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A tie was an article of clothing commonly associated with men's apparel on the planet Earth. Ties were worn for their style value, but could also signal levels of formality, association with particular schools, companies or other groups. A tie was favoured by the Doctor in most of his incarnations.
The Doctor's ties
The Doctor regularly wore a tie of some form in most, though not all, of his incarnations.
First Doctor
The First Doctor almost always wore a wing collar with a bow tie, which took the form of a long, oblong piece of cloth tied in a large bow. It was almost always dark in colour, but on one occasion he wore a tie that had a black-and-white checked pattern. (TV: The Rescue)
Second Doctor
The Second Doctor typically wore a small, pre-tied bow tie. He attached it to his shirt with a safety pin. It performed the function of closing the top of his shirt, in place of a collar button. (TV: The Power of the Daleks)
Third Doctor
The Third Doctor occasionally wore ties, favouring large, velvet butterfly-style bow ties to go with his distinctive velvet smoking jackets. (TV: The Three Doctors)
Fourth Doctor
The Fourth Doctor sometimes wore a four-in-hand knot tie, but also often went tieless or wore a loose cravat under his scarf. (TV: Robot, TV: Pyramids of Mars)
Fifth Doctor
The Fifth Doctor did not generally wear a tie, preferring to wear his shirt open-collared. On one occasion, however, he dressed in early European-style finery and wore a layered cravat in his role as owner of the Tempus Fugit. (PROSE: The Crystal Bucephalus)
Sixth Doctor
The Sixth Doctor wore long bow ties in a loose knot in the style of the First Doctor, but his became wider at the ends with diagonal edges. Rather than being plain, they were either bright blue or red with polka dots (TV: The Mysterious Planet), or yellow with a starfield pattern. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids)
Seventh Doctor
Early in his incarnation the Seventh Doctor wore a four-in-hand tie in a paisley pattern. (TV: Time and the Rani) Later in his incarnation, he wore a solid red four-in-hand tie with a white suit. (PROSE: Original Sin)
While in Perivale in 1883 at Gabriel Chase the Seventh Doctor deflected anticipated criticism from Ernest Matthews by saying, "Let me guess. My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters, and you don't like my tie!" (TV: Ghost Light)
Eighth Doctor
The Eighth Doctor adopted a silky cravat, starting with the Wild Bill Hickok costume he appropriated shortly after regeneration. (TV: Doctor Who)
In 1930, when he was aboard the R101 airship the Eighth Doctor was denied access to an area of the R101; he protested, "I'm wearing a tie!" (AUDIO: Storm Warning)
Ninth Doctor
The Ninth Doctor did not generally wear collared shirts or ties.
Clive Finch owned a photograph of the Doctor in 1912 Southampton, in which he was dressed in era-appropriate formal wear including a cravat. (TV: Rose, WEB: whoisdoctorwho.co.uk)
Tenth Doctor
The Tenth Doctor usually wore four-in-hand ties of various patterns with his suits, but he also went open-collared sometimes. (TV: The Christmas Invasion) On formal occasions, such as the presentation by Lazarus Laboratories or the party on the Titanic, he wore a bow tie. (TV: The Lazarus Experiment, Voyage of the Damned)
In 2008, before they had met from her perspective, the Doctor got Martha Jones' attention in the street and dramatically took off his tie. He did this after they had met and experienced the story's events in his timeline, but before this in hers, as a "cheap trick" to prove he was telling the truth about time travel. (TV: Smith and Jones)
Eleventh Doctor
Following his regeneration and recovery, the Doctor proclaimed that "bow ties are cool". (TV: The Eleventh Hour) He continued to proclaim this on several occasions despite Amy Pond's insistence that they were not. (TV: Amy's Choice, Vincent and the Doctor, The Lodger, The Big Bang) While on Demon's Run, the Eleventh Doctor again defended the belief that "bow ties are cool" on meeting Melody Pond. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
The Eleventh Doctor generally wore a red or blue bow tie with his usual outfit. On formal occasions such as Rory and Amy's wedding (TV: The Big Bang) and his own death by poisoning (TV: Let's Kill Hitler), he wore a tailcoat with a white bow tie.
The Doctor (actually the Teselecta which was disguised as him) untied his blue bow tie and used it to bind his and River Song's hands together in a handfasting as part of their wedding ceremony. (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
Other notable ties
- Ian Chesterton often wore a four-in-hand tie while travelling with the Doctor.
- On Vortis, the First Doctor used Ian's Coal Hill School tie to test an unknown liquid, finding it to be acid. Ian was momentarily more concerned about the loss of his tie than the fact that his life had just been saved. (TV: The Web Planet)
- Vislor Turlough continued to wear his Brendon Public School uniform, complete with school tie and wing collar, through most of his travels with the Doctor. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)
- On both his visits to the Musée d'Orsay in 2010 the Eleventh Doctor complimented Dr. Black on his bow ties. (TV: Vincent and the Doctor)
- The Silence wore four-in-hand ties along with their suits. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
