Fabric Friday - Scaley waistcoat

Without doubt one of the nicest, and enigmatic waistcoats Matt wore first appeared on screen in The Rings Of Akaban, though it debuted in the dedicated publicity photos for the previous episode The Bells Of St John, despite it not appearing in that adventure.
I know - confusing!

It has a wonderfully textured cloth in a fish-scale pattern; is in a colour that compliments the frock coat so elegantly; has cut a that is simple and stylish; and has more variants than you might think.

But its the cloth I’m focusing on today.

The fabric has evaded efforts to track it down since its first appearance in the Hide publicity photos that heralded the start of filming on series 7b.

However, through a chance conversation with fans at this year’s Gallifrey One convention, costume design Howard Bergen finally let slip where he got it from.

The fabric is silk and wool mix, and is a grey/mauve colour.

These images are directly scanned from the screen-accurate fabric.
I’ve colour-matched them to the material as best as possible, erring on the side of a bit brighter to show detail.

Here’s the fabric in close detail, showing up the scale pattern, and it’s slightly erratic weave.

The material itself was sourced from Hopkins Fabrics, a rather exclusive fabric merchants, who as a rule only sell direct to trade.

Called (appropriately) Scaley, it comes on a range of 13 colours - but its the Grey/Mauve that was used on Matt’s costume.

Hopkins Fabrics