The camera sometimes lies

This coming week is Red Nose Day, and following on for several previous Doctor Who involvements, there is a special mini-episode to be screen as part of the  Comic Relief fund raising entertainment.

This gives the excuse for a Red Nose Day inspired photoshoot. David Tennant had appeared in 2009 to publicise the cause (see left) and this year it turns to Matt Smith to take up the baton.

He was joined in the photocall by Karen and Arthur, and images of them appeared on the cover of this month’s Doctor Who Magazine (see right).

It gives another nice close-up of the new ‘tweed’ jacket Matt wears, as well as the while gridded shirt.

He can also be seen sporting a new bow tie in a midnight blue silk.

The pictures were also picked up by some of the UK tv guides, notably TV & Satellite Week, which needs only the slightest excuse to use a Doctor Who cover to increase circulation!

You can clearly see it is from the same photoshoot, but hold on a moment – Matt’s shirt is now a very pale BLUE! (see left)

Now, TV & Satellite Week have form when it comes to messing around with the colour of Doctor Who images!

Look at this image from June 2010 (see right).

Matt is wearing the blue variation of the Paul Smith shirt, but his bow tie is BURGUNDY!
But if you look closely you can see a texture to the fabric of the tie. The burgundy tie was a plain fabric, but the blue had a woven texture – exactly the same as seem here.

The bow tie has been Photoshopped to the wrong colour.

BUT WHY? Who know. Someone was bored . . . .

Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day is a very good cause,
and if you want to donate some money, click the link below to find out how you can help.

Red Nose Day 2011

Eleven Shirt . . . in green?

To kick off the New Year I thought I’d share with everyone something I made myself late last year.

I had already run myself up a Burgundy and a Blue Matt Smith Shirt, and once they were all done I was itching to make another, but not in the screen-seen colours!

I thought it a bit of fun to make myself on in an imaginary third colourway.

Here it is – let me know what you think!

Radio Times - first good look ofMatt’s refreshed costume

Today a new copy of the Radio Times dropped through my letterbox (see left).

With Christmas coming soon, this was not actually next weeks issue (that arrived on Tuesday), but the one after, covering the 4th to 10th December.

Right at the very back is a preview of the following issue, being the week before Christmas itself (see right).

Part of the features in that will be inevitable coverage of the Doctor Who Christmas Special, and it’s accompanied by a nice festive portrait of Matt in costume.

As far as I am aware, this is one of the clearest photos I have seen to date, showing the refreshed costume (the paparazzi photo taken during filming were distant and blurred, and official stills to date have been equally unclear).

Anyway, no sooner had this great pic been published, a rival magazine, TV & Satellite Week, put Matt Smith on their front cover, showing the fabric detail of the jacket and shirt even better! (see left)

You can download a high res version of the cover here:

TV & Satellite Week

And while we are about it, being a steadfast Radio Times reader I have never given TV & Satellite Week a second glance, but they have run some cracking Doctor Who covers for the new series (see below).

26th June - 2nd July 2010

All the covers for these issues are using top resolution images, which have been somewhat enhanced with sharpness and contrast.

Some, like this one, look to have been un-nesecarily messed around with.

Notice matt is wearing the blue Paul Smith shirt, with the burgundy bow tie!

But if you look closer, it has the texture of the blue one – it has been retouched to burgundy – for no good reason whatsoever!

24th - 30th April 2010

Though this is quite a nice shot of Matt in costume, it is not the correct image for this episode! (Time Of Angels, Flesh & Stone)

He is wearing the Donegal version, not the Mackenzie two-by-two dogstooth as actually seen.

Oops!

3rd - 9th April 2010

Another nice, if again somewhat over enhanced image.

This time he is wearing the Mackenzie two-by-two dogstooth jacket – but alas it is again not for this week’s episode (The Eleventh Hour).

19th Dec 2009 - 1st Jan 2010

A nice shot of David Tennant – annoying that the text covers the tie otherwise we would have a really good detail shot of the pattern!

Never mind :(

28th Nov - 4th Dec 2009

This is a good example of excessive post shoot manipulation.

The pinstripes on the suit have been played around with too much and are now a bit removed from their correct colour. The 19th December issue (see above) is a more accurate representation of their true hue.

14th - 20th Nov 2009

Again, pity (for us) about the placement of the text, otherwise we’d have another good reference picture for the tie!

4th - 10th July 2009

Thought I would put these two Torchwood covers in as well, partly to share the nice detail of the buttons on Jack’s coat – but also to show the work John Barrowman has had done on his face!

No-one looks like that in real life!

23rd - 29th May 2009

Jack’s face is way less retouched on this cover compared to the one above – but there has still been a lot of magic wand work done here!

