TARDIS Tuesday- Peri Brown from Mindwarp

 Today's TARDIS Tuesday last featured in May 2022 and features one of my earliest TV memories. It was an outfit worn by 80's companion, Peri Brown, played by Nicola Bryant.

Let's have a look at what is quite a pyjama-y look:

https://archivetvmusings.blog/2014/10/26/now-i-am-she-alive-within-this-oh-so-wonderful-wonderful-frame-doctor-who-the-trial-of-a-time-lord-mindwarp/

https://www.herocollector.com/en-us/Article/doctor-who-omega-returns 

https://chancenovember.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/trial-of-a-time-lord-2-mindwarp/ 

https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/2017/02/04/perpugilliam-peri-brown-trial-of-a-time-lord-mind-warp/

Here's my 2024 Mindwarp rendition:

I'm going to start with the newest item in this outfit which actually won't be residing with me much longer. This kimono came from a charity shop in Chelmsford, originally New Look. The one I wore for my previous version of this Peri outfit was also from New Look and charity shopped.  Last Summer, we went to see CBC's friend who was over staying with her mum from Sweden and I wore that kimono.  She admired it and asked where I got it from. I told her where it was from and where I got it.  She mentioned it looked lovely for the Summer. I stored that information in my mind.  Hence, when I saw this one in the charity shop for £4, I remembered her admiring it and decided to pick it up for her as I knew she is back in July and CBC would be seeing her (they are going to see Frozen together but I can't go because I am performing the solo flute part for Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 2).  This weekend, I finally did my Summer wardrobe swap over and got the blue linen trousers out (which Ang fixed for me last Summer!) I saw the kimono folded in the spare room, lying on the bed and figured, I should wear it just this once for TARDIS Tuesday.

Along with a pink top I bought for another Peri cosplay and the aforementioned linen trousers (which I IRONED!) plus my actual kimono cord as a belt plus some Aldo heels and I was ready to go.  It's a nod to the original look rather than a direct recreation but I like it! It's very much 80's bold colours and patterns.

This week is very busy. I have 4 performances of Chicago with CBC as well as various Treasure Island practices at school and then a Sunday morning rehearsal of the Rite of Spring plus CBC's Mum is coming to stay to see Chicago so now the mad frantic clean and tidy of a very, very messy and dirty house must ensue!

I hope your life is less frenetic (and hopefully cleaner!) 

xx

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TARDIS Tuesday - Peri Brown's Swan song outfit- Mindwarp

For TARDIS Tuesday today, I thought I'd return to 80's companion, Peri Brown for her outfit worn in her swansong story- Mindwarp which was part of A Trial of a Timelord.

Let's have a look at it:

https://archivetvmusings.blog/2014/10/26/now-i-am-she-alive-within-this-oh-so-wonderful-wonderful-frame-doctor-who-the-trial-of-a-time-lord-mindwarp/

https://www.herocollector.com/en-us/Article/doctor-who-omega-returns 

https://chancenovember.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/trial-of-a-time-lord-2-mindwarp/ 

https://theultimateguidetothefashionofdoctorwho.wordpress.com/2017/02/04/perpugilliam-peri-brown-trial-of-a-time-lord-mind-warp/

She starts with a pink v-neck, crossover top which she covers up with a pink, white and blue patterned kimono top. On her bottom half, she wears cobalt trousers whcih have a pink patterned tie top. She wears white heels, pink dangly earrings and a white bracelet.

I realised I could probably do a closet cosplay of this look with things I owened, bar the kimono top. However, it was finding a lovely light summer cover-up in the St Frances Hospice charity shop for £3.50 last Saturday, that enabled me to complete this look:

I realised that the pink top I wore for Peri's Attack of the Cybermen  look could double up for Peri's top here and my Cobalt linen trousers (TARDIS blue!???), bought in Florence, Summer 2019 would work to go with them. I used my Japanese kimono cord to wrap round my waist.

