TARDIS Tuesday- Ace McShane from Battlefield

 Back in July 2017, I found a black All Saints wrap top in my local Sue Ryder charity shop which led to my very first TARDIS Tuesday featuring Classic Who companion, Ace, the teenager who travelled with the 7th Doctor. It was quite an easy outfit to put together and she wore it in Arthurian-themed episode featuring Jean Marsh as Morgana and the Brigadier! This was one of my favourite episodes as a child.

Image borrowed from this Pinterest. Original images belong to the BBC

She wore the black top with a green top underneath, fitted black trousers and flat black shoes or boots.

Her hair was worn with the sides lipped up and a green hair scrunchie putting the rest into a pony-tail.  She wears some sort or gold or bronze triangular earrings.

Gif borrowed from The Fashion of Doctor Who

It's been such a long time since I attempted this, I was worried it might not fit....

Here I am in ALMOST the same outfit from 2017.

That black All Saints top is now VERY tight.In fact, I could only do one of the hook and eye clips on the inner bit.

The ubiquitous black trousers are here again- I wore these 2 weeks ago for my previous Ace outfit AND the black Clarks boots. They are boring so that's all the text time they get.

Alas, the green vest top I wore last time is AWOL! I searched but have no idea where it is.... annoying.

What could I do instead?

Well, I did have a green t-shirt which was WAY too high-necked so instead, I turned it upside down and stuff the neck area into my trouser waistband and secured the bottom hem  so it looked like I was wearing a green top underneath... this admittedly did not help with either the tight fit of the top or the tight trousers but I think you will admit, it looks the job!

I used  the Gif maker at https://gifmaker.me/ to try and create the, "Aaaand BOOM!!" Gif from above! Couldn't really be bothered to move the table though so enjoy an array of waterbutts,buckets and watering cans behind me!

You can't really see them particularly well but I am wearing a pair of dangly Dalek earrings. Perhaps I should have swapped to some larger gold ones like I wore last time but I'm happy enough with it.I pinned up the sides of my hair and found my green velvet hair scrunchie. The pictures of the back looked rubbish though so you'll just have to trust me on this!

TARDIS Tuesday- Ace McShane from Survival

Hi there!

TARDIS Tuesday is back! Well, it's Tuesday, isn't it?!

Today, I am featuring a Classic Who companion who recently made a reappearance in The Power of the Doctor.  ACE! She was my companion as a child and back in the 1990's, my sister bought me a black bomber jacket which I adorned with my Blue Peter badge and a few other pins to be like her!  I met her in 1998 at the one and only Doctor Who Convention I went to- Panopticon 1998 which was held in Coventry. I booked myself a coach to Coventry and went by myself.  I met Sophie Aldred, the actor who played her, she admired my turquoise nail varnish!

The outfit I am featuring is from her final on-screen episode with Sylvester McCoy, the last episode before Doctor Who went off the TV for another 18 years or so.

Image borrowed from:
https://bradleybasement.wordpress.com/sci-fi/doctor-who/doctor-who-timelines/the-doctors-timelines-index/the-seventh-doctors-timeline/survival-tv/

It features her ubiquitous black bomber jacket, adorned with patches and pins and the back has an applique patch of her nickname, Ace.  She wears a dark pink v neck top, black trousers and boots, a school tie round her waist, dangly earrings and her hair worn with the sides up.

And over to my version:

I started with a pink top. Admittedly the wrong colour and material but I was going with what I had. I did have better coloured tops but this one is a more similar shape. It's my top from my Peri, Attack of the Cyberman, cosplay.

It's the black ASOS trousers that are my most hardworking TARDIS Tuesday item (getting very tight!) - they need no other introduction.  Clarks men's boots. I wore a pair of dangly dalek earrings which I embarassingly found the other day. My work colleague Tracy bought them for me for my 40th birthday and the Etsy seller sent them but somehow I didn't realise that this envelope hadn't ever been opened- I thought it was an old one and I was going through some old envelopes, which I keep to reuse, and there they were!!!

I didn't have a stripy tie. I thought I had one but I couldn't find it so I admit it, I was taking some stuff round to the charity shop and I found this one for 50p and thought I'd buy it to add to this outfit when I wore it on Friday!

My black bomber jacket was bought around a year ago from the same charity shop and cost me the princely sum of £2.25.  Well, it recently had a makeover from the wonderful Ang!!!!

Didn't she do an amazing job making this applique patch for the back of it! Even better, she used materials from her great stash! She has made me some amazing custom cosplay pieces over the years but this one is one of her finest! I love it!

