Doppelgänger!

Now, those who have followed my Suit and Coat blogs, will recognize the face of Guy, a young man who bears more than a passing resemblance to the great man himself, David Tennant.
I first met him on Hound Tor to see first hand his Baron Boutique Suit.
You can read all about that under Ten to the power of Two and Sontaran G3 Military Assessment Survey.
He also popped up in my occasional feature, Me And My Tennant Suit, at the end of which was the amazing photograph seen here.
It looked a bit more polished than the norm, and he told me it came from a professional photoshoot. Here in his own words, is the full story of how this and the rest of his fantastic photoshoot came about.

It all started when David Tennant returned to Doctor Who in series two. His hair was more spikey and gelled which looked very similar to mine. My girlfriend at the time noticed the resemblance and wanted me to grow my hair a bit longer as well as the side burns! When I did this my girlfriend and her friends kept saying how I looked like the doctor.

We had a few drinks one evening and my ex girlfriend sent a picture of myself to a look alike company on the web. They replied with a positive response which I was very shocked by! After this I started wearing a black suit with trainers to fancy dress parties trying to do my best to be the doctor! It worked fairly well but it wasn’t right!

Me And My Tennant Suit - Guy

Last year I took a holiday down in the West Country, and took in a couple of Who-related trips to The Land’s End Exhibition and Hound Tor, the location used for The Sontaran Experiment.

I had been chatting to a Tennant Suit owner, Guy, who lives not too far from Hound Tor, so we arranged to meet there so he could show me his Baron’s Boutique suit.

I also asked him to contribute to my erratic feature, Me And My Tennant Suit. Here, at last, is what he had to say about his suit.

PROFILE

Name: Guy

Age: 21

Location: Devon

Favorite Doctor: David Tennant

Maker of my suit: Baron Boutique

Colour of suit: Brown

Guy got his Baron Boutique suit in mid April 2009, but not after falling foul of the Chinese-made Honest Dragon suits. “The first one off of eBay was rubbish: bad material and baggy fit! A complete waste of money, but get what you pay for.”

Me And My Tennant Suit - Lisa

Our latest Tennant Suit owner is probably the most unconventional to date. Lisa has been finding her’s on a budget - and managed to pick up some prestigious admirers along the way that I think we’d all be jealous of!

PROFILE

Name: Lisa

Age: 26, Eight days older than Matt Smith

Location: Dudley, West Midlands, England

Favorite Doctor: Ten, David Tennant. Though in fairness I’ve only seen One, Eight, Nine and Ten so far.

Maker of my suit: Honestdragonchina on ebay, and various purchases from charity shops

Colour of suit: Brown with cream pinstripe, brown with blue pinstripe, blue with shadow stripe, and navy with red pinstripe

Lisa got her first Tennant suit in August 2007 following a trip to see David Tennant switch on the Blackpool Illuminations. “The Doctor Who museum on the Promenade had hired people that dress up as the various Doctors to walk around the museum, the queues and the switch on arena before and during the event.” she told me, “One of those people was dressed like the Tenth Doctor, and I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen! I was rendered speechless with excitement, and he’d walked past me several times before I found my voice to ask for a photograph.”

“I’d brought my coat a month or so prior from honestdragonchina. I’ve always had a thing for long coats, be it the X-Files or The Matrix, etc. But it was definitely meeting the paid cosplayer in Blackpool that made me want to dress up like a TV character.”

But her first point of call was not the internet: it was to the high street and local charity shops. “The first suit I compiled from various charity shops was on a self imposed deadline, and an illness-imposed budget. I’m unemployed because of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Three weeks after Blackpool, I was going to Cardiff with someone I’d just met at the Switch On. The brown trousers with blue pinstripe were the first find, then the unofficial converse in low red and high black, then the brown tie with blue and shadow hollow squares on it. I found a shirt that fit and the elusive brown pinstripe jacket the day before my holiday! It cost £15 for the whole outfit, but it was money well spent, as during my Cardiff holiday David Tennant came out of indoor filming specifically to see it.”

Me And My Tennant Suit - Dan J

After last month’s profile of Tennant Suit owner Justin Monk, we now move to New York to meet our next proud owner, Dan.

PROFILE

Name: Dan J
Age: 18
Location: New York, NY
Favorite Doctor: Ten!
Maker of my suit: Baron Boutique
Colour of suit: Brown with blue pinstripes

Dan bought his current suit from Baron Boutique in January 2009, but his first Tennant suit was purchased through eBay a few months earlier.

“It wasn’t Honest Dragon”, he told me “but one of those similar sellers. What I liked about this one was that it was cheap, and actually had a bit of blue in the pinstripes! (see right) The fit wasn’t good at all though so I decided to upgrade.”

When choosing its replacement, Dan was less interested in finding a cheap suit, “The most important things for me were fit and color.” he said, “It needed to have that trim fit and the unmistakably blue pinstripes.”

“Props and costuming is a hobby that I’ve been in for a long time and this particular suit (David Tennant’s) was just too unique to pass up. It really reflects the Tenth Doctor’s character, how it may look normal from a distance, but up close and personal there are quite a few oddities (i.e. blue pinstripes). I also just can't get enough of Tennant's Doctor!”

