Traveling Through Time, Space, ... and Fashion! with Susan Foreman (Doctor Who)

Gallifreyan Chic

While thinking about fashion and characters through different decades, I realized that Doctor Who is a show that has gone on for many years, and a perfect place to find fashion inspiration from the Doctor's various different interesting companions! So, I'm going to be looking at the various fashion choices made by the many companions of Classic Who!

First, I will be starting with the first companion, Susan Foreman, the Doctor's granddaughter.  

I've watched some 1st doctor episodes recently (on RetroTV) and I'll be honest, I find many of the episodes to be a bit boring. BUT I do like the 1st doctor and I also like Susan! I thought she was a very interesting companion considering she is the only one who has been a blood relative of the Doctor.  

We will first be focusing on her first appearance in the story An Unearthly Child. 
  

Susan has her hair cut short, in a style that was common during the 60s. The picture is a bit blurred but it looks to me that her makeup is pretty simplistic. The only thing that looks to be more bold and dramatic may be the eyeliner. It looks to be a bit thick, as was common during the time. 

  

Her outfit is fantastic, especially since it uses super basic items and can be recreated today! I am unsure what colors may be involved in her outfit though. Anyways, she is wearing a striped top with (what I am assuming are) black simple trousers. It looks like the striped top perhaps has some button detailing? On her left arm, I believe she has a watch.  

From this angle, we can see that she is wearing black flats. I love this outfit so much and I can even recreate this outfit with similar items in my closet! 

 Bringing Susan Foreman's Style Into YOUR World!

 For these outfits, I stuck with the items Susan wore, but put little twists on them. For the first option, I used a black and white striped crop top paired with black high waisted jeans. Crop tops and high waisted jeans are always a good combo. They compliment each other really well! Next, I put two different shoe options. The first one are black flats relatively similar to the ones that Susan is wearing. But, I also put in a pair of black converse if you want to go for a more casual look. Lastly, I put in a silver watch! 

For the second outfit, I decided to style it with the soon approaching cold months in mind. I used a black and white striped long sleeved top with ripped black jeans. I then put in some black combat boots instead of the flats for the fall weather we will soon be having!! And instead of using a more neutral colored watch, I decided to go for a mint colored watch in order to put in a little pop of color in the look. 

So, that's it for the first post in my exploration of Susan Foreman's style! I am hoping that I will be able to go over each of the episodes she is in, but it all depends on if I can find screenshots from each episode. These screenshots were taken by myself from the following video on YouTube:

 

Are you a fan of Doctor Who? Let me know down in the comments! Stay tuned for my next post where I will start my Halloween series!

Ladies of Animation: Valerie, Josie and the Pussycats

Long tails and ears with hats...

Josie and the Pussycats was one of my favorite cartoons when I was younger, so I knew I would have to do some posts dedicated to the ladies of this cartoon! I thought I would start with lovely Miss Valerie. 

While doing some research on, I learned something interesting about when Hanna-Barbera was developing the cartoon version of the popular Josie comic. On Wikipedia, I read that when creating the cartoon, Hanna-Barbera decided to make a "real-life Josie and the Pussycats" to record the singing voices for the girls and also to create a record to sell. They had a huge talent search in order to find girls who would look similar to the Pussycats and also have the right sound. Danny Jansen and Bobby Young held the search, because they ran the production company (La La Productions) that would be producing the record. They settled on casting Patric Holloway for the singing voice of Valerie. Hanna-Barbera had some other plans, though. They decided they wanted it to be an all-white trio, even though Valerie had always been an African-Amercian character in the comics. Jansen refused to recast the part of Valerie and he almost even abandoned the project completely. After three weeks, Hanna-Barbera caved and let Jansen stick with Holloway as Valerie. I'm glad they decided to stick with the decision! 

Now, onto taking a look at how they styled Valerie! 

Valerie was the brains of the group and was always coming up with solutions and inventions that would help the group get out of whatever sticky situation they were in. But, they didn't make her look like the stereotypical nerd. They let her have some cool style. In the cartoon, she only really wore two outfits: her cat costume and her purple dress outfit. In the comics, she of course had some more variety in clothing, but this was a Hanna-Barbera cartoons so what do you expect!

The cat costume is classic and a great  design! But, I'm going to just focus on her other outfit for this post. 

So, her outfit consists of a purple dress over a light pink long-sleeved blouse. She also wore some purple Mary Jane's and a purple belt.

Bringing Valerie's Stye to Today

Now, I would like to show you how I though you could incorporate similar pieces and the same color scheme into a modern outfit! First, the outfit on the left was me trying to make a very close remake to Valerie's outfit in real life! A light pink collared blouse, bright purple dress, and the purple Mary Jane's plus the belt. The second outfit was a modern take on the look. I stuck with a light purple blouse although this one is not collared. It instead has some interesting gold detailing. Then, instead of a dress, I chose a suede skirt (keeping some of the 70s vibes) in a plum shade rather than the bright purple. It keeps the color scheme basically the same but tones down the purple by choosing a more natural looking shade. Then, I chose some snazzy plum heels to pair with the outfit (although you should of course wear whatever shoes you feel most comfortable wearing!) 

Did you watch Josie and the Pussycats? Who was your favorite character? Did you ever read the comics? If you want me to do some posts dedicated to the comics, let me know!

  

Stay tuned for next week when I will travel through space and time and get timey-whimey!  

Photo Sources: 

http://anah.dvrlists.com/josie-and-the-pussycats/

http://soultrain.com/2012/03/28/classic-cartoon-icon-valerie-of-josie-and-the-pussycats/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/538250592942056844/

http://www.bionicdisco.com/2013/12/13/funshine-friday-josie-and-the-pussycats-stop-look-and-listen-1970/