Repica Giorgio Armani tie

I was looking around the net this evening, and came across a new item on the Magnoli website - a replica Giorgio Armani tie!

This is Tie Seven from my Tie Index, and from the single detail image looks to be quite a good reproduction of the design.

How well it looks close-up remains to be seen, but it is due for shipping in late November, so we shall see.

Me And My Tennant Suit - Evert Joosse

It’s been a while since I have run a Me And My Tennant Suit, but we’re back with a Ten from the Netherlands.

PROFILE
Name Evert Joosse
Age 36
Location Oosterbeek, the Netherlands
Favorite Doctor Peter Davison (Five)
Maker of my suit Magnoli
Colour of suit Brown with blue pinstripes

Evert got his Magnoli Tennant Suit in January 2011. “I had wanted one for a lot longer than that, but that was when everything finally came together”, he told me. He has also had very good experiences with Magnoli Clothiers in the past, so decided to go with them.

Tennant isn’t his first Doctor. “From about the age of ten I have been a massive Doctor Who fan.” he explained. “At that time I used to watch Peter Davison, who is still very much my doctor. And I have always been in to wearing suits, as I find them both stylish and comfortable.”

From that early age he always wanted to dress like the Doctor, which in his case meant cricket sweaters and a penchant for beige clothing! “Which is fine when you are a child,” he says, “but when you grow up people expect you to dress differently. Therefore it was a happy day for me when the Tenth Doctor came around, looking great and stylish, but in a way that you can get away with.”

RIP Textile King

I had a genuine feeling of deja vu today.

In September 2010 I reported the closure of Soho Silks, a fabric shop I used to visit quite a lot. It was secretly there that I found the rolls of genuine Blue Tennant Suit fabric hidden away in their basement.

Well today I was in town, and discovered the closure of not one, but TWO further establishments I used to frequent – one a great loss the other a deserved closure. But more of that later.

Textile King

This was not the most pretty of shops from the outside, but it hid a treasure trove of suiting and tailoring materials which I found myself returning to again and again.

The brown fabric I used for Ian Cummin’s Frock Coat (see left), as well as another I did him in a navy blue were sourced here.

More recently I found it was the perfect place to get the buttons for my Matt Smith Shetland Tweed Jacket, and had reason to believe it could we have been the original source for these.

I was told on more than one occasion that Ray Holman, the costume designer for series five, had frequented there and bought the material for Captain Jack’s shirts when he worked on Torchwood.

The proprietor had been shown a sneaky preview of the Matt Smith costume well before it was launched and I gather at one point even Russell T Davis had been a visitor when he was Executive Producer!

So the shop does have a bit of a special place in the Doctor Who lore.

Ultimate Tennant Suit does SDCC 2011

This past weekend was the San Diego Comic Con.

It’s one of the biggest conventions in the US, and is a major draw for the cosplay community. All manner of costumes from every show you can think of and as many you have never heard of get to be paraded around the venue.

One costume you will know if you read this blog is the Ultimate Tennant Suit, worn by Kevin Coppa.

During the weekend he had the chance to get some great portrait shots taken by Lydia Chen.

Here are the photos she took, while Kevin picks up the story to the photoshoot.

So I got to take the Ultimate Tennant suit to The San Diego Comic Con 2011. Steve had done an incredible job as always and after he and I both got to show it off in public for the first time at Gallifrey One 2010, it was time to take it to it’s sophomore geek-gathering.

I spy with my little eye

Over the past few year, Magnoli Clothiers in New Zealand have been progressively working through the canon of Tennant Ties.

So far they has tackled Tie Two, the Daniel Hechter (see below, left); Tie Four, the Christian Lacroix (see below, centre); and Tie Ten, the St George By Duffer (see below, right)

Known to be in the pipeline are two popular ties: Tie Seven, the Giorgio Armani; and Tie Eight, the Nina Ricci.

Well, if you take a look on the Overstock Section of the website, there is a Tennant Suit jacket for sale (see below).

If you look very closely the photograph is taken with an early test version of the Tie Eight!

Mystery of the fourth tie - SOLVED......?

I had a very exciting email form one of my clients this week relating to the Rocha John Rocha tie, one of which had been sold at the Feb 2010 Bonhams Doctor Who auction.

The sale of the tie, along with three others, had been the part inspiration for my Tie Index, and when I was compiling it I fully expected all the ties to surface at some point. I was suprised the to have one left over - the Rocha John Rocha tie.

Having established it's non-show on screen, I did keep an eye open in case a supporting actor had worn it and it had been wrongly attributed for the auction. Still no luck there.

It was looking like the Mystery of the Fourth Tie would never be solved . . .

Anyway, so now the new lead.

Another TWO alternative ties on eBay

If you missed out on the recent eBay auctions of two St George ties, an Armani and a Thomas Nash – then it’s worth noting that keeping an eye on the new listings can turn up some pretty good near-best alternatives.

Personally I found a Paul Smith (see left) tie that was a dead ringer for Tie Eleven in my Tie Index (see right).

Well, one of my readers had some similar success with another from Ten’s wardrobe.
He spotted this tie on eBay.

Aquascutum

Thomas Nash tie -target acquired!

Confession time.

When I wrote about the latest couple of ties to appear on eBay, I knew who had bought one of them – me!

