Costume Design by:
- June Hudson ( notable efforts: Nicholas Nickleby (1977), Blake's 7 'Redemption' to 'Killer' (1979), The Comedy of Errors (1983), Much Ado About Nothing (1984), The Theban Plays by Sophocles (1986) )
- Amy Roberts ( notable efforts: The Legend of King Arthur (1979), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1981), Gulliver in Lilliput (1981), Dracula (2006), The Crown (2019 - 2022) )
Costume Design Genre: futuristic, contemporary
'The Leisure Hive'
Costume Design by: June Hudson
The first serial of Tom Baker's final season, with introduced both a new costume for Baker himself, as well as again more fun outfits for Lalla Ward as Romana (who would also leave in this season as well). Noticeably now Baker's costume is entirely in a plum colour, which
Hudson stated was partly to make the character appear more like a gentleman, thanks to his historical usage in the 'bloods' during the Regency era, as well as a popular colour of smoking jackets. This serial was set on the planet Argolis, whose residents are all clad in mostly identical yellow gowns and undershirts. The higher-ranking Argolins seem to have a shinier undershirt of a paler colour under the gown - and when the megalomaniac Pangol (David Haig) tries to start a new army, he and his duplicates all wear a conical helmet. The more lowly Argolins have their undershirts in the same colour as their gowns, with medical staff dressed identically but in white, with their gowns still having silver trim.
The exception to this rather uniform style is Mena (Adrienne Cori) who has a pale yellow dress with starched lace collar, having an almost Baroque influence - and sadly, barely glimpsed in its full glory in the story itself. According to interviews with Hudson, the yellow colour of the Argolin robes was so as to symbolise how rich the Argolins were.
The humans (and aliens disguised as humans) also keep this monetary theme with their business jackets fitted with large lapels, cravats and nehru collars, in various drab colours, - Brock (John Collin) and his lawyer Klout (Ian Talbot) are distinguished by having their lapels open.
'Meglos'
Costume Design by: June Hudson
This serial has Romana wearing a sumptious costume made up of a floral-patterned red velvety fabric and white frilly lace, worn with boots. It's a shame that the videotape quality doesn't let us see the costumes details in full because in the publicity photos we can really see how detailed this particular dress was in design! Again, this dress has enough of a rather fantastical quality to it that makes it warrant inclusion in this entry.
This serial was set on the planet Tigella, ruled by two factions, the religious ‘Deons’ and the scientist ‘Savants’. The Deons are the more striking design, with their leader Lexa (Jacqueline Hill) in a medieval-like dress of pink and black, with the headpiece adorned with a white plume.
There are two dresses worn by the Deon acolytes – the lowly Deons wear pink gowns and black pointed hoods, with a white braid strung from under the hood.
Meanwhile the Deon priests dress in more intimidating outfits of pink and black robes, with masks and helmets – it seems that these masks were the same ones worn in ‘The Creature from the Pit’ whereas the helmets from ‘The Horns of Nimon’.
The leader of the Savants, Zastor (Edward Underdown), isn't really in an outfit worth noting, though the Savants are all in white tunics and black trousers, with the tunic fixed with an oval shoulder piece, a design that does feel a bit generically 'scifi' considering a lot of Hudson's very inspired designs. The guards tunics are the same cut, but totally black.
Meanwhile there is General Grugger (Bill Fraser), his lieutenant Brotadac (Frederick Treves) and the mercenaries under their command. Once again with an oddly Central Asian motif, this also marks another case of wardrobe reuse, as Brotadac is wearing the chief Official’s gown from ‘Carnival of Monsters’ (originally designed by James Acheson), so not really worth covering.
'Full Circle'
Costume Design by: Amy Roberts
This serial was set on the planet Alzarius in the parallel dimension ‘E-Space’ and involved the descendants of the crew of a crashed spaceship on the planet Terradon (or so they think) still trying to repair the ship. The crashed spaceship's colonists are ruled by the ‘Deciders’, who all are in lined puffy jackets - with the exception of their chief scientist, Dexeter (Tony Calvin) whose jacket has its sleeves cut. During special duties such as tribunals, the jackets are worn with large golden chest boards.
The more lowly citizens are all in uniform colours of orange and yellow, barring some of the youths, who wear various assymetrical shirts, such as as Varsh (Richard Willis) in his mauve shirt with blue lining, or Tylos (Bernard Padden) in his blue and brown shirt.
