Doctor Who has been making news recently, as not one but two brand new trailers for Season 12 have been released just days apart. Suffice to say, fans are pretty excited, especially considering the new season has also just been given a confirmed airdate for New Year’s Day. The Doctor is coming.
However, the Doctor can’t save the universe on their own. Since the series began way back in 1963, the Time Lord has always had at least one friend onboard the TARDIS to share in the wonder. All of the Doctor’s friends are brave and loyal, but one thing that does change are their fashion choices.
Nardole
Nardole actually hung out in the Tardis for 3 years, although he only stayed for one season. Originally serving as an intergalactic court jester during his first appearance, over time, he calmed down and became a lot more serious and intriguing.
While wonderfully portrayed by Matt Lucas, Nardole’s outfit choices were not exactly exciting. In almost every appearance, he wore his signature rusty-red duffle coat, and although we applaud his commitment to his style choice, it would have been nice to see him in something else (and no, his dressing gown does not count).
Rose Tyler
For those fans who weren’t old enough to have watched Doctor Who during its initial run of episodes from 1963 to 1989, when the show made its epic comeback in 2005, Rose Tyler was the first companion that they had ever met. Rose was a brilliant character, and so completely relatable that it was uncanny.
Rose traveled alongside both the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, and eventually came to fall in love with her Time Lord best friend. However, despite being such a popular companion, her clothes were often quite boring and plain. A lot of episodes saw her sporting a zip-up hoodie, even in her second season where she had become much more confident.
Rory Williams
The other half of Amy Pond, Rory spent his first few months on Doctor Who unsure of his place by his wife’s side. The Doctor is, by all means, a tough act to compete with. Thankfully though, rather than turning the science fiction series into a soap opera, we quickly learned that there was never any competition and that Amy’s heart always belonged to the Last Centurion.
Rory never felt like a third wheel and he was a popular character in his own right. However the same cannot be said of his dress sense. It wasn’t necessarily bad, it just wasn’t great. While his fashion sense got better in Season 7, that puffer vest did nothing for him.
Clara Oswald
Clara is one of those companions who divides the Doctor Who fanbase. Some fans love her, others… not so much. Personally, after a rough start in Season 7, I thought she was brilliant. After a season of being the Impossible Girl, Clara finally had a chance to develop her character and discover who she really was.
That person turned out to be a school teacher. And while we all love our teachers (ahem), it’s fair to say that their clothing choices are fairly bland. When Clara started teaching at Cole Hill, she began wearing a lot of jumpers and a variety of colored shirts, which were nice but it would have been cool to see her explore her options.
Bill Potts
Bill was one of the Doctor Who’s shortest-serving companions, only traveling with the Doctor for 13 episodes. However, in that short space of time, she cemented herself as a bright and funny character, a perfect foil for the grumpy Twelfth Doctor to banter with. She was also the series’s first openly gay female companion.
Her outfits were quite unusual in that they didn’t always look contemporary. In fact, when Bill was first announced as the next companion, there were rumors that she wasn’t from the present day, due to her denim jacket and Prince t-shirt. Sometimes this worked, others it didn’t. However, her outfit in “Extremis” was amazing.
Martha Jones
Martha was another groundbreaking companion, as she was the first non-white companion in Doctor Who. She also had the unenviable task of replacing Rose, who many fans had adored. However, Martha was more than just a replacement and proved herself capable of the same bad-assery all by herself.
Her outfit game was also on point as she pulled off some gorgeous leather jackets and her various hairstyles were wonderfully creative and imaginative. However, there were some outfits that got a bit boring, such as the red leather jacket which, having been worn for the first 6 episodes of the season, got very repetitive.
Donna Noble
Donna was originally written as a one-off companion for the 2006 Doctor Who Christmas Special, “The Runaway Bride”. Before she traveled with the Doctor, Donna was a loud, brash, hot-tempered woman who didn’t suffer fools gladly and delivered some of the best one-liners in the show’s history.
However, when she came back for Season 4, Donna’s character was fleshed out and she became one of the most popular companions in the series. She also had some great outfits. While her blazer in the Sontaran two-parter left something to be desired, Donna more than made up for it with her amazing coat collection.
Amy Pond
The first person the Eleventh Doctor ever met, Amy traveled with him for 2 and a half seasons. She was fun and Scottish and grew to become very popular by the time she left the show in Season 7. Her relationship with Rory was adorable to watch and their friendship with the Doctor was just so precious.
She also had a wild consortium of outfits. In Season 5, Amy wore a lot of miniskirts, which was a little odd seeing as how it was 2010 but it still worked. Her costumes in the following season improved a lot, and she began to develop an affinity for leather jackets, which looked amazing on her.
River Song
The most complicated companion on this list, River could pull off any outfit she chose. In her first appearance in Season 4, she even managed to make a spacesuit look sexy! For the majority of her time in Doctor Who, River was an enigma and her outfits really had to reflect that about her.
River also spent a lot of her life contained in the Stormcage prison facility for murdering the Doctor (told you she was complicated). However, even her prison uniform looked good, as seen in “The Impossible Astronaut”. However, her best costume has to be her ‘warrior dress’ seen throughout Season 6.
Sarah Jane Smith
This is a little bit of a cheat, as we’re taking inspiration from her costumes from Sarah’s own show, The Sarah Jane Adventures. However, she was one of the Doctor’s most beloved companions so we doubt anyone will mind. Plus, her outfits on Doctor Who were still immensely stylish.
Sarah Jane is also the oldest person on this list, but she always looked amazing whatever show she was in. She had a penchant for waistcoats but they suited her and made her look wise and sophisticated. She also had a very colorful shirt collection but the best parts about her outfit were her jackets. Whatever she was facing, Sarah Jane knew exactly how to dress for danger.
