Behind the Scenes at Downton Abbey (22 page)

Nonetheless, their costumes subtly reflect the changing period as the series goes on, with their hemlines inching up.

‘I must have had about two or three costume fittings,’ says Phyllis Logan of series four. ‘We did wear original dresses at first, but they began to come apart from constant use. So now the costume department have made our uniforms using patterns created from original outfits.’

Despite the changing times, there is little chance of the senior female staff giving up their corsets – ‘sadly!’ says Lesley Nicol. ‘The thing is that a woman of that age, including Mrs Hughes, would find it difficult to lose their corset. At the moment, we are sticking with them, but it is nice to take them off at the end of filming.’ She is fonder of Mrs Patmore’s kitchen cap: ‘I love that hat. It reminds me of Andy Pandy.’

If modern-day visitors were to arrive at Twenties’ Downton Abbey, they might struggle to tell exactly who belonged above stairs and who was from below, given the stylish appearance of some staff.

The footmen in particular are dressed to impress, because their duties put them on show to the family and their guests. ‘You are the peacocks of the house and the front of the house. At all times you must appear immaculate. The moment you put on those tails, the penguin suit and the stiff collar, you start to find yourself,’ says Ed Speleers (Jimmy).

The staff can be even bigger sticklers for formality than their employers, of course, with Mr Carson always dressing for dinner even though he will be serving it. As the butler, he is particularly resistant to change. ‘Of everybody, I don’t think my appearance has changed in four series,’ says Jim Carter. ‘It’s exactly the same costume. The day shirt is a bit softer than the evening shirt, which is starched like cast iron. It makes your bearing more upright.’

The below-stairs cast joke of ‘costume envy’, citing the glorious creations worn by the ladies at the Abbey. After all, even when they are out of their work clothes, their characters do not have the time or means to follow fashion like their employers. ‘They don’t get out that often,’ laughs Caroline McCall.

The scripts rarely offer situations in which the servants can enjoy the fun side of life, but when they do, the actors relish the opportunity to dress up – just as their servant characters would have done. ‘For the servants’ ball we each got a dress to wear,’ says Lesley Nicol. ‘It was hilarious, rather like having an office party with everyone saying, “Oh, you look nice!”’

Ed Speleers says his character Jimmy seeks out ‘any opportunity to take the edge off’, which includes getting out of his stiffly starched work shirts. ‘He goes out a fair bit, and he’s got a nice three-piece suit.’ When Jimmy is out of uniform, his body language becomes looser, says Speleers: ‘One of his shoulders might drop a bit and he appears more relaxed.’

You are never fully dressed without a hat – at least, not at Downton Abbey, where to wander around bareheaded outside the grounds would have invited comment. Whether they are off to church or on a social visit, the Crawley ladies just do not leave the house half-dressed. Even their servants put on a hat for the briefest trip into the village.

People at that time would not have thought twice about it, explains Alastair Bruce, the historical advisor, citing a scene filmed for series four in which two characters head for the door after a shocking incident. ‘And I said, “But where are their coats and hats?” So we had to get that in and create that action. When you leave a house like that you put on your coat and hat.’

Luckily, this period offers the costume department a multitude of millinery choices.

Nothing beats that icon of Twenties fashion, the cloche. The small, neat, face-framing hat, named for the French for ‘bell’, proved enduringly popular. ‘Cloche hats were really fashionable in the early Twenties,’ says McCall. ‘You wouldn’t have seen the really tiny hats, they came later in the decade. And the wide-brimmed, romantic hats were still around.’

These bigger, sweeping hats do not represent a more traditional look, she says, so much as reflect the variety of looks in circulation following the turbulent war years. In general terms, the look for women in this era is getting sleeker about the head, in contrast, say, to the really wide, flower-brimmed hats that Cora used to wear to top the longer, more fitted dresses of earlier years. Magi Vaughan, make-up and hair designer, explains that for practical reasons the cloche influenced the new sleeker hairstyles: ‘If you are wearing a cloche you can’t have a high bun. The hair has to be really low and tight to the neck, otherwise the hat will never go on.’