In place of Peri's white heels, I added my Aldo sandy heels.  I wore pink starry earrings in place of her pink bunch of grapes. I have purple Amethyst earrings of the same style as hers but they don't show up. My bracelet was a present from a child!

What I initially put on just for these photos ended up being an outfit I stuck with- it was really comfortable and good for the weird weather we had on Sunday! I loved my Kimono top and I love the cobination of pink and blue!

What about you?

I had a lovely day with my Mum. Went over by bike-train-bike-train-bike, visited my sister and niece first and then went to my Mum's and had Spaghetti Bolognese, went for a delightful walk, sat with a cat on my lap and then went home via car-train-bike-train-bike!

Hope you are well!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- TARDIS print!

 This week, for TARDIS Tuesday, I thought I'd go back to one of the original tenets of TARDIS Tuesday which was dressing in TARDIS Blue shades. For anyone that doesn't know (AKA, was not here back when my TARDIS Tuesdays began), TARDIS Tuesday was begun by Maricel Edwards.  Alot of times, in the early day, she (and I, and others who joined in), would all wear shades of blue for Tuesdays.  When I got more into imitating Doctor Who outfits (Clara has a lot to answer for!), I stopped using TARDIS blue as my inspiration.  Actually though, my first Doctor Who imitations didn't come from TARDIS Tuesday- the idea originally came from Melanie who used to blog at the Folly Bird and she used various Doctors as style inspirations- which I LOVED, so joined in with!

Anyway, that long preamble is to let you know I'm not cosplaying a character today, I'm using the TARDIS as my inspiration!

I bought this dress second-hand (but new...) from someone on eBay a few years ago and is, by far,the prettiest TARDIS fabric I've seen! I wore it with a lovely silk-mix Oui cardigan which has matching blue spots!

My Impossible Girl necklace (Clara's pseudonym) goes well with it and I added some glittery blue Lorelai LQ earrings to complete the look

Did you enjoy your bank holiday weekend, UK-based peeps!?  I really did!  Made trips to 2 separate woods to visit bluebells, saw my Mum, sister, niece and then Dad, Stepmum, other sister, did a brilliant Post Puzzle with our friend Nath, did lots of gardening.   Returned to school today with at least a third of the children off because of Eid. Having less children made the return slightly more bearable!  We've got a polling day on Thursday so it's a bit of a funny week. I'll also be covering a different year group on Friday afternoon so it's all a bit topsy-turvy. Plus, I am on standby for covering flute for an orchestra weekend.  A lovely oboe-playing friend, who was a real encourager of me in my early days as a flute player, died last week.  He will be much missed. But his son is supposed to be playing flute this weekend but just in case he doesn't feel up to it and needs to pull out, I'm on standby...but he doesn't know I'm on standby, as the organiser doesn't want him to feel stressed in any way, so I'm all a little out of kilter, not knowing what might happen next weekend.

If I don't end up covering for my flute friend, I will have a free weekend before I have two consecutive weekends of orchestra concerts- the first in Nottinghill on the 14th, in Essex on the 21st and then  Balinese gamelan concert in Islington on the 25th so lots of nice things to look forward to. 

Came across the most BRILLIANT music subscription box called Music Library, based in the USA.  It's SUCH a cute idea- you get sent a children's story book which is based on music, plus then you get an instrument and craft-activity included. It's so cool! Oh, how I wish I had the budget at school to subscribe to something like that.  Actually would be lovely to start a music library for the kids to encourage their musicality. Sadly, not though! Not least, the international postage would be very expensive, plus the worry about import taxes but I really like the sound of it! From the same source, also heard about these brilliant Soundbellows!!! Her school must have some massive budget! I am trying not to be envious (also has an ENORMOUS room- oh how I miss my room!!!!!!).  Just occasionally, I wish I worked in a more affluent area! I already keep buying books out of my own money so need to stop doing that!

