Behind the Scenes at Downton Abbey (25 page)

Cloth for a frock was the present Mary handed Anna one Christmas, as was the tradition at many great houses, but that was not the only way by which she added to her maid’s wardrobe.

If eagle-eyed viewers think some of Anna’s outfits look familiar, that is no coincidence. ‘Quite often, employers passed on clothes to their lady’s maid or to their staff when they were finished with them,’ says McCall. ‘At Matthew and Mary’s wedding, Anna wore an old dress of Mary’s that had been altered for her. Often the garments would be remodelled into something else.’

Most of the time, however, we see Anna in her all-black maid’s outfit. For a typical day of filming, her change sheet lists a lace-back corset, a black sleeveless slip, a stiff black silk skirt and matching blouse, T-bar leather shoes and Anna’s gold pendant.

For practicality, the costume team may use some modern-day items – if hidden from sight – such as black tights, rather than stockings, and store-bought slips.

The most visual way by which the series charts the passage of time is of course through fashion.

However, Caroline McCall is also careful to maintain continuity, so she has made sure that the look that she established for the post-war episodes has been carried through to the fourth series. She explains: ‘All the characters are maintaining that look, but some of them are starting to take it just a little bit further, to modernise.’

It is a period rich in choices for the costume team. ‘It’s more difficult in the early Twenties to say, “This is the fashion,” because after the war there were so many things going on,’ she says. ‘You look at the fashion magazines and the different influences, and you can’t quite believe the number of styles that were popular at that time. When you get to the mid-Twenties you very definitely get to a point of, “Oh, these dresses are a lot shorter” and you’re into the famous flapper dresses. But there’s still much more freedom, it would seem, in what people are wearing in the early Twenties.’

Just as women’s dress shapes soften at the beginning of this decade, the rules around men’s wardrobes are also relaxing, particularly for formal wear. For evening, the obligatory white tie and a tailcoat is slowly ceding ground to the dinner jacket – much to the Dowager’s horror.

‘Through the Twenties and Thirties white and black tie lived alongside each other, then white tie vanished during the Second World War,’ says Julian Fellowes. ‘What I rather like is that black tie, when it first appeared, was essentially a less formal option, what we would think of as informal chic. Violet hates black tie because she regards it as a sign that everything is coming apart.’

While we may smile at Violet’s resistance to change, she has a point, Fellowes notes. ‘One of the reasons the old system came to an end is that a great swathe of the upper class didn’t want to play any more, they didn’t want to have their lives dominated by when luncheon had to be served and all the rest of it.’ Still, it is all very different to what we would consider casual today.

While some of the menswear is hired from Cosprop, a costume house, various tailcoats and waistcoats worn on screen are original pieces. The upstairs cast say this formal wear helps them establish themselves in the period – including how they hold their bodies.

The costume, says Charles Edwards, ‘immediately lifts your posture. The starched shirtfront is such that it makes you stand ramrod straight. I tend to slouch, so after a couple of days’ filming I get backache just from holding this position. It’s very, very helpful in terms of placing you in the world of the character.’