The “Elegant Eccentric” Willy Wonka

As I write this, ITV3 is showing “Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory” in memory of the late, great Gene Wilder who sadly passed away recently.

While rewatching this beloved classic it struck me just how Doctor-y Willy Wonka is, from his mannerisms, to his mad-eyed playfulness, to the somewhat sinister nature of his seemingly endless factory. Indeed, many people have drawn parallels between Wilder’s Willy Wonka and Tom Baker’s fourth Doctor – indeed, they both share a love of eccentric clothes, big eyes, mad hair, and madder conversation.

In memory of Gene Wilder, and in appreciation of his wonderfully weird Wonka, I’ve created a look-book to best channel your inner chocolatier.

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The “Rockabilly” Starfleet

“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.” – Star Trek: The Original Series

As Trekkies all over the world celebrate 50 years of boldly going where no man has gone before, it’s perhaps fitting to create a warm, layered, and stylish look-book influenced by the 60’s chic of the original Starfleet crew uniforms.

The original costumes incorporated lots of TV friendly fabrics and designs and had a surprisingly basic silhouette at heart. The loose military vibe is easily forgotten when looking at the vibrant colours and textures of the costumes and the subtle insignia add great layers of detail in a time when it was easy to forget the little things.

The “Everyday” Driver

“If I drive for you, you get your money. You tell me where we start, where we’re going, where we’re going afterwards. I give you five minutes when we get there. Anything happens in that five minutes and I’m yours. No matter what. Anything a minute on either side of that and you’re on your own. I don’t sit in while you’re running it down. I don’t carry a gun. I drive.” – The Driver

2011’s Drive is, perhaps, one of my all time favourite films. The soundtrack, the story, the effortless cool, and – as ever – the clothes all make this one of the most thrilling, engaging, and memorable films for years.

Ryan Gosling’s nameless protagonist cut such a swathe on film that he was instantly catapulted to icon status; the sort of plateau only occupied by the likes of Marlon Brando’s Johnny Strabler or James Dean’s Jim Stark.

Dressed in classic Americana, Gosling looks every bit the leading man. His look consists of an quilted satin souvenir jacket, worn denim jacket, slim fit jeans, off-white boots, a tight fitted henley, and a pair of brown driving gloves.

The pared down, yet high-quality outfit sported by the Driver has spawned literally hundreds of imitators yet it’s important to remember that the detail of the look can change around, yet the silhouette and texture is perhaps more important than the overall style.

(Reader Suggestion) Time Differential: Ten to Twelve

Recently, @DaveceptionYT – a friend of AAWTIS and loyal reader of the blog – got in touch and suggested a Time Differential post combining the looks of the tenth and twelfth Doctors.

Not wanting to disappoint such a stand up chap, I naturally jumped at the chance to come up with a look book to combine these two iconic Time Lords.

The basic design for this look is taking the shape, silhouette and pieces of Twelve’s ‘Space Hobo’ aesthetic and twisting them to match the colour palette of Ten’s blue suit variant.

The pinstripe jeans are a unisex style from Topshop and are available on eBay. Sadly, these seem to be a one off pair left in the overstocks. Alternatively, a pair of blue (or brown) chinos, either striped or otherwise), would work just as well.

The boots are a fantastic pair of Doc Martens Mayports in canvas twill. These are burgundy, in order to reference Tennant’s deep red converse worn with the blue suit but they also come in cream if you wanted to do a brown suit version of this look book!

The jumper I’ve selected is the blue version of the BooHooMan holey jumper I’ve mentioned before; I own this jumper myself and it’s absolutely fantastic – it’s comfortable, well made, dirt cheap, and makes a great substitute for the Paul Smith original – they’re out of stock in black but the blue works especially well with this colour palette. To go with this, I’ve selected a burgundy long sleeve t-shirt from Topman – the burgundy showing through the holes in the jumper make a neat reference to the rust pinstripe on the screen used suit.

The hoodie is a terrific burgundy version of the Fat Face hoodie I’ve shown before and helps to tie the whole look together.

I’ve chosen a pair of tortoiseshell RayBan wayfarers in order to reference both Ten’s brainy specs and Twelve’s sonic sunglasses – these are available from lots of retailers, but cheaper alternatives are everywhere at the minute so be sure to check your local high street to grab a bargain!

Lastly, the coat featured is a beautiful mash-up of Twelve’s Crombie style with Ten’s overcoat colours; it even has a great blue lining! The coat’s even in the sale at the minute for £150.

What do you reckon? How would you mash up these two styles? Be sure to send in any suggestions or requests via Twitter!