Had fun today with the Year 2's, teaching them about Morse Code! Also, teaching only 17-20 year 1 children today was a joy- all of them managed to learn a tune- it was so easy to teach with such a small number!

Finished the most ridiculously unbelievable Whodunnit today- Dandy Gilvers and the Mirror dance. I love this series, but the whole denouement was ridiculous!

Had a nasty shock when I got to my destination station this morning as I discovered my lanyard had lost its wallet- no train ticket, no work ID, no network railcard. Thank the Lord my Debit card was not in there (often is).  Had to pay £13 single fare home (nice ticket guy when I arrived let me through as he's seen my season ticket for 10 years but on the way back they said I had to buy a ticket) and was worried I'd have to pay all sorts of replacement fees. Luckily, when I got home, I found it in my shopping bag! Phew!

Right, I'm off to bed.

Hope you are well.

xx

TARDIS Tuesday: Peri Brown in Revelation of the Daleks

I last attempted this TARDIS Tuesday outfit back in November 2017 and is an outfit worn in the 80's by Colin Baker's companion, Peri Brown (played by Nicola Bryant).  Back then, it was a closet cosplay (i.e. I rummage in the wardrobe and put together items to make an outfit without having bought anything specifically with the inspiration outfit in mind).

Today, it is a closet cosplay...well I'll go into that a bit more later...

Image borrowed from http://ibw.cwbuechler.com/newblog/?p=2452

Let's have a look:

https://www.pinterest.com.au/ashleygundlach/the-sixth-doctor/

IMage borrowed from DoctorWhoTV.com

https://twitter.com/niti_who/status/1083820818008887296
 

Peri wears that colour which is the epitome of the 80's, electric blue.  She wears an oversized wool coat in that colour with big sleeves and a high neck.  On the left hand side, she wears a small silver brooch.  She wears a matching blue beret. They wear this colour because it is the colour of respect and remembrance for those who have died on the planet of Necros.

On her bottom half she wears baggy black trousers and black heeled boots.

Underneath, she seemed to wear a velvet or corduroy claret tunic with a colour which has a fitted waist.  She seems to wear some sort of red floral scarf tucked in, a gold chain and blue glass dangly earrings.

Let's have a look at my interpretation:

Firstly, I said this is a closet cosplay. It is but I had to search in 2 wardrobes, 2 suitcases, 2 drawers, 4 boxes, 9 mini drawers of earrings, a brooch box and several drawers to find the elements and even then, I could not find the correct beret! What a waste of time!

I started with 2 claret tops. Both of these are tops I have for other cosplays (Clara and Romana- both shirts charity shopped). I wore the collared shirt underneath and added the top on top. It didn't seemed to have the right waisted effect so I added a brown belt to shape it.  I tucked in a black floral silk scarf as well and added a gold necklace which my friend Lara gave me.

Next, came the rummage for suitable earrings and brooch. These ones seemed the best match but I had some alternatives to choose from. (the brooch was charity shopped and the earrings from some craft fair or other.)

The above were my options....

I chose the ones below...did I choose the best version?

Even finding the Black charity shopped ASOS trousers took ages despite the fact I had seen and put them away a week ago! The black suede M&S stretchy boots were a doddle in comparison (under the stairs shoe box)

The blue cape (rather than a blue coat) was bought as a present for me by CBC from Spitalfields market when we were first going out and I love it but not worn for ages.

The hat was the most frustrating as I cannot find that wretched blue beret I wore last time anywhere or indeed ANY of my coloured berets! No idea where that box with them has gone! Is it in the loft?!?!

Luckily, I found a blue crocheted convertible hat/snood/neckwarmer that my Mum made me and that had to do!

I honestly wish I hadn't started with this outfit as the searching for items I KNOW I have took way too long, which again, points to the 'has too many items of clothing and garments issue I was talking about with regard to my Christmas outfits post.

However, I went with it after all that searching!

What do you think?

