- "There's one thing you should know. Last time we met I was wearing a cute little black number with peach trim and gold spangles, and although it looks like I'm wearing the same outfit today, it is in fact an entirely different cute little black number, with completely different gold spangles!"
- ―Cat embarrased about wearing the same suit more than once[src]
One of Cat's many clothes racks ("Future Echoes")
Cat's outfits are a recurring theme in Red Dwarf. Cat is an extremely vain creature, with this being one of his primary defining personality traits, and accordingly he is obsessed with fashion. One of his few skills is designing and crafting new outfits for himself, which are invariably sharp, flamboyant, and colourful. Cat often keeps fashion accessories inside his clothes, such as hair combs, hand mirrors, and handkerchiefs.
Cat tends to wear a different suit in each episode of the television series. It is unknown how many outfits Cat actually owns, but given some of his statements on his clothes over the years, it may be thousands.
Notable Appearances and Mentions[]
Dave Lister and Arnold Rimmer first met Cat when he jumped out of Supply Pipe 28 wearing a pink suit with frilly white lace. Lister and Rimmer ran to the into a nearby teaching room while Holly explained who Cat was. Cat then entered, said that he could see a crease on his sleeve, and pulled out a small hot iron and removed the crease. ("The End")
When Cat and Dave Lister were preparing to go into stasis for their journey back to Earth (that is, before they decided to stay aboard Red Dwarf), Lister told Cat to travel light and only pack essentials. However Cat turned up with a whole clothes rack, and said that he could 'travel light and move fast' with a further ten racks. Lister told Cat that he could not take all these since there wasn't room. Cat then pulled out a red handkerchief, saying that he would have to go without it. Lister told Cat that he could only take two suits, and Cat says that he would rather not go into stasis and die since only two suits *is* dead. Cat then thought a bit more, and offered to amputate one of his legs so that he could take three suits. ("Future Echoes")
To clean his clothes, Cat hangs them up on a line with a bucket underneath, and licks them until they are dripping wet. Cat calls this 'doing his laundry'. Cat once did this in Lister and Rimmer's bunkroom, which Lister didn't seem to mind, but Rimmer thought was disgusting. ("Confidence & Paranoia")
When the Boys from the Dwarf received a distress call from a crashed ship, Nova 5, they thought that they were all going to meet women for the first time in three million years. They all dressed to impress, especially Cat, who donned a bespoke space suit coated in gold. ("Kryten")
When inside the digital fantasy land of Better Than Life, Cat had a room with a wardrobe which spanned an international time zone. When it was three o'clock where his shirts were, it was seven in the morning for his socks. Cat was very smug about telling Rimmer this. ("Better Than Life")
Cat had a number of earrings which looked like fish bones. One of these, the one he 'couldn't stand' since it was always catching on stuff, he gave to Kryten as a going away present when Kryten was set to be replaced. ("The Last Day") However, around a year later, Cat had taken once again to wearing an identical earring, or at least one which looked very similar. ("Dimension Jump", "Legion")
When Starbug crashed onto some rocks on an ocean moon, Cat was badly injured with a broken, bleeding leg. Cat was more worried about the fact he was bleeding in an unfashionable colour, and wished he has worn white instead of apricot, since white goes with anything. When Lister asked if anything was broken, Cat said that the stitching's coming away and the lining was ripped, and begged somebody to get him a tailor. Cat began to become delirious, and saw various clothes floating by him. This included paisley with stripes, green anoraks with fuzzy collars, and rubber trousers held down with bicycle clips. When warned that the might get gangrene, Cat wasn't too perturbed since he thought green would go with apricot. Eventually, he was saved when Ace Rimmer performed an operation to save the leg. ("Dimension Jump")
When the Dwarfers used the Simulant Teleporter to escape the disintegrating Simulant Battle Cruiser, Kryten warned Cat that it hadn't been calibrated for organic matter, and that there was twenty percent chance that they could be turned inside out. Cat checked his clothes lining, and said that the didn't mind, since the could pull off innards and lavender. ("Rimmerworld")
After an incident with the Time Drive in which the Dwarfers became trapped in alternate U.S.A. on the brink of nuclear war, Cat was more worried about his clothes than dying. Cat mentioned that he wouldn't want to get a nuclear explosion all his suit, since 'that stuff does not dry clean'. ("Tikka to Ride")
When the Dwarfers met Ace Rimmer a second time, Ace said to Cat of his suit: "why, it's sharper than a page of Oscar Wilde witticisms that have been rolled up into a point, sprinkled with lemon juice and jabbed into someone's eye." ("Stoke Me a Clipper")
When Starbug was being crushed in a rapidly shrinking Red Dwarf, Kochanski likened it to a giant trouser press. Cat said that he had always hoped that he would go out like that, freshly laundered and wrinkle free. ("Back in the Red")
After attacked by the Cat Fleet under the command of Rodon, Starbug began to crash land onto a desert planetoid. Kryten consulted the Starbug Operator's Manual for advice on how to survive the crash landing, since the 'bug had separated into two and they no longer had rockets, and the manual suggested using a parachute. The Dwarfers were horrified to learn that in the three months they had been trapped on Starbug, Cat had taken the parachute and made it into the jacket he was currently wearing since he liked the shiny reflective material. Luckily for the Dwarfers, Cat doesn't like owning two of the same suits, so the second parachute was intact. ("The Promised Land")
Cat's Anti-Fashion[]
When wanting to portray a negative situation or bleak outlook, Cat would often compare the circumstances to clothes that he found unfashionable. This included "we're deader than corduroy" ("Psirens) and tank tops and A-line flare with pockets in the knees ("Legion")
On the occasions when Cat became his nerdy alter-ego Duane Dibbley ("Back to Reality", "Emohawk", "Back in the Red"), his fashion sense would also do a reversal, with him preferring anoraks, sideways-pressed flares, polyester clip-on ties, and transparent plastic sandals.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Although Cat only appeared doing his laundry by licking it clean once ("Confidence & Paranoia"), he presumably would normally do this away from the other Dwarfers or in his own quarters.
- Cat's vanity and almost religious adherence was in direct contradiction of the Cat Commandments, although Cat had always rejected the beliefs of his people. In the special The Promised Land, it is revealed that Cat was left behind on Red Dwarf by his own brother because he was "uncool, with crazy hair and teeth". This left Cat with a life-long, deep-seated need to be "cool".
- In the episode "Mechocracy", reading glasses briefly became part of Cat's attire. Although Cat was reading and becoming more intelligent, he eventually put the glasses in a blender since they didn't make him look cool enough.
Behind the Scenes[]
- Cat's clothes were designed by costume designer Howard Burden.
- In the Series V episode "Terrorform", Cat's yellow-and-black coat is the same as the black-and-white one seen in the previous series episode "Camille", with the white portion simply coloured yellow with markers.[1]
- In the Series VI episode "Rimmerworld", when held at gunpoint by the Simulant Lieutenant, Cat gives a speech about how is wearing a different suit to the one he was wearing then when they previously met ("Gunmen of the Apocalypse"). This was because budgetary constraints had limited the number of suits available for Danny John-Jules, and it was decided to write it into the script; since the Dwarfers were trapped aboard Starbug for an extended period of time, then Cat would have had limited materials to make new suits.[2]
References[]
External Links[]
- Evolution of Cat's costumes on the Official Red Dwarf website