Save the Arctic with Doctor Who & Greenpeace

The ‘Save the Arctic’ campaign is one that’s been running for a while, but recently came to my attention when, researching images for this very blog, I came across this photo of Peter Capaldi wearing this very spiffy t-shirt.

Upon clicking said image, I was graced with several Doctor Who stars all sporting the same shirt.

Delving deeper, I discovered the shirts were designed by Vivienne Westwood and are available on the designers’ site here. The shirts were designed to promote awareness of (and to raise money to combat) climate change. We’re all too aware of what climate change is doing to our planet and making just a few small changes to our lifestyles can have a huge impact on our carbon footprints.

The “Series 10” Twelve

It’s all gone a bit Capaldi mad recently!

As series 10 moves forward with production, the internet has been flooded with pictures from filming. Fans have been lucky enough to snap some brilliant photographs of Peter Capaldi and co on set and, unsurprisingly, the Doctor’s costume has undergone some subtle yet extensive changes.

(Featured photo via Twitter)

Firstly, and most noticeably, the Doctor has a new coat! This one is incredibly different to his previous two coats in as much as this one is cut more like a single breasted frock coat than a crombie. The lining in this one is a quite bright electric blue, and the Doctor mixes up his two different styles by combining the formality of his Budd shirt, with the casual qualities of a new All Saints hoodie.

For all intents and purposes, the rest of the costume looks relatively unchanged, but the new direction has proved divisive amongst fans and cosplayers alike. Some love the look, others aren’t so keen. I for one, love this combination and am proud to say I’d been wearing the shirt and hoodie combination for quite a while before series 10 started filming, so I’m feeling a bit smug right now!

Peter Capaldi: Style Icon

It’ll come as no surprise to the readers of this humble blog, that I’m a big fan of Peter Capaldi. His work both on screen and off is always a joy and his take on the Doctor is one of my all time favourites – in addition to this, he’s not only a brilliant actor, director, and gentleman, but a snazzy dresser.

Capaldi clearly brought his unique sense of style Doctor Who when he took on the lead role, and over the course of his tenure, we’ve seen an interesting style revolution; he’s moved from minimalist ‘rebel Time Lord’ to cosmic hobo and into a neo-dandy with an interesting sense of the bohemian to it.

It’s all well and good taking elements of the twelfth Doctor’s style and incorporating them
into your own wardrobe (as I’ve shown how to do before), but it’d perhaps be easier to take lessons from the man himself.

A Good Enough Holey Jumper Substitute

Hello all,

Just wanted to let you know about this brilliant substitute for Peter Capaldi’s Paul Smith Holey Jumper I’ve just ordered!

Unfortunately it’s now out of stock in black so I had to order blue, but at £6 it’s fine for me for everyday wear – I might dye it if I can be bothered, but to be honest, the blue looks good enough for me and it’s not really for cosplay so we’ll see how I feel when it arrives!

I bought mine from the BooHoo.com eBay account as it’s £2 cheaper on there than it is on the site and they still have a few sizes available.

If you look on the site, however, some larger sizes are still available in black, so shop around to see what you can find!

Obviously, this one doesn’t have all the details that the screen used jumper does, but it’s definitely a step up from cutting your own holes in a cheap top.

I’ll post some photos of mine when it arrives, but if you’re thinking about getting one, I wouldn’t dawdle with it – I doubt they’ll hang around and I suspect it was Doctor Who fans that caused them to sell out in black!

 

The Doctor as a Fashion Icon

Today I’m wearing an outfit that, to fans of Doctor Who, will look overtly inspired by Peter Capaldi’s interpretation of the title character. To non-Whovians it’ll look, perhaps, quite dandy and fashion forward – more at home in London, Paris, or New York than on the rainy streets of a rural town in Lincolnshire.

Interestingly, my obsession with Doctor Who fashion started with my introduction to the show. The first episode I watched was David Tennant’s first ‘proper’ outing as the 10th Doctor, 2006’s ‘New Earth’, the start of series two of the revived Doctor Who.

The Casual Kingsman

“There’s nothing noble about being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self” – So wrote Ernest Hemingway, and so spoke Harry Hart, aka Galahad when he took young Eggsy under his tutelage in 2015’s ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’.

The film centres around the recruitment and training of a new addition to the roster of Kingsman secret agents. Harry Hart mentors Eggsy and teaches him all the things a true gentleman spy should know, how to be courteous, polite, and deadly. One of the most important aspects of the film is the wardrobe sported by the Kingsman forces and, as such, Matthew Vaughn teamed up with menswear website Mr Porter to develop and sell the pieces seen in the film.