I decided that although the Thomas Nash tie,was only seen in one episode (The Idiot’s Lantern, see left), it is a distinctive design I wanted to add to my collection.

I only stumbled across the listing while looking around for other things, and how anyone else found it with the title dr who prop tie, I don’t know!
But find it they did and it had risen to over £200 not long after it started.

I held back, and didn’t bid until the dying seconds of the last minute of the auction, and put in a killer bid. Luckily for me it only pushed the price up £5 from where it was, and the tie was mine!

My PayPal account was notably lighter though!

Replica Daniel Hechter Tie -Magnoli Third Incarnation!

Last month saw the release by Magnoli Clothiers of a third, and much improved version of their Time Lord (now Hechter) Tie (see below).

Here is my review of it,
plus the previous incarnations leading up to it.

Since David Tennant took control of the TARDIS console back in late 2005, his fashion sense inspired a  generation of cosplay enthusiasts to dress like him.

In the early days there was the Honest Dragon Suit and Coat, which could be easily accessorised with a suitable pale blue shirt and the right coloured Converse All Stars.

The one slightly more elusive item was the correct tie.

One tie received a lot of exposure, having been worn in David Tennant’s first photocall in July 2005 (see right).
It was not worn in his debut story, but was seen in the Christmas Red Button story, Attack Of The Graske; before appearing in the Season Two opener, New Earth. It was subsequently worn twice more in Series Two.

We later found out was a Daniel Hechter tie (Tie Two in my Tie Index) but this was not known at the time.

Idiot's Lantern tie on eBay!

Only last week, a friend of mine secured a pair of GAP Trousers from the French version of eBay.

Prior to that we saw the sale of a Giorgio Armani and a St George by Duffer tie on eBay.
The Armani tie achieved US$144.50 and the St George GB£112.

St George by Duffer - Tie Ten in Tie Index

Well, if you missed that chance, maybe you were more lucky when another St George tie popped up last week.

From the same seller as before, it had a similar £3.50 opening price, but only scraped £92 when it closed on 21st April following a frantic three-day auction.

Most of the bidding was on the last day, when it saw the sale price nearly quadruple!

GAP trousers –see, it does still happen

The Ultimate Tennant Suit I made recently resulted in a fair bit of interest regarding the original GAP trousers.

I have had a number of emails from people who greatly appreciated knowing where the fabric was sourced from, stating that all they needed to do now was find the requisite number of pairs to make themselves a similar suit.
Annoyingly however, they were only a single-season garment from way back in 2005, so there is zero chance of walking into a branch now and finding a pair – even on their reduced to clear rail.

The only realistic option is eBay – which is how my client, Kevin Coppa, came by so many pairs himself. It was a lot of patience, and many hours trawling listing that eventually paid off.

And just to show it was NOT just a one-off, another client of mine, Jonathan Le Targat from Paris, has recently found another pair, this time on the French eBay site (see below).

Tie: Utopia!

Just to prove that it does happen, there has recently been a couple of ties on eBay which are identical to the ones worn by the Tenth Doctor!

Giorgio Armani - Tie Seven in Tie Index

Last month a Giorgio Armani Tie (Tie Seven, in my Tie Index) came up (see above). Based in San Francisco in the US, it had a $4.99 starting price, and ultimately sold for $144.50.

The description was as follows:

You are bidding on a beautiful Giorgio Armani (white label) necktie. Although pre-owned I am very confident in saying that it is in near mint condition without even the most minimal of fraying at the tips. It has been worn 2-3 times maximum and treated with the utmost care in a smoke-free home.

The base color is rich chocolate brown with blue undertones; pattern is brown circles with blue squares inside. 100% silk of course.

As I need to make room for new purchases, my wardrobe clearance is your chance to win this and other items at a fraction of their original cost. New Giorgio Armani ties now retail $145 on average, however I will start the bidding on this item at a low $4.99.

Ultimate Tennant Suit -ultimate photo-shoot!

My deadline for the Ultimate Tennant Suit was to make sure it was ready for Kevin Coppa to wear at this year’s Gallifrey Convention.
With just a few days to spare I got it done, and he was able to proudly show it off for all to see.

The convention has several trails you can follow, depending on your personal interests. As part of the cosplay events over the weekend, Scott Sebring brings his professional camera equipment along and offers a free portrait service for anyone in costume!

Kevin had his chance to get get some great pictures of him wearing his Tennant Suit, as well as a Tennant Coat I had made him.

First they did some portrait shots of just the suit (see below).

All photos by Scott Sebring

Ultimate Tennant Suit -trajectory: Gallifrey 2011

Time for a little confession.

The Ultimate Tennant Suit I have made over the past couple of months wasn’t actually for me – it was a commission from a US-based client, Kevin Coppa.

Ultimate Tennant Suit goes global

The photos of the finished Tenannt Suit have caused a bit of a buzz.

To bring the pictures to a wider audience, I posted them on a couple of forums, one of which within a couple of hours had received over 20 responses!

This also drove a fair bit of traffic back to my blog, which was hoped, but unexpected.

I was able to look at the internet traffic to my blog and was astonished by the spike of hits I was getting.

Below you can see the traffic for the week, ending with the increased level only hours after I posted the pictures.