Adaptations and Recreations – 50 Years of Costume Design for Television Drama A Study Day at the V&A

On the 10^th of September I attended the above titled event at the V&A. The day was split up into a series of talks/interviews given by various costume designers and makers. Who have worked on seminal productions; that Cosprop had provided most or all of the costumes for.

All the talks were very insightful on many levels, from how different designers work, to how changing needs in the industry have changed the way costumes are produced. Therefore today I am going to share some of my highlights from the day.

Cosprop is a costume house specialising in period authentic costume which can be hired for theatre, film and TV. The day was kick started with a talk given by Cosprop founder John Bright and Oscar/ Bafta winning designer Jenny Beaven who in the early years of Cosprop often co- designed with Bright on many of the Merchant Ivory films and they continue the partnership today. The talk was chaired and introduced by Theatre and Performance curator at the V&A Keith Lodwick.

Firstly Bright and Beaven talked about the process they used in their early films such as A Room with

a View and Howards End. In most cases designs weren’t produced; mood boards would be created to communicate their vision for the look of the whole film and then individual character boards would be produced for each character. When it came to producing the costumes Bright and Beaven explained how the industry expectations and methods of working were very different from today.

Bright explained how often in their earlier films original fabrics from say the Victorian period were used within costumes, an example was on display at the talk of Vanessa Redgrave’s Howards End costume using original Victorian velvet. Bright expressed how today this would not be possible because in most cases two or sometimes even three and four copies of a costume have to be made so period fabrics can’t be used. Furthermore the methods to create some fabrics aren’t permitted due to health and safety today. Therefore as Jenny Beaven said nowadays people have to buy modern fabrics that look period.

I was also lucky enough to find out what inspires these two wonderful visionaries and which is their favourite costumes that they have designed. Beaven said she differed from film to film with inspiration where as Bright often draws from John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini paintings. Beaven’s favourite costume was perhaps slightly surprising choosing Immortan Joe from 2015’s Mad Max Fury Road as she said ‘it was so different from anything she normally does’ while Bright picked a dress from Merchant Ivory film The Golden Bowl.

Back of Elizabeths Dress, Pride and Prejudice

The second talk focussed on the costumes in Persuasion (1995) and Pride and Prejudice (1995) with designers Alexandra Byrne and Dinah Collin. They explained how the first stage was to prepare mood boards and how much of the historical research was done at Winchester, Bath and Whitworth costume museums. The also stressed the importance of researching and using the right underwear as part of a costume to create the right silhouette or construct.

A dress from each film was on display and they discussed some of the features of these garments.

These included now cord had been put into the armholes and back seam of Elizabeth’s muslin dress in Pride and Prejudice, because it was such a fine fabric. Illustrating how period costume has to sometimes be adapted to withstand modern filmmaking.

An interesting fact, the yellow jacket in Persuasion was in fact made of millinery velvet. You can see details of the costume below.

Details of Costume from Persuasion

One of the most useful and interesting facts I gleaned from this talk, was that often designers send colour swatches of all the fabrics used in the costumes to the post production department to ensure fabric colours aren’t distorted in the final edit.

After lunch the third talk digressed from the main focus on the day (Cosprop). This time looking at The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970), designed by John Bloomfield. Where the previous talks showed what could be done with a fair amount of investment, Bloomfield discussed now he produced the costumes for the six part series on a tiny budget. He explained how a lot of the costumes were very rudimentary by today’s standards using old parts of jewellery glue gunned on card to make embellishments and using cheap upholstery fabric, it also evidenced how much technology has moved on since then and how these techniques just wouldn’t work today due to high definition TV.

The Dowager Countess Dress worn by Maggie Smith

The last talk focussed on the critically acclaimed period drama Downton Abbey looking at both the design and production of this seminal drama. The talk featured series 1 and 2 designer Susannah Buxton and series 3 designer Caroline McCall who was assistant designer on series 1 also. There were also three makers, Donna Simmons a Tailor, and Thais Demontrond and Caroline Green who were Women’s Makers.

They talked about a whole range of points from how different colour schemes were decided for each of the Crawley sisters (reds for Mary, greens for Edith and blues for Sybil) to the search for the right servants cap for the house maids in series 1. The aprons and dresses were actually modelled on originals from the Cosprop archive.

They also explained that because there was such a large amount of costumes needed for the series, many of the costumes were commissioned to be made by Cosprop. This also happened for special props that were needed such as the ‘family tiara’ worn by Lady Mary/ Edith, which was copied from a Cartier but made using less precious stones.

One particularly interesting anecdote explained how an original 1920’s dress that was damaged in the centre back and front was reassembled with the fronts used as sides and sides used as front and backs.

Detail from Dowager Countess Dress

The day ended with a brief presentation about the new John Bright Costume Collection Database which is being launched soon. Over the past year volunteers have been assisting in photographing and mounting costumes from John Bright’s collection of historical dress to be uploaded to an online research database. As the database will be up and running in the next few months I look forward to using it as part of my design research in my next term at university. The only disappointing thing was that I hadn’t heard about it sooner because I would have loved to have helped with the preparation!

Well that concludes my review of the Adaptations and Recreations study day at the V&A. It has defiantly left me with a lot to think about and take in as well as inspired me to keep following my dreams in the world of costume design. I’d like to leave you with this last quote said by Rosemarie Fernandez Day: “John Bright bought attention to real clothes” I don’t know about you but I defiantly agree. Its clear Cosprop and John Bright’s passion for authenticity has had fundamental influence on the way we all perceive period drama and will do for years to come.

 Images of Lady Cora's Dress from Downton Abbey