I don't really want to add lots of patches and pins to the jacket because I like it plain, and also it becomes an extremely costly endeavour. I'd be worried I'd lose pins and I want to be able to wear it regularly, though I may try and afix a new pin back to my Blue Peter competition winner's badge so I can add that. Yes, I legitimately have a Blue Peter badge. I enterered a competition to design a new character for Oscar's Orchestra and whilst I didn't win, my characters earnt me the position of one of 100 runners up out of 28,900 entries!  Much as I would have liked my characters, Frederica Flugal Horn and Cassius the Contrabassoon to appear in the cartoon, I was still incredibly proud of my badge!

I love wearing my hair like this, particularly when it is this length but I can't always wear it like this when cycling and I only do my hair at the start of the day, not through the day, ending up looking like I've been through a hedge backwards, so there's no chance of me redoing my hair at school!

I really like this outfit and if I had a slightly less tight pair of trousers (I HAVE SOME SOMEWHERE!!!), I would really enjoy wearing this!

What do you think?

Big thank to Ang for another brilliant TARDIS Tuesday collaboration!!! And, do go and check out her hilarious blog post today about lozenges which I prompted!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday - Ace McShane from Classic Who- The Greatest Show in the Galaxy

Hi there! Hope you are well and are having a lovely day. Was there anything different for you today?

I was inspired to look at and wear the following outfit because I wore my black velvet, skater skirt last weekend and remembered thinking this would work better for an Ace outfit I wore on here at some point. I looked back and apparently, I last cosplayed this outfit back in September 2019- didn't realise it was that long!

It is from Classic Who and is worn by Ace (played by Sophie Aldred) in an serial called 'The Greatest Show in the Galaxy'. Unusually, she doesn't wear her ubiquitous Bomber Jacket in much of the story which means we actually get a proper look at her top. Like my much-cosplayed companion, Yaz, she seems to wear this jacket ALL the time so it makes identifying the features of their clothing, particularly tops, very difficult!

Let's look at the original:

Image borrowed from 
The Ultimate Guide to the Fashion of Doctor Who

Image borrowed from The Ultimate Guide to the Fashion of Doctor Who



Breton striped top (with blue edging)

Black skater-skirt with white tag/label

Black leggings/tights with red seams

Black ankle boots

Swing earrings

Black watch.

Here's my version for 2023:

Like Ang, I own a fair few Breton-striped tops (Can't seem to resist them!) so I had a choice of which one to wear.  Last time, I wore one which actually had similar denim/blue cuffs to Ace's BUT its stripes were closer together.  I did consider wearing a blue denim skirt underneath but figured it would be too bulky.  Instead, I wore this H&M kids organic cotton one.  It's my favourite Breton-striped top as the cotton is really soft and gentle!  FYI, I wore my Seasalt one yesterday- it's been a weekend of breton stripes with a black bottom-half!

Next, I added my black velvet Skater skirt (Charity-shopped Topshop).  It works pretty well as a match for Ace's- I think my legs are longer than hers so it looks shorter.

Do you spot my 'label'? That wasn't there last week when I wore it, was it? What do you think I did to modify my skirt?  Decide on your answer now and let me know in the comments what you thought. The answer will be revealed at the bottom!

Ace wears leggings with a red seam on them.  I think it would be very easy to add red embroidery or ric-rac to the side/back of the leggings and they would look really cool!! Hmmm... (I MUST remember to wear them so the seam shows up on the side!). At present though, I have a pair of socks that happen to have a red seam so I wore those. I read my post from last time I put together this outfit and apparently, I could only find ONE of my socks and I just wore one of them with the seam and the other one with a grey seam! Ha! I wonder if anyone noticed!?!?!

I added Clarks black boots- they're not the best choice of boot but I am really suffering with my left foot at the moment- something has gone wrong with my heel and the arch of my foot and I can't step down properly so I need to wear shoes carefully.  Not sure what is wrong with my foot but it got worse this weekend.

I tied my hair up and added a pair of blue drop earrings.  Can't really remember what earrings Ace is wearing- it may be her cartoon Batman ones!

https://olddoctorwho.com/companions/ace-seventh-doctor-companion/

I added a 'prop' in one of the pictures. Ace is renowned for carrying Nitro-9 explosives. I grabbed a bottle of Barkeeper's friend but in retrospect, I really should have grabbed my water carrier as it almost looks identical!

https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Nitro-9

And that's the whole look!

So, how did you think I created the label on the skirt?

Well, it really was a hack just for a photo.

I took a receipt from a Children's book shop and folded it in three. I then added my 'Kryptonite' periodic-table pinbadge and pinned the label and pin to the centre of my skirt!

Yes, I am sporting a paper-receipt!

Hope you are having a good day!

xx