"The new Cybermen costumes for this story were created by Richard Gregory of Imagineering, in collaboration with costume designer Dinah Collin. Nine Cyberman costumes were made in total - eight full costumes plus the Cyberman seen fused to the door in Part Three. Previous Cyberman costumes had been designed around rubber diving suits, but Richard Gregory suggested basing the new design around G-suits. G-suits were designed for aircraft fighter pilots to help ease the rigours of flying at high speeds and encountering G-force. The suits had a network of connected pipes and tubes that could be supplied with pumped water to keep a pilot's body temperature steady and to press the skin inwards to retain the body's shape during periods of low gravity. More importantly, Gregory knew that his local army surplus store in Oxford sold G-suits. Another factor in the use of G-suits was that they looked slightly sophisticated and futuristic to begin with due to the in-built network of pipes and tubes and only needed spraying silver to complete the look."
I'm led to believe these suits are near impossible to get now and certainly not from the high-street. It's possible that the materials have perished over time or simply that hundreds of Doctor Who fans all wanted to make their own costumes.
Steve
I have always wondered about the outfits that the actors worn in the television show, and thanks to your peerless research, I now know. Thanks for the work!
ReplyDeleteI've enjoyed delving into this particular thread.
DeleteOf course some of the appearances may be the actual same suit. It's not a huge leap to presume the Bowie and Bush video costumes where picked up at an industry costume hire and that the Alien ones may well have ended up going into the costume hire and rented out the year before. I'll bet they pop up in some other places as well. the search and research goes on. And a very bug thank you for the compliments.
My take on the cybermen....more pvc than flight suit though ;) Superb posts, keep up the great work :)
ReplyDeletehttps://farm2.staticflickr.com/1098/1070887004_1a4c4bf28d_b.jpg
Now that's very nice. I've seen the untreated images of your muse in that outfit but that adds another layer - congrats..
DeleteThat said you can't go wrong spraying a few hoover hoses silver, a bit of old circuit board and some stick on LED's from the pound shop and you've got an authentic looking retro cyberman outfit right there!
I might give that a go :) Thanks again for the kind comment too :) I hope you don't mind but I added you to my outward bound links. If this is not welcome, I will remove it!
Deletenot a problem at all. Thank you very much
DeleteYou're most welcome and keep up the fab work. I was wondering if you might consider a something for the weekend that focuses on retro ladies in silver spacesuits one day? :)
DeleteI might very well be open to that idea. Let me know what you end up shooting.
Deletethey're actually 50s vintage Royal Air Force Air Ventilated Suits - as seen here about 2/3 rd of the way down the page - http://canberratalk.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=print&num=1323711500 - sprayed silver.
ReplyDeletethey were worn under flying suits in hot climates and the tubes are for cold air to be blown through them from the aircraft A/C system.
What an absolute star you are, Sir. This is exactly the kind of comment I hoped I would get, referencing some proper Air Force facts and pictures. The whole G-suit thing didn't seem quite right, to me. I could see the cooling side of the design but not the pressure element. These suits seemed far to loose fitting and thin to deal with pressure effectively. I knew someone would come to my rescue and I will be updating later. Big, big thank you.
DeleteSteve
ReplyDeleteImages not here....but I have always want to know whether the suits worn by the humans Tom, Harry and Sarah in The Sontaranan Experment are Moonbase 3 spacesuits? There are so e problems with this when you study the construction as a seamstress...but they look very similar. If they are not Moonbase 3 suits, for a series like Dr Who, that was always short on money these Green items must if come from somewhere.
That said I am pretty certain the remains of a Moonbase 3 suit makes it into a Peter Davison story
I've always felt they were of a similar design. Of course the humans in that story wearing them are not the regular show's cast but Erak, Zake, Krans, Roth and Vural. If not MB3 suits then perhaps items by the same designer?
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