This was the story that introduced new companion Adric (Mathew Waterhouse). who was another one of the young Terradon colonists, sporting a red-lined yellow shirt with piping around the shoulders, as well as his star badge for 'mathematical excellence' - this outfit would be reused for almost all of the character's appearances in this season and the next.
'State of Decay'
Costume Design by: Amy Roberts
This serial was a return to more ‘period alien world’ stories, with a medieval-like society controlled by a triot of vampires named the ‘Three Who Rule’. The Three Who Rule consist of Aukon (Emrys James), Camilla (Rachel Davies) and Zargo (William Lindsay).
Aukon is in a large black gown, with sleeves cut to resemble a bat's wings, worn over a brown shirt with metallic pieces over it, and special mention has to go to the red eye makeup!
Zargo and Camilla meanwhile, are in traditional monarchical garb, with Zargo wearing a dark brown tunic (also with metallic pieces over the front) with a patterned v-shape sash over it, and Camilla in a brown and black dress with a patterned segment around the chest - like Aukon, both Zargo and Camilla have cloak-like garments on each shoulder that resemble giant bat wings.
This story also sees Adric briefly try to join the Three’s side, and as such dresses in a patterned vest worn over a reddish shirt. Romana is almost sacrificed, and for the ceremony is made to wear a white dress with a patterned piece over the chest.
'Warrior's Gate'
Costume Design by: June Hudson
This was a more slightly surreal story, set inside the the mysterious ‘Zero Point’ space between our universe (‘N-Space’) and E-Space. The only building in the 'Zero Point' is ‘the Gateway’, a portal to the home planet of the enslaved Tharils, lion-like aliens in vaguely medieval-like attire which isn't terribly worth highlighting here. The Tharils were originally defeated by their own former slaves, who had built ‘Gundan’ robots to stop them – this is another case of a robot design blurring the line between ‘creature and costume’, thanks in part to how it looks like a person in armor. These were also designed by June Hudson (who had worked on this) so that justifies my case for inclusion.
'The Keeper of Traken'
Costume Design by: Amy Roberts
Another serial very lavish with the costume design, with almost all the cast sporting large-sleeved buttoned gowns in varying colours and patterns. The patterns are the highlight, as the the swirling shapes crisscrossing the gowns is a deeply inspired touch. Each indiviudual Traken character sports a dress of a different colour - Tremas (Anthony Ainley) wears a black gown with golden lining; Seron (John Woodnutt) wears a blue gown with gold-brown patches; Luvic wears a two-tone grey gown; and Katura (Margot Van der Burgh) wears a dark brown gown with golden lining.
During the wedding celebration, they wear golden wreaths and long gold capes over their dresses.
This story also introduced Nyssa (Sarah Sutton), the daughter of Tremas, in a maroon patterned dress cut similar to the rest of the Trakenites, but instead has a skirt section made of translucent coloured fabric strips. In the story following this she would wear the same outfit, but with a fur-lining on it.
The manipulative (and manipulated) Kassia (Sheila Ruskin) is first seen in a slightly similar dress to Nyssa’s with a similar skirt made of translucent fabrics, though this is usually obscured thanks to being worn under the large-sleeved robes worn by the rest of the Traken residents.
The Keeper (Denis Carey) sports a slightly different version of the main dress, in that his collar is popped, the less pronounced sleeves and of course the golden colour, with shiny golden strips on the sleeves.
Guarding the Council of Traken are the ‘Fosters’ led by Neman (Roland Fosters), dressed in tunics and coats also coated in the striking patterns seen on the clothing worn by the rest of Trakenite society, with Neman’s coat being much longer.
At the end of the serial, Tremas' body is possessed by The Master which changes the outfit as well, now being a tweaked version of the general Trakenite dress, as displayed by the sleeves and sweeping cut of it. Ainley’s Master would sport this as his outfit in almost all his subsequent appearances, but would be seen properly in the next serial 'Logopolis'.
'Logopolis'
Costume Design by: June Hudson
This was the final serial of the season, and like the previous stories had a premise with a focus on mathematics and entropy, being set on the titular mathematican world of Logopolis, whose residents are all clad in identically cut robes of yellow and black, with their representative, the Monitor (John Fraser) distinguised by his golden undershirt, medallion and lined cuffs. Apparently a fair few of these costumes were just the Argolin costumes from 'The Leisure Hive' but dyed and cut up a bit!
This story also has Nyssa wearing a new coat over her dress, that I'm not sure if Hudson had designed for this serial, or if Roberts had designed in the previous one - the coat is roughly the same colour as her dress and has fur lining, also being worn with a fur handbag over the waist, but is otherwise the same as Nyssa's typical outfit.
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