It's my first TARDIS Tuesday of the year and I thought I'd start with a new one! In the 1970's, we were introduced to the Doctor's first Gallifreyan companion in the TARDIS, the beautiful Romanadrovatrelundar, AKA Romana for short. The glamorous, intelligent Timelady joined the TARDIS to assist the Doctor in searching for the Key to Time. The whole of this season was made up of 6 stories (mostly consisting of 4 parts, except for the final Ribos Operation) which all involved the search for the pieces of the key to Time which would reset the universe to a balance of good and evil. The White Guardian gives the Doctor the task but warns him about the Black Guardian who wants to redress the balance in favour of evil. Romana was played by Mary Tamm who is actually one of the first Who characters I wanted to dress as. Lovely Norma made me a black version of her beautiful white dress from The Ribos Operation for my orchestra concerts which I wore here. I've cosplayed 3 versions of her key to time outfits with the exception of this one.
Today, I'm debuting a new outfit from the Key to Time episode entitled, The Stones of Blood. Romana wears two outfits in this episode and I have attempted the second one about 4 times! This one, I've not seen anyone attempt. I know quite a few cosplayers/Who dresseruppers don't like this outfit but I've always rather liked it! Let's have a look at it:
This is Romana's first visit to Earth and she tells the Doctor she's going to dress for Earth. She comes out of the TARDIS wardrobe dressed like this! For reasons the Doctor can't fathom.
She wears a Burberry flat cap, a Coral/apricot grandad shirt/tunic, matching trousers, a black belt, impractical gold high-heeled sandals plus a thin gold necklace and gold watch. She soon comes unstuck in the sandals when walking around Stone Henge and later changes into her more practical (well...) red outfit.
And well...
here we are:
I've been low-key thinking about this outfit for a few years thinking if I ever saw a similar blouse in a charity shop, I'd buy it. And so, last year, I saw this Nine by Sienna Miller blouse in my local charity shop for £6 and it made me think of Romana. Funnily enough, I then saw the linen trousers (brand new by Poetry brand) for £4 just before Christmas and I took a punt on them being a close enough match.
As you can see, they're NOT a total match but close enough for me.
Both garments are super comfortable and lightweight. Would I get away with wearing this entire outfit outside of cosplay? Do I look like I'm wearing scrubs? Hmmm...
This black stretchy belt is a Primark one I've had for at least a decade and the gold sandals were bought from the same shop back in around 2011-12 for my role as Lucia in The Boys from Syracuse - interestingly, I wore this EXACT shade of material with them- a large sheet of material which I cut a hole in the neck and wore with a belt. Sadly, I donated the material to the music camp costume store otherwise I realise I could have made the outfit from them (well, maybe not!). I did have high heeled silver sandals similar to the real ones but I gave them to my niece last year! No close up of my feet because no one needs to see that!
My gold bracelet was a present from a child at school a few years ago (I did forgot to wear my gold neck chain but I don't think you'd see it anyway!
The final item was the Burberry flatcap. I've kept a look out in the charity shops but seen nothing suitable. Even online, anything true Burberry was scarce or super expensive. This cap was a 'Beige tartan flat cap' which I found for £1 from Vinted (with fees and postage, it ended up costing me around £4)
I didn't attempt to copy this pose below (above, yes) but it worked out quite well! I should have taken it near my convex antique mirror!
It was fun to put this together and I liked that I found the main items all serendipitously except for that cap!
What do you think? Do you dislike this outfit as much as the die-hard Romana fans or do you like it? Which elements work for you? Which don't?!
xx