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Amy Pond in the Time of the Angels

 It's been 6 years since I last cosplayed this particular Doctor Who inspired outfit! Is that the longest between one on here? You can see it here, before my posts even the nomenclature of TARDIS Tuesday on this blog.

Source

Last time I wore it, it was a closet cosplay using items I had in my wardrobe anyway.  I wore a dull red zipped hoodie, a black skirt, grey tights and black Converse shoes. It's a comfortable outfit.

This time, one item was purchased specifically for this outfit, the others were all in my wardrobe.

Here I am next to Amy!

 I didn't intend putting together this outfit but I went into the spare room to look for a Clara dress I am swapping with another cosplayer on Saturday and in the same bag, I found this red  Primark hoodie I had bought from Oxfam for £4 a couple of months ago.  It struck me that it would be a comfortable Saturday outfit and it could be my TARDIS Tuesday this time.

Next, I found my black skirt which I wore last time. This was given to me by my work colleague who was moving back to Canada back in 2014.  

I couldn't find the grey tights I wore last time but realised that even more comfortable would be the grey leggings I have.

When I went to search for my  black  and red Converse high tops in the under stairs cupboard, I could only find ONE of them!

Disaster!  So I went upstairs to look in the spare room cupboard and to my delight, discovered...

I actually had BLUE Converse hightops with a TARDIS handpainted on them!

I'd completely forgotten that my penpal K (who used to blog) had sent me these for Christmas last year!

There is an interesting story behind these shoes.  K is very creative and has large size 9 feet.  She finds it hard to buy interesting shoes in her footsize and so had taken to buying grey Primark plimsols and drawing designs on them in Sharpies- she's made Octopi, rainbows and clouds, dinosaurs and other delights.  I told her I loved them and it would really cool if one day, she could make me some as a fellow bigfoot!  She was very excited to do so but I said I wanted to use more ethical brand Toms to make mine so I was going to keep a look out for some second hand.

In the meantime, she got together with a lovely man in Lockdown (they were friends but had fallen for each other!) and they'd subsequently moved in together.  Both had 1 bed flats and needed to combine into one so both needed to ruthlessly cull possessions. During the cull, she found these in his cupboard.  These were actually the shoes he wore for his wedding to his ex-wife as she was a Who-fan!  He wasn't a fan but agreed to do that for her (ha, CBC would NOT do that for me!) and these had been handpainted for him.  He'd never worn them again and obviously, not being a Who fan and having split with his wife, didn't want them so K, discovering they were MY footsize, sent them to me for Christmas!

Isn't that perfect! They were second-hand, hand-painted AND unwanted, helped someone unclutter, were found a week or so before Christmas AND they turn out to be Screen accurate Amy Pond shoes (I didn't realise this till now!) 

I came down the stairs wearing this on Saturday. CBC looked me up and down.

"Is that a Doctor Who outfit?" he asked.

"Why?  Do you not like it?" I retorted.

"No, I like it, it's cute." he acquiesed.

"It IS a Doctor Who outfit!" I blurted gleefully.

"I knew it! Is it Amy Pond?" he laughed.

"Yes!"

"I'm starting to recognise the outfits now!"

It was a fun but comfy outfit to wear on a Saturday trip to town and meant I was ready for TARDIS Tuesday.

Given that 2 out of the four items I am wearing were gifts and the hoodie was £4 and the leggings £6 from Tesco back in about 2012, the cost of the outfit was very reasonable.

What do you think?

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Being the TARDIS

Hi there!

Thank you to everyone so far that responded and said they'd like to take part in the Bloggers Art Gallery. I will write some more soon about this! Really pleased you thought it was a good idea. Thank you also for your kind empathy over the party thing. You all took such pains to share your experiences and empathise. I appreciate it so much.

Today, for TARDIS Tuesday, I am wearing an outfit from a few weeks ago. It's a TARDIS Tuesday with a difference. In the early days of TARDIS Tuesday, I used to wear a lot of TARDIS blue for it.  I thought it would be nice to make a return to that.

