Doctor Who: What Makes A Great Outfit?

1. It Must Reflect The Doctor's Personality

Perhaps the most important quality the Doctor's outfit can possess is that it must reflect the Doctor's personality. First impressions are often based on clothing, so it is vital that the people all over time and space who both directly encounter the Doctor or watch him on television can form an idea of what sort of a man he is. If his clothes seem rather funny and non-threatening, there is a good chance that the man himself is funny and non-threatening as well. If his clothes are darker in hue than people are accustomed to seeing, there is a good chance that this stranger might be a little darker than they're used to as well. This is the theme that has been woven throughout all of Doctor Who's history; it has been present in every single one of the Doctors to date. The First Doctor, haughty and dignified, had the outfit of a refined Edwardian gentlemen. The Second Doctor's outfit was almost the same, but the clothes themselves were more rumpled and comic, reflecting his carefree attitude and contented life as a cosmic hobo. In the Third Doctor, we see a return to the refined dignity of the First, but this time there is a little more style involved, perfectly in line with Three's more flamboyant attitude. The Fourth Doctor had a rather alien feel about him, and his outfit showed of this was a man who clearly did not have a human's dress sense--and it was all the more iconic for that. The Fifth Doctor's cricket gear was a reflection of this more youthful, athletic incarnation, but the celery also served as a reminder that the Doctor is never like us. The same goes for the Sixth Doctor; the patchwork coat that no sane person would wear mirrored this incarnation's unstable temperament. And the Seventh Doctor's odd ensemble told us that this version had more of a comedic side to him, but as annoying as those question marks on his sweater vest may have been, they were an echo of his darker side--just when we thought we knew who he was, something about him would surprise us, and we would find ourselves wondering if we really knew him as well as we thought we did. At the start of his life, the Eighth Doctor was also refined and dignified, which came across in his choice of garments--but when we see him in The Night of the Doctor, his clothes have changed to those of fighter, a role he did not consciously embrace...but his clothes reflected the necessity of that change, all the same. The Ninth Doctor, veteran of the Time War, had much the same outfit, not yet ready to leave the Warrior behind him. This changes for the Tenth Doctor, though, and his ensemble of geek chic. The Eleventh Doctor's outfit also has hint of geek chic at the beginning with the tweed jacket, but by the end of his life, his style was reminiscent of another time and a return to the refined dignity of his past. All of this considered, what assumptions can we make about the Twelfth Doctor? I think it's safe to say that we'll see a return of the Oncoming Storm, a fighter with a flair for the dramatic--in other words, we're getting the Doctor.