Fezzes Are Cool

One of the many iconic things and running jokes of the 11th Doctor era was his love of headwear. None did he love more than the fez.  I mean, come on, fezzes are cool! However, the 11th Doctor was not the first Doctor to wear a fez. Take a look at this.

In the 2nd Doctor chapter of the multi-Doctor comic story “Prisoners of Time”, the Doctor is shown admiring a fez at a hat shop at the Frenko Bazaar. He didn’t buy it or wear it, but he is definitely looking at it.

Some wonderful timing passing by the fez

In the 7th Doctor story "Silver Nemesis" he and Ace end up in a storage rea, where the Doctor finds a little red hat: his first fez (as far as we know). First thing he does, of course, is try it on. He may have looked older back then, but the 7th Doctor still had a childish side.

The Seventh Doctor with a fez and a mop. Foreshadowing?

The 8th Doctor also wore a fez in a comic story called “Doctor Who and the Nightmare Game”. He’d intended to land in Egypt, but instead landed in 1977 at a soccer match. I haven't read it, so I can't really tell you much about it, but here's the 8th Doctor wearing a fez.

Nope. Not Egypt.

Chronologically the next time the Doctor handles a fez, even if he didn't remember it, as the War Doctor finding the fez that his future incarnation had thrown through a time fissure into the lonely barn on Gallifrey, before traveling to his future incarnations (in the past) to return the fez.

The Doctor returning the fez to himself... and himself.

Not too long before that, the 10th Doctor found that same fez (wibbly wobbly timey wimey) in 16th century England, while wooing Queen Elizabeth (or her Zygon counterpart... It gets confusing), moments before his next incarnation dives through a time fissure to find his beloved fez. Even if it's just momentary, it was a beautiful moment to see the 10th Doctor wearing the fez.

"Anything could happen! ... For instance a fez."

Of course the 11th Doctor has a more extensive history with the fez. He found his first shortly before Big Bang 2, only for it to get destroyed by his future/already wife, River Song. However that works..... Anyway, he wears another fez along with Kazrin on Christmas Day in the 44th Centuary. Later he found another fez in his wardrobe, as he was de-monking himself for Clara Oswald. My favorite one though was when he took the fez from the under-gallery resulting in his War and 10th incarnations finding it shortly thereafter. (“One day, you could just walk past a fez.” “Never gonna happen.”)

"What in the name of sanity do you have on your head?"
"It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool."

Now the question will be for Peter Capaldi: can he just walk past a fez? If he ever does, that might be heartbreaking. In the meantime, however, I'm just planning on having Matt Smith wear my fez for our photo op (hopefully he gives it back.......). Anyway, looking forward to seeing you this weekend at Comic Con FanX. Feel free to stop me to say hi if you see me.

SLC Comic Con last fall
See you at FanX this weekend!