Louise Page - School Project review

If you watched the recent Louise Page interview on my Tennant Coat Blog, where she revealed the background story to the development of the Tenth Doctor’s costume, you will have heard mention of her ‘School Project’.

This was a pitch document she put together to show Russell T Davies and Phil Collinson when she applied to be Doctor Who costume designer. It contained her initial thoughts and ideas for The Doctor’s new look, and gives a unique insight into that moment of development.

Louise kindly granted me special access to this document, and it makes very interesting reading.


It opens with her first impressions of The Doctor through the history of the series. She identifies the motifs that distinguished them and their clothing style.
She sees the incoming Doctor as being more funky and flamboyant, compared the the contemporary, tough style of the outgoing Christopher Eccleston.


To quantify her thoughts she created a word cloud with all the key aspects she wanted to bring together.

From here she breaks the possible looks for the new Doctor into three main design routes.

1. Military Inspired
The key points in the Military Inspired look include jackets and coats with good pocket and trim details; soft, worn in trousers; a sweater with texture; unusual buttons and pocket details; a mix of fabrics, colours and textures; great looking boots; a colour range of browns, fawns and sludge greens.

This puts me in mind of the plum coat of Tom Baker’s final season, apparently based on a Russian greatcoat.


2. Boho Romantic
The next look put forward, the Boho Romantic, is a eclectic mix of design and fabrics.
Louise outlines it as long coats or jackets in soft unstructured fabrics, possibly from suede, with unfinished raw edges.
The costume would comprise a shirt; a polo neck with a cravat type scarf; sort, worn in trousers; a waistcoat with unusual double breasted button details; boots.

The outfit was to have a sexy, grungy but romantic quality, coupled with a flamboyance and interesting detail, but keeping it very masculine. There would be a mix of textures, using a layered look.


3. Young Eccentric
Finally the Young Eccentric look brings the option of a much more colourful Doctor.
A mix of heavy checks (including tartans), as well as strong patterns. A tie or scarf would be a key accessory, suggesting a connection with previous Doctors. A waistcoats would round off the look, adding layers to create bulk and texture.

From the description I cannot get the colour-explosion costume worn by Colin Baker in the 1980s, though the magazine clipping show a more vintage clothing look, carefully selected but appearing to be thrown together.


The folder is rounded off with some footwear options cut from a catalogue.
At this stage it looks like thinking was a heavy military style boot, rather than the lightweight Converses screen worn.



To read the School Project in fill, click the headline below to view a PDF online.

Louise Page’s School Project