Dan cast around, and eventually settled on the version from Baron Boutique.

Me And My Tennant Suit - Justin Monk

Following my request to hear from other proud Tennant suit owners, I am now pleased to present the first contributor.

I have been in touch with Justin over the past few months and he has offered me a lot of helpful advise for getting my suit spot on.

Here he shares with us his own personal quest for the perfect Tennant suit!

PROFILE

Name: Justin Monk aka Primrodo

Age: 27
Location: Ontario, Canada
Favorite Doctor: Four
Maker of my suit: a very good anonymous friend
Colour of suit: both versions!

Justin is a seasoned cosplayer, and has costumes ranging from Stargate: Atlantis (seen right, Justin strikes an uncanny pose as Lt Col John Sheppard) through Anakin Skywalker from Attack Of The Clones (seen below left), to Doctor Who.

“My first costume was a Jedi costume, which I painstaking researched, finding all the details here and there.” Justin (like me) is a complete perfectionist and went through five belts, four gloves, three tunics, three boots, two sets of pouches, three inner tunics, and two robes before he was totally happy.

He got his current suit Tennant suit in November 2008, in time for Chicago TARDIS convention. He had a previous one made in 2006, but more on that later.

“The suit is unique, vintage looking and overall something more interesting than the typical two-button suits around.” he told me, “I also have been told I look a little like Tennant, much moreso than the other Doctors, so good fit!” And why not!

You and your Tennant Suit

As well as covering the making of my own suit, I’d like to extend an invitation to anyone reading to share their own Tennant Suit with us and tell everyone how you came by it and what you like about it the most.

I am not looking to find out who has the most screen accurate suit: you could have got yours from one of the online sellers; made it yourself, or had a seamstress or family member help you; maybe you found it off the peg on a high street and it is reminiscent of the real thing; you could have even found it in a charity or thrift store - what this is about is your suit and how good you feel wearing it.

Have you ever worn it to a work meeting where no-one but you knows what the suit represents?

There will be no final rating or comparison between owners, so do not worry that you will be judged on anything other than how much you enjoy owning your suit!

If you are interested in sharing your suit on my blog, please get in touch by emailing me at tennantcoat@me.com.

I am drawing up a list of standard questions which I will send back to you to answer. Feel free to also relay any other comments or anecdotes you would like to share with everyone.

I would ask that you send some photographs, or give me a link to an online gallery where I can find some that I can use. You will be given full approval of a draft of the blog before it goes live, and if you wish, can remain anonymous.

Notes on a suit

While I am a little distracted with some work on my new Tennant coat, I thought I would share with you all some thoughts and comments on the suit from a follower of this blog, Seth.

Seth is a third year apparel design student who drafts his own patterns. He has just revised his Tennant Suit pattern and is now half way through the drafting of his Coat.

He is the owner of a Magnoli suit or three, all he reports, being slightly different from each other!

Being a trained pattern cutter, it was inevitable that he would attempt to deconstruct and then reconstruct one of his suits, where possible putting right the errors and inaccuracies down to the last detail.

I would like to thank Seth for his input for my blog. 

I will be referring to his notes when I cut my pattern. Finally, I would also like to thank him for agreeing to let me publish them.

All the pictures on the left are Seth’s adapted suit, and those on the right are my own un-altered Magnoli suit.

The problems he encountered and solved were:

COLLAR AND LAPELS

Straightening the Collar points and Lapels to follow the pinstripes.

Seth noticed on Tennant’s suit that the Collar points are a tad bit longer than the Lapels. He cut his to 1 3/4 inches for the Collar point extensions and 1 1/2inches for the Lapels extension.

For Series 3, he also noticed that Louise Page (the costume designer) no longer followed the pinstripes on the Collar extension, as the pinstripes noticably trail off and are interrupted by a more “steep” extension. This has carried through to Series 4. Seth personally prefers the cut of the original Series 2 Collar.

BOX PLEAT POCKET

Moving and re-sizing the Box-Patch Pleat Pocket on the front of the suit.

Seth found the Patch Pleat was a real problem. He was stuck with the Suit rations in the form of button placement, side pocket openings and lapel slants. Tennant’s suit is actually on the long side.

Seth ensured that it sat 1/4 inch away from the slant lapel and 1/2 inch above second buttonhole (his buttonholes being spaced 3 1/4 inch apart). The bottom of the flap sits right above the top of the first button at around a 1/4 inch.

He reconstructed the Box-Patch Pleat Pocket to a 4 inch width. The Curved Flap measuring 2 inches long, sewn off a 1/4 inch at the top, with a Curved rise of 1/4 inch. The overall height by width when sewn on the jacket worked out to be 5 3/4 inches high by 4 inches wide.

BACK VENT

Heightening the vent openning on the back and lowering the Back-Belt.

The Back-Belt needed to be lowered as it was sitting exactly at middle back.

His vent now sits at 9 3/4 inches and like Tennants Suit, the Vent begins at the bottom of the Back-Belt, which is at a 2 inch width.