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

8. The Sixth Doctor

Doctor Who David Tennant Tenth Doctor
BBC Studios

Over the first couple of decades of the show, the Doctor's costumes gradually became more bold and colourful, and this approach clearly hit its peak with the Sixth Doctor's garish, multi-coloured garb.

With an assortment of clashing colours and a patchwork design, it's a showy costume that seems like it was put together in a hodgepodge manner, and this is exactly what the designers intended it to feel like.

"Totally tasteless" was the brief that costumer Pat Godfrey worked from, creating some extravagant clothing to reflect the Sixth Doctor's brash and boisterous personality. It actually took Godfrey several attempts to get the costume right, with the initial designs being deemed "too good" and not tasteless enough.

Star Colin Baker actually wanted to go in the opposite direction, ditching the vibrant colours in favour of a simple dark velvet. It's safe to say that he was overruled.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.