Doctor Who: The Main Inspiration Behind Each Doctor's Costume

9. The Fifth Doctor

Doctor Who Peter Davison The Fifth Doctor
BBC

Even by Doctor Who standards, the Fifth Doctor's mixture of cricket clothing and decorative celery is really quite bizarre. However, even though it seems quite random, this was exactly the kind of look that was intended for the character.

Producer John Nathan-Turner was inspired by a picture he had tacked to his wall, which showed actor Peter Davison at a cricket match. Why was this tacked to his wall? We have no idea. But it gave Nathan-Turner a creative spark.

From here, Nathan-Turner delivered the brief of "Edwardian cricketer" to costume designer Colin Lavers, who proceeded to create the Fifth Doctor's iconic attire.

As for the divisive celery, that was also Nathan-Turner's idea. There wasn't really a thought process behind it - he just wanted Davison to wear something unusual on his lapel. And, well... wearable celery certainly falls into the "unusual" category!

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!