Sixth Doctor's coat

Throughout his life, the Sixth Doctor wore a multicoloured coat.

It featured patches of red tartan, red, green, pink and maroon felt, peach wool, a woven back piece, checked collar and yellow and pink lapels, (TV: The Twin Dilemma) with a total of 76 different colour tones overall. (AUDIO: The Middle) The Tenth Doctor told Gabby Gonzalez that the coat was "at the height of sartorial elegance". (COMIC: Laundro-Room of Doom) The Eleventh Doctor told Clara Oswald that his patchwork coat was "made for a spectrum invisible to the human eye", and that he had won an award for it. (COMIC: Dead Man's Hand)

The coat was the subject of much ridicule, with people often mocking it, (TV: The Twin Dilemma, AUDIO: The Carrionite Curse) with Mel Bush and Peri Brown each thinking that it resembled "an explosion in a paint factory", (PROSE: Instruments of Darkness; AUDIO: An Eye For Murder) although the Doctor insisted that there were places where his coat was considered the "height of fashion". (PROSE: Palace of the Red Sun)

The coat was the height of fashion on Kolpasha, (PROSE: Instruments of Darkness) which in turn dictated fashion across almost 500 planets. (COMIC: Victims) The Sixth Doctor sometimes mentioned that his coat came from Kolpasha. (PROSE: Business Unusual, Spiral Scratch, AUDIO: Real Time, Year of the Pig, The Carrionite Curse) The Fourth Doctor once tried on a coat like that of the Sixth Doctor's while visiting Kolpasha, remarking, "No-one would ever be seen out in public dressed like this." (COMIC: Victims)

The Doctor eventually replaced his multicoloured coat in favour of a blue one (WC: Real Time et al.) but began wearing it again towards the end of his life (TV: Time and the Rani) for the benefit of an amnesiac version of Mel, who preferred his original attire. (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors)

The bright colourful nature of his coat helped the Sixth Doctor fight certain species: Kroton sensory systems were jammed by it (PROSE: Alien Bodies) and Terravores were visually over-stimulated to the point of unconciousness. (AUDIO: The Crimes of Thomas Brewster)

Behind the scenes

 * According to an interview with Colin Baker in DWM 118, the Sixth Doctor's coat was created because John Nathan-Turner had the idea that it should be in "very bad taste" to show the Doctor's alien nature. Baker himself had wanted to wear black to display the Doctor's darker side.
 * More recently, Colin Baker has expanded upon this, stating that what he wanted to wear was pretty much what would become the costume for Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor. (DOC: Doctor Who: The Ultimate Guide)
 * Big Finish Productions ditched the coat the Sixth Doctor had for his televised run and replaced it with a blue one. The blue version better fitting his darker personality in their audio stories.