11th - 17th April 2009

I get the feel not everything in this cover was together in the same place at the same time . . .

6th - 12th Dec 2008

Quite a crowded cover this one. Only person missing is Rosetta.

21st - 27th June 2008

Billy Piper’s had work done . . .

26th April - 2nd May 2008

 . . . . and so has Freema!

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.

Now, it’s slightly difficult to do a true like-for-like comparison, as to my knowledge no-one ever found a perfect, as screen-used shirt. Several flavours of the Scroll Striped shirt surfaced, each showing one or more of the key style features, but not all of them. I am therefore going to do a side-by-side with appropriate shirts as needed, as well a reference images from the broadcast episodes. The reissue shirt is always shown on the LEFT.

FABRIC

At first glance the shirt is made from the right stuff, with the correct design, but again, looking closely and putting it side-by-side with an original release shirt, it is not quite right.

The fabric used is much whiter, where first time round it was a more natural Colour with a sight yellow cast to it (see left).

The printed pattern is now much sharper and the scroll lines are thinner than before.
The distressing on the lines also appears to be slightly different, which is curious. It is almost like a redrawn copy rather than the original artwork reprinted.

BREAST POCKET

This is the easy one - the JohnAnthony shirt was the only version seen with a breast pocket, and the reissue shirt correctly does not have one.

CUFFS AND PLACKET

At first glance the cuffs are great, with the stripes, but once you start looking a bit deeper, things are a bit amiss here.

The cuff is a good 15mm narrower than my Mobi shirt (see above) and as a result means only four stripes are visible (though my blue shirt would have had five, if the fabric had been placed better!).

Matt’s shirt clearly showed five full stripes (see left).
Also, if you look very closely, the buttonhole in the placket is red rather than white, but more on that later.

While we are here, also note that only one of the cuff buttons is done up. Now I thought this was down to The Doctor’s haste in getting dressed, but I have noticed that in Flesh and Stone he wears the shirt in the same way (see right).

Could this be a little quirk matt introduced to make how he wears it unique?

BUTTONSTAND

The buttonstand is an odd one here. The screen used shirt has a single line of stitch on either side of the stand, a few mm from the edge – here we have two parallel lines, firmly holding the edge down.

It is also not an accurate three columns of scrolls wide (see left).

BACK TAILORING

The shirt Matt Smith wears is one of the tailored fitted versions. That is to say there are two darts either side of the back and the pleat running the height of the centre back is sewn top to bottom. This pulls the shirt in by a good 4 inches.

The reissued shirt has the darts, but the back pleat, like the buttonstand, is sewn so it ain’t going anywhere, with two parallel lines of stitch at the pleat’s edge (see right), making it into almost a surface sewn strip of fabric, like a faux pleat!

COLLAR

The collar on the reissue shirt is some 5mm shorter at the collar point compared to an original (see left).

The collar stand is also noticeably shorter.

PAUL SMITH DETAILING

There are a number of tiny design points that are often included in a genuine Paul Smith shirt, and the screen-worn shirts show a number of these.

Ribbon Loop
On the back of the collar stand is a 2 inch loop of crimson ribbon (see above, right). this is sewn with red thread, and shows through to the inside of the collar.
This is totally missing in the reissue shirt.

Hanging Loop
The original shirt included a detail often seen in shirts: a small loop sewn into the centre of the yolk back, at the top of the pleat (see above, right). The reissue shirt simple does not have this (see above, left).

Red Button Hole
Some Paul Smith shirts have the button hole on the right placket sewn in red, rather than white (see screen grabs with Cuffs And Plackets, above).

Embroidered PS Motif
As an alternative to the red buttonhole, some Paul Smith PS shirts have a red PS motif sewn on top of the right placket (see above, left & centre) or a bar of red embroidery on the bottom hem (see above, right).

EXHIBITION SHIRT

Interestingly, someone has sent me some images from the official exhibition display at Newcastle of the Matt Smith costume, and the shirt on display is a little surprising (see left).

Displayed under the tweed jacket, it mainly obscured, but what is visible of the shirt is a bit odd.

The cuffs do not match each other! (see below)

The lines of scrolls between the stripes are clearly a burgundy colour, not black as they should be; plus they are spaced from the stripes, where they should clash and be slightly covered by the stripes.

If you look closely, the stitching on the cuffs are not consistent: the leading edge has its line of top-stitch in a different position, as well as the width of the stripe on the edge being a different width.

Looking around the bow tie (see left), it is possible to see that the scroll lines do not show any of the distressing on the Paul Smith shirts – the lines are unbroken and clean.
Those aren’t Paul Smith buttons either.

Could this be a cheap copy? On display as screen-worn?????

Discuss. . . . 

