Me And My Tennant Suit - Guy

Last year I took a holiday down in the West Country, and took in a couple of Who-related trips to The Land’s End Exhibition and Hound Tor, the location used for The Sontaran Experiment.

I had been chatting to a Tennant Suit owner, Guy, who lives not too far from Hound Tor, so we arranged to meet there so he could show me his Baron’s Boutique suit.

I also asked him to contribute to my erratic feature, Me And My Tennant Suit. Here, at last, is what he had to say about his suit.

PROFILE

Name: Guy

Age: 21

Location: Devon

Favorite Doctor: David Tennant

Maker of my suit: Baron Boutique

Colour of suit: Brown

Guy got his Baron Boutique suit in mid April 2009, but not after falling foul of the Chinese-made Honest Dragon suits. “The first one off of eBay was rubbish: bad material and baggy fit! A complete waste of money, but get what you pay for.”



That seems to have been a common complaint about the Honest Dragon suits, no matter how well you take your own measurements, they always come up far too big.

“Lots of people were saying I looked like David Tennant”, Guy told me,  “and I was asked to do some work as a look-a-like, so buying the suit would be a good fancy dress outfit for parties/weddings and photos as well as being a genuinely nice suit for smart occasions.”

“I was looking for a good fit and close colour match to the one worn on TV.” So Guy decided to cast a little further afield, and found Baron Boutique, who also offer Tennant Suits.

After his experience with Honest Dragon, he choose the *snug* fitting option when he ordered his suit, and when it arrived he found the fit was certainly its best feature. However he did tell me, “The brown is a bit too dark, closer to black than brown unless you look closely, however the blue pinstripe stands out very well. The material, although good quality, does look different to the one on TV, a slight shine to it.”.

“The fit is the best part of the suit, pretty much the same as on David Tennant, except for a slight length difference with the Jacket, which is a mistake in my measurements not the makers.”

Guy tries to wear his suit whenever there is a party or occasion that suits, especially if it’s fancy dress! “And also to a few formal occasions such as a wedding and graduation ball.” he told me, “It gets worn a fair amount at the moment but that may change after the David Tennant era – people may just see me as a man in a suit at fancy dress parties after the regeneration!”

“But people recognising me as Doctor Who, when worn with the converse, always a good confidence boost!”

But what excites him the most about wearing the suit? “The buzz of wearing a Who replica I guess!”

Having a stylishly dressed Doctor (following one who was a bit more grunge) has inspired fans to dress a little more snappily, something Guy has noticed. “I seem to see a lot more converse being worn and trainers with smart trousers. People have definately taken to wearing more casual shoes with a suit/smart trousers. I guess it will depend on how popular the Doctor is and whether or not the dress sense would be possible in the real world.

Now that Matt Smith has become The Doctor, will Guy stop wearing his Tennant suit?

“No I will keep the Tennant Suit but probably not wear it as often to fancy dress parties once people start to forget about David Tennant”.

As a reminder of my observations
on Guy’s Baron suit, here is
what I thought.

The first couple of things that struck me about his suit was that it was a very good fit, and that Baron’s now appear to be using a revised fabric.

In my previous entry, Comparing Fabrics, I showed all the fabric swatch I had been able to lay my hands on. The image I had for the Baron’s suit was a scan of a swatch I had been sent when I enquired about the suit in September 2008. However, I could clearly see that that was no longer being used as Guy had only in the past few weeks taken delivery of his suit.

The basic fabric was still too dark, almost black, and was more of a navy blue than a brown. The pinstripes were much brighter, wider and visible compared to my existing swatch.

Looking at the construction of the suit, the box pleated breast pocket looked okay, with the pleat being an accurate two-pinstripes wide. On closer inspection I could see it was, like the Magnoli suit, a little too square and could do with being a taller (see left). The pocket flap has an un-necessary top-stitch around the edge.

Moving on to the outer pockets, I could see they were conventional suit pockets, with a flap built into an upper welt (see right).

The faux flap is not a common feature in suits, so unless you know of its existence, it is easily missed.

Finally, the belted back was not quite right (see left). It would be a quick reaction to say it is set too high, but looking back at these pictures I see it is a little more than just that. The belt is at the right position (for the wearer) but jacket is, overall, too long. This makes the distance from belt to hem too big compared to the distance from collar to belt. It could do with loosing 2 inches.

The split then starts an inch or two below the belt to compensate.

Having said all this, the silhouette of the suit is very good and was a stunningly good fit on Guy’s slim frame, which is not dis-similar to that of David Tennant’s! (do you think Guy had cut his hair and gown the side-burns to add to the effect???)

In fact, Guy said the fit was his favourite part of the suit, and I don’t blame him!

Guy has recently taken some more pictures of him wearing his suit – and the look FANTASTIC!