Today's outfit features one of my favourite presents ever that my Mum has bought me. A few years ago, my Mum went to Florida with my sister and my Mum bought me back this dress as a present.

I thought it was so pretty and it is both comfy AND attractive!

Wore it a few weeks ago with charity shopped cardie and Birkenstock sandals plus an Esoteric London earrings and necklace.

What do you think?

x

TARDIS Tuesday- Clara and the Rings of Akhaten

Hello there!

Hope you are well.  Today, for TARDIS Tuesday, I thought I'd share an outfit that I haven't done before. It's from my beloved Clara and it was from her very second-episode in her main series.  The Rings of Akhaten was a genuinely interesting setting (and not Earth!!!) and had music as a theme.  In it, Clara was wearing the following outfit.

Image borrowed from this Pinterest but ultimately belongs to the BBC.

Image borrowed from Cathoderaytube

A blue patterned dipped hem shirt-dress from Urban Outfitters, a collarless black denim jacket from All Saints (which looks a bit like leather), a red satchel, tights, an Aztec eagle necklace and buckled ankle boots from All Saints.  She carries a book called 101 Places to see.


And here's me:

This is a cosplay dress that I wasn't sure I would ever own.  The main dress is notoriously bad fitting plus I'd never seen it for any reasonable price (any I saw were always over £40 and anything reasonably on eBay always went higher and I vowed I would not spend more than £20 (inc postage) on it if not £15 plus I always thought it was a chiffony-crepe sort of material so I wasn't sure I'd want this dress.  I finally found one for £12 and when it arrived, though I'd read Chrissi's excellent review on it, I was so happy to find it was a more natural-feeling cottony material and it actually fitted me even though I bought a Small!! I teamed it here with my brown buckle boots from TK Maxx which I always use for Clara's All Saints boots, a red satchel from the charity shop for £2 and my £3 leather jacket which I always use for Clara's All Saints jacket, my £2.50 eBay Aztec eagle necklace and finally my 'homemade' 101 Places to see book made for the complete look.

Rather pleased with this look. I was going to try adapt a plain navy blue shirt dress to do this one but when I found the real dress, I abandoned that!

What do you think?

xx

Tardy TARDIS Tuesday outfit- Peri from Revelation of the Daleks

Hi there,

Apologies for TARDIS Tuesday being tardy, I was out at my orchestra rehearsal last night and returned home rather late so it was BED rather than BLOG!

Today, I am choosing a Classic Who companion to dress up as (well, tenuously).  The lady below is Peri Brown who was the Fifth and Sixth Doctor's companion.  She was renowned for wearing very low cut clothing, screaming a lot and having to put up with the grumpy Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker's jibes. I liked Peri. 

Unusually, in this story, or perhaps not so unusually given the inclement weather conditions of the planet Necrox, Peri is rather covered up. She and the Doctor (in resplendent cape) both don that favoured shade of TARDIS blue.  Peri, in the form of this blue pea-coat and beret (and earrings), along with silver brooch and unmatching ski-gloves.  Interestingly enough, this is the episode in which there was a clear, glass Dalek!

Image borrowed from http://ibw.cwbuechler.com/newblog/?p=2452

And here is my rendition of it.

I wore my blue cape which CBC bought me for my birthday some years ago, along with a charity-shopped blue beret which has featured in various outfits on here before.  Plus my oven-mitt-looking sheepskin gloves.

IMage borrowed from DoctorWhoTV.com

I added this pearly silver hair-clip to resemble Peri's brooch (sort of) and I also had some blue earrings on which are not really visible in this outfit.

This is a TARDIS Tuesday I have been meaning to do for a year, possibly more and it was only this week that I finally got around to donning the appropriate apparel.  

What do you think?  Did I get it right?

Would you wear this outfit?

x

Style imitating art: Red Cockerel in the night

Evening peoples!