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.

The shop is designed as a bit of a retro throw-back to a traditional gentleman’s outfitters (see left) with lots of dark wood and old fashioned rugs on the floor.

It took a bit of hunting around past the suits, jackets, formal shirts and jumpers, but hidden at the back of the shop, on a bottom rack, I could see a familiar striped cuff . . .
can you spot it? !

All that was left were two sized Large (see right), which would probably be a bit too snug on me.
Speaking to one of the assistants, I was told that an XXL could be ordered in for me, which as a relief.

The shop assistant also insisted on showing me a lightweight jacket in a tweed fabric, telling me this was the jacket Matt Smith also wore in the series.

I could blatantly see it wasn’t. Apart from being the wrong fabric, way too thin, the cut was wrong and it had patch pockets on the outside, not the welted with flaps as seen.

This is the same jacket that is listed alongside the shirt online, along with the £65 bow tie. It did feel like an opportunist piece of cross marketing – especially at £325.00!

It was a few days before I heard back, and it wasn’t entirely good news. Apparently, although listing the size, no shirts had been made to the XXL pattern, so I was chasing shadows.

Returning to the online shop, I found that only the Small and the XL were left in stock! So I hastily ordered an XL.

We shall see when it comes in the post . . .

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

Now, word is this is a very limited run, and will only be in stock literally, while stocks last!

So if you want one – grab one quick.

The webpage is accompanied by some great pictures of the shirt, and to preserve them when stocks are expired, I have included them here, at their full resolution (click on the pics to enlarge).

The shirt includes pretty much ALL the design details demanded: the buttonstand is three columns wide, with the buttons visible (see below); there is no breast pocket, as some found shirts had (see above).

The cuffs are striped, with two buttons on the cuff, though strangely there are three buttons in the placket, not one as screen-used.

The back is tailored (see below) as was the one Matt Smith wore, in the same way as the shirts that were available from JohnAnthony.com.

The photos do not show the red embroidered PS motif on the placket of the right-hand sleeve, but this may be a prototype and it possibly appears on the sale shirts.

The only sad news is that there will be no blue colourway to accompany this burgundy version.

Still, best not look a gift horse in the mouth.

Instead we should all offer a MASSIVE thank you to everyone at Paul Smith who made this happen – they have made a lot of Doctor Who fans very happy!

Paul Smith is cool!!!

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.

There had been number of versions of the shirt discovered over the past year, none of which were 100% right. Some had the right fitting, but lacked the striped cuffs; others had the cuffs, but had concealed buttonstands; and another had the right butonstand, fitting and style, but had French style double cuffs, though striped.

There has been a photograph issued of the shirt, and it looks perfect in every regard. It has the right cuffs; visible buttons; looks to be a tailored fit; and does not have a breast pocket, that appeared on a couple of the version of the shirts found.

The shirt will be on sale from mid October 2010, and it is not known how long they will be available for, or what quantities have been made, but it has been described as Limited Edition – so grab one quick when you get the chance.
The shirts are to be priced at £119.

To find it quicker, the shirt has the item code PCXD/164H/WHO-P, and it should be findable with that code.

I will post a direct link to the shirt once it appears online.

Other news about the reissued shirt
can be read at TARDIS Newsroom
and Sabotage Times

All change!

I’m not referring to the Number 11 bus – but the Number Eleven Doctor!

The new series of Matt Smith episodes is currently in production, and some on location pictures have emerged, showing The Doctor’s NEW costume!

Some pictures were knocking around when the Christmas special was being lensed, but they were quite distant and not top quality. These new ones, however, have been taken by paparazzi and so are much higher res and show a lot more detail.

What they do show are the complete change of costume assembled for the new series. Now, it doesn’t at first glance look that different, but like the season 19 vs season 21 Fifth Doctor chance, it is a revisiting of the constituent parts.

So, what’s changed?



JACKET
It’s still a tweed, but it doesn’t take much to notice it is a different pattern of fabric with a much bolder checked pattern. What you might not notice at first glance is it is a three-button closure, rather than a two-button like before (see right).
The elbow patches are basically the same!

SHIRT

It’s no longer a Paul Smith shirt, and appears to be a white shirt with a pale coloured grid or gingham check. The cuffs are distinctive for a 45 ˚ chamfered corner (see above).

BOOTS
The All Saints boots are out, and some look-a-likes are in. They can be distinguished by the stitched arch across the brow of the boot (see right).

TROUSERS

These look very similar to the TopMan ones previously worn, but are of a more waxy finish and have distinctive deep back pockets (see left).

ACCESSORIES
Matt appears to be wearing the same braces as before, and a similar bow tie (bow ties are cool, btw) but it does seem to be a shade bigger than before.