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

5. The Ninth Doctor

Doctor Who David Tennant Tenth Doctor
BBC

The Ninth Doctor's costume marked a stark departure from every previous Doctor.

All that flamboyancy and colour? Gone. That Victorian-Edwardian fashion sense? Gone. As played by Christopher Eccleston, Nine was a much more grounded and accessible Doctor, perfect for a modern reboot of the show.

Even though he dresses nothing like his previous incarnations, the Ninth Doctor's costume was - in an odd way - still inspired by them. But instead of the inspiration being to mimic them, the inspiration was to not mimic them.

Showrunner Russell T Davies (and Eccleston himself) wanted to move away from that Classic Doctor foppishness, with costume designer Lucinda Wright noting that the Ninth Doctor had to look like he could "disappear into the crowd."

And so, his more down-to-earth, everyday costume was created. For that now-iconic coat, hundreds of alternatives were tested, before Wright stumbled upon a tatty World War II German naval jacket that was deemed perfect for the job.

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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.