Behind the Scenes at Downton Abbey (20 page)

Downton
’s historically accurate costumes establish a sense of period but they also play a crucial part in helping the cast get into character. ‘It’s an incredible thing to wear an evening dress and immediately feel you are back in that time,’ says Lily James (Rose). ‘The cut, the feel of it changes the way you move.’

Even if every detail may not be obvious to the viewer, the care that goes into personalising a character’s wardrobe is invaluable to the actors. ‘I really loved an outfit I wore in the episode at the end of series three,’ says James. ‘I had a metallic, gold-bronze flowery evening dress and a crown-like piece on my head to match. Caroline [McCall] often gives me rose earrings, rose necklaces, and that dress in particular was in a gold metallic fabric with purple roses embroidered on it.’

As well as reflecting her namesake flower, the wardrobe created for Downton’s youngest family member also hints at her love of all things modern. ‘Rose wears a lot of knitwear in series four; apparently everyone was going wild for it in the Twenties,’ notes James. Not everyone is as much of a fan as her character, however, with Maggie Smith commenting that one outfit looked ‘like a kettle, a tea cosy, or something’.

For Michelle Dockery (Mary), the clothes really set the scene. ‘They’re beautiful dresses. I think Caroline has surpassed herself, again. In series four there is an embracing of the Twenties; there’s a real change. There is a sense of the war being over and everyone being in celebration – but obviously not Mary, yet.’

Carefully curated inspiration boards of images and fabric swatches lie behind each character’s style. ‘I’ve got loads of magazines from the period, lots of photographs, and piles of research,’ says Caroline McCall. ‘When you start to put boards together you think, “Oh, that looks like Cora,” or, “That looks like Isobel,” and you get ideas together. As the series goes on, it’s quite funny, looking at my boards and saying, “Oh, we’ve done that for Mary, we’ve made that for Cora.”’

McCall also has to consider how the individual looks will work in an ensemble. ‘I try to keep people to a palette and then it makes it easier to put everybody together in a room – but sometimes it doesn’t work that way,’ says McCall.

‘For eveningwear in series four, Mary is in black or grey or purple, when normally I would put her in blues and deep pinks. So Cora has been in blues and dark pinks. Edith I tend to put in corals and greens, Rose is blues and pinks as well, while Violet wears a lot of purple and greeny blues.’

‘I knew they’d have to be quite different,’ McCall says of the sisters’ bridal looks. ‘The big fashion for wedding dresses at the time was lace or satin. I knew that lace would particularly suit Mary, and I thought that satin would be better for Edith. So that’s how the designs for the dresses began.’

Conscious that Mary would be seen walking down the grand staircase, McCall wanted her ‘to shimmer and sparkle’ in the light from the window. ‘Previously we’d used lace with a silver thread through it and I thought that would work really well.’

For Edith, the dress was designed around an original train covered with flowers and crystals, with these motifs repeated on the gown. The idea, says McCall, was that her older groom, Sir Anthony Strallan, would think, ‘Oh my goodness, how beautiful,’ before he jilted her. ‘It’s not “I can’t marry you,” it’s “I can’t marry you, because look how beautiful and young you are, and how much life you have ahead of you” – although none of that is said.’