. Striped trousers - well, those exist, as do checked trousers, which he's also worn before, so that's alright too. Trainers, yes, a genuine item of footwear. Put it all together, and the result has a degree of colour co-ordination - yellow, white and bits of red - but it's still basically a combination of clothes of a limited range of colours, much as Hartnell's was, and indeed Troughton's, although the latter's looked far more lived-in and scruffy, unkempt and so on.

The argument which has been made before that it was something fundamentally different from previous costumes in that the earlier ones looked like something that could have been assembled from a second hand shop has never made sense to me, because that's equally true of this one. It would only need to have been a second hand shop which had some striped trousers, a cricket jumper, and a yellow-ish coat included among the stock. So, in that sense, there's no difference.

The question marks were a bad idea because they looked more like a superhero brand of some sort, like a permanent marker, and the celery was a silly gimmick because no-one wears food on their clothes, to say nothing of the question of how it would stay fresh. So those elements are clearly detrimental, as they would be to any costume that was supposed to be plausible. But the rest of it has never caused me any problems, or seemed any less credible or more artificial than any other Doctor's costume.

Aesthetic preferences are another matter, one might like or dislike any combination of clothes on those grounds. But there is nothing in principle about the basic components of the costume, other than the two I've mentioned above, which I think is any different in approach from any of the pre-JNT ones.

[Jeff]

To an alien, would wearing a celery seem any stranger than wearing a corsage? Either way you are pinning vegetation to your clothing.

[Rob McCow]

I can't seem to find out who actually designed the 5th Doctor's outfit. Was it June?

I like Logo these vs JR arguments.

[SiHart]

It was Colin Lavers, who did the costumes for Four to Doomsday. The original designs are printed in the 1983 Doctor Who annual. Interestingly they don't feature the cricket jumper but instead have a knitted waistcoat.