I'm doing that procrastinating thing again where I know I have loads of blog post to write up but they are the really arduous ones, so I keep putting it off (April book reads I'm looking at you. And May Book reads. And Doctor Who Exhibition).  Therefore, since I clearly don't want to be writing those posts, I am instead 

This week's Style Imitating Art inspiration came from a painting by Marc Chagall's 1944 painting, Coq Rouge dans la Nuit.

This photo of “[ C ] Marc Chagall – Coq Rouge dans la Nuit (1944)” by cea + is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The thing that hit me (and I am sure you too) first was the beautiful Cobalt or TARDIS blue, to give it its appropriate name on my blog. I have several items of clothing in this beautiful shade. However, this Dorothy Perkins dress I own, with its bird and foliage print seemed perfect as it seemed to reflect the inclusion of different beings and objects on top of the colour.  The Monsoon cardie may seem a bit too matchy-matchy but I rather like the all encompassing colour going on here.

The goat-playing a cello (I'm going with cello rather than violin despite there not being a spike!)  was easy to represent with my violin brooch from my penpal Lucy.  I don't have a Red cockerel brooch so I substituted it for a red bird brooch which was a freebie from Ladybird likes.

You may notice the girl has red heart on her attire so I added my elasticated  belt with a heart clasp.  Finally, just a touch more red  with my slingback shoes since it is the colour of the Title character!

Not a bad representation of it, methinks!

Head over to Jen's blog to see how everyone else interpreted it!

How would YOU have interpreted this!??!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Inside the TARDIS...

Greetings! A day late again! Twice terribly, tardy TARDIS Tuesday

Forgive the unexpected hiatus in posting.  We made last minute plans to go camping on Sunday in the Cotswolds and.......

A visit to Cardiff to the Doctor Who Experience!

Thanks to the Doctor Who fans on Instagram, I found out that the exhibition is due to close in July and I have never been!!

But....what to wear for such an auspicious occasion?

Most of the people I follow on Instagram go dressed up in full cosplay.

 But... I would have been camping for 2 days and the weather is so unpredictable. I didn't want to wear one of my smart Clara outfits because it would be creased and well- awkward.

Many of my other ones are a) too subtle and too warm for the weather.

 In the end, I chose to wear my TARDIS dress. The main reason was because unlike my other cosplays, which I can generally get away wearing for work etc, this one is a bit more special and offers less occasions to wear.

It is honestly one of the best presents I have ever received. I couldn't believe it when my Mum came back from Florida with it. It fits my shape so nicely too.

Don't worry though- there was subtle Clara Oswald cosplay going on.  The acid-distressed cropped denim shirt from Topshop is a very close alternative to a Topshop acid-distressed denim cropped denim shirt she wears for a few shots in Time Heist. The only difference is mine doesn't have a pocket! Mine was, of course, only £4 in the charity shop! Oh, and my 'Fly me to the Moon' necklace by Punkypins!

Image borrowed from Pinterest

Stay tuned for posts soon on the Doctor Who exhibition. Even CBC, who detests Doctor Who and moaned about going, had a great time, enjoyed the experience, took many photos and even bought himself some souvenirs!


Hope you are all well!

xx

Red and Blue

Greetings! Interrupting my long stream of German holiday reminiscences for some lurid pattern-mixing! Just a quick post as I am grappling with 3 part counterpoint.  I am doing something mad this Saturday and I know it is not going to end well because the thing I am doing, you don't do with only one week to try and teach yourself all the facets in order to pass this. But I am doing it anyway. And probably going to fail. But at least I am having a go and trying to be some of not-wasteful as it were. If I don't mention it again, you can assume I've failed it.  

Of course, I am procrastinating because when something is hard, you try to avoid it.

So, better get to it or at least back to it!

Going for some TARDIS-blue happiness here with Tiger beret, Primark cardie, Tesco-skirt and charity-shopped collared top. All very bright at least very cheery!

Wish me luck!

xx