Behind the Scenes at Downton Abbey (23 page)

Which hat best suits each character is taken into consideration, too. Violet, for instance, wears her hats set forward on the head and at an angle, and they are often more formal creations than those of her granddaughters. You will not see the Dowager leaving the house in a cloche, while equally Mary, who favours simplicity in her outfits, would never wear anything festooned with fake grapes. It comes as no surprise that the most outlandish hats seen so far have been showcased by Cora’s mother, Martha.

The style of a hat mattered, for once it was pinned firmly in place on the head with around 15 pins, it would stay on until the lady returned home. ‘The lady’s maid would put the hat on her mistress, then the lady would go out to see her friends and she would not take it off until she returned home,’ says Bruce. ‘If people came to lunch at Downton they would have their hats on, while those who lived at Downton would not.’

As for men, they almost always wear hats out of doors, says Bruce. ‘They would remove them if they met a woman, and would take off their hat and gloves if they went into a house.’ Here again, social status plays a role. Robert’s white tie would be finished with a top hat, something Mr Carson would never wear. ‘In full dress, a gentleman wore a top hat, whereas a butler would have worn a bowler hat,’ notes Bruce. ‘It would be presumptuous for a butler to wear a top hat.’

Empires rise and fall, wars are won and lost – but the Crawleys still change for dinner. Elizabeth McGovern is a particular fan of the dresses that she gets to wear as Cora. ‘They are still very up-and-down straight, boyish and flat-chested with no waist whatsoever,’ she says. ‘There is a lot of really exquisite beading and beautiful colours and fabrics.’

There are also a lot of them. A total of 44 evening dresses were needed for just two episodes of series four alone. The above-stairs ladies also boast up to six pairs of shoes each, while those below stairs are lucky to own one or two pairs.

The creation of the dresses’ intricate beading is outsourced to a specialist, but much of the other costume work is done by the cutter, Sarah Humphrey. She concentrates on creating wardrobes for Mary and Isobel. In this new decade, the dresses remain elegant and detailed, but they are also becoming more modern. As Laura Carmichael notes, ‘Some of them feel daring even today. They are quite low-cut!’

Seeming to hang from just a string of pearly beads, the dress Edith wears to a London restaurant in series four was affectionately nicknamed ‘Beadith’ by the costume department.

Its roots lay in a piece of fabric and a period illustration, and its story underlines the organic way in which the show’s looks are created. ‘We wanted to see Edith in something completely different and really quite racy,’ explains McCall. ‘I’d found a beaded and sequined piece of fabric in Paris and bought it; it was falling apart and had to be remounted. Then I was looking at illustrations from the time by French artist George Barbier, which show a lot of flesh being exposed, and that’s what I wanted to do.’

That piece of beading was sewn into a bodice, then the rest of the dress was built around it using chiffon. Charles Edwards (Gregson) commented that during filming Edith’s dresses needed ‘a lot of care and attention – Caroline McCall was always there in between takes, sewing a stitch’.