{"id":2285557,"date":"2026-02-17T12:14:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2285557"},"modified":"2026-02-17T12:14:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:14:23","slug":"wardrobe-secrets-of-downton-abbey-peaky-plinders-and-hollywoods-biggest-stars-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wardrobe-secrets-of-downton-abbey-peaky-plinders-and-hollywoods-biggest-stars-revealed\/","title":{"rendered":"Wardrobe secrets of Downton Abbey, Peaky Plinders and Hollywood’s biggest stars revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For 60 years, the world\u2019s biggest film, television and theatre stars have been visiting an unremarkable-looking warehouse in north London, crossing its otherwise non-descript threshold to be transformed into their latest character.<\/p>\n

From the Hollywood legends Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Johnny Depp to the casts of the British productions Downton Abbey<\/a> and Peaky Blinders<\/a>, Cosprop, the costume house, has been helping actors to embody their roles through its clothing for 60 years.<\/p>\n

As the actress Helena Bonham Carter<\/a> once said: \u201cWe entered Cosprop as ourselves and walked out as the person we were playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Michelle\u00a9 Alamy Stock Photo<\/span><\/div>\n

Michelle Dockery, Jessica Brown Findlay and Laura Carmichael in Downton Abbey<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

To celebrate its milestone anniversary, the world-famous company has put some of its best-known creations on display in a new exhibition, Costume Couture: Sixty Years of Cosprop<\/a>, which opened in September at London\u2019s Fashion and Textile Museum. The museum recently hosted a discussion with the designers Jenny Beavan and John Bright, who worked on Merchant Ivory classics such as Howards End and A Room with a View.<\/p>\n

HELLO!\u00a0<\/strong>visited Cosprop\u2019s headquarters to meet the exhibition\u2019s curator and watch the team at work as they prepared for the show, which brings to life the stories behind some of their most famous creations.<\/p>\n

Among them are Helena\u2019s Edwardian dresses from A Room with a View, Meryl\u2019s belted wedding suit and embroidered silk hat from Out of Africa, Nicole\u2019s period gowns from The Portrait of a Lady, the velvet robes that Cate wore to portray Elizabeth I in Elizabeth and the red silk and velvet dress that Nastassja Kinski wore after her character murdered her lover in the 1979 film Tess.<\/p>\n

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\"OUT\u00a9 Alamy Stock Photo<\/span><\/div>\n

Meryl Streep in 1985 film Out of Africa<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Film fans also will be able to view the swashbuckling costume worn by Johnny in Pirates of the Caribbean, one of Colin Firth<\/a>\u2019s outfits for his role as Mr Darcy in the BBC series Pride and Prejudice, one of Dame Maggie Smith\u2019s Downton Abbey gowns and a 1930s dress worn by the late Helen McCrory in Peaky Blinders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A who’s who of A-listers<\/h2>\n

Other film and TV classics that feature include\u00a0Napoleon, Victoria, Sense and Sensibility, Little Women, The Danish Girl, Agatha Christie\u2019s Poirot\u00a0and Mrs Harris Goes to Paris.<\/p>\n

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\"Costumes\u00a9 Michael Cockerham<\/span><\/div>\n

Costumes from top Hollywood films are on display<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A who\u2019s who of A-listers have come through the company\u2019s doors over the years, the costume supervisor Mia Walld\u00e9n tells HELLO!<\/strong>, including Johnny<\/a>, whose character Captain Jack Sparrow was developed during a fitting with the award-winning British costume designers: John Bright, who founded Cosprop in 1965, and Penny Rose.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn and Penny helped to create that character in the fitting,\u201d says Mia. \u201cThat often happens. Because John was trained as an actor, he really has that kind of understanding of how they work as well. Quite often when people come in for fittings, they start off with just shapes and then they come out as the character.<\/p>\n

\u201cActors are here all the time. Helena comes quite often, Cate Blanchett was in a couple of weeks ago and Hayley Mills was here the other day.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Helena\u00a9 Goldcrest\/Kobal\/Shutterstock<\/span><\/div>\n

Helena Bonham Carter with Julian Sands in A Room With A View – 1986<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Keith Lodwick, who has spent a year curating the exhibition and who has written a book to accompany it, adds: \u201cIt\u2019s quite an organic way of working. A character develops through the costume and almost forms in the fitting room, and the actor has to become a new person.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough we think of them as characters, the actors think of them as people and this new person they are going to become, and the costumes are their clothes. The character has a journey throughout the narrative and the clothes reflect their personality at various points.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cosprop houses hundreds of thousands of costumes, which hang on racks in the company\u2019s two-storey warehouse, where labels bear the names of some of our favourite films and TV series. Those to be displayed at the exhibition will be on their original mannequins, which were modelled on the individual actors for whom the costumes were made.<\/p>\n

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\"thousandsMore than a million items are stored at Cosprop<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In total, there are more than a million items stored and painstakingly labelled at the warehouse, including a rack of 1885-89 day dresses and 1920s petticoats, shelves full of shoes and hats from different eras, costume jewellery and accessories, as well as boxes of odds and ends, such as pieces of braid and fringing in an assortment of colours. Items are borrowed regularly for use on film and TV sets and at theatres.<\/p>\n

‘Greatest hits’ only<\/h2>\n

More than 40 people work on-site, organising the costumes and accessories, booking them in and out and making new ones. There is an on-site milliner, a dye specialist and six resident costumiers and tailors, who work in collaboration with costume designers. Some outfits are reused and repurposed so that nothing is wasted.<\/p>\n

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When you look at everything Cosprop has contributed to, it\u2019s kind of mind-blowing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

To bring authenticity, they opt for natural fabrics including wool, silk, cotton, satin and muslin and use the same methods as those of their predecessors at various times in history, often turning to original vintage clothing as a reference. The warehouse is fumigated regularly to guard against moth infestations. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"SomeSome costumes are altered or made from scratch <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cEverything we have is either original or a copy and we try to stay as true as possible to the period we represent,\u201d explains Mia. \u201cOur stock is either bought or has been made in the workroom for a specific production and character. Then, when that production is done, it comes back into stock and we use it over and over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keith, who previously worked at the V&A, has narrowed down Cosprop\u2019s huge collection to just 85 items for the exhibition, which will also tell the stories behind the pieces.<\/p>\n

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\"Helena\u00a9 Michael Cockerham<\/span><\/div>\n

Helena Bonham Carter with her dress from Room with a View <\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWe wanted to include costumes that people recognise, with each one telling a story about how it’s created, designed and made, but also what that particular production says about what was happening on TV or in film at that particular moment,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt was quite a challenge to whittle it down to the \u2018greatest hits\u2019 because we’ve left quite a lot out.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cEverything is kind of a classic, from Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice, which is still talked about 30 years later, to Dior gowns being remade for Mrs Harris Goes to Paris. That\u2019s all part of the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people have never heard of Cosprop, but everyone will have seen its costumes on TV or in a film, so I want this exhibition to be a celebration of a company that most people don’t know but have seen on screen. When you look at everything Cosprop has contributed to, it\u2019s kind of mind-blowing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Costume Couture: Sixty Years of Cosprop is at the Fashion and Textile Museum until 8 March<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.celebrity.land.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For 60 years, the world\u2019s biggest film, television and theatre stars have been visiting an unremarkable-looking warehouse in north London, crossing its otherwise non-descript threshold to be transformed into their latest character. From the Hollywood legends Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Johnny Depp to the casts of the British productions Downton Abbey and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2285558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[24003,22767,365757,28442],"class_list":["post-2285557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-celebrity-news","tag-fashion","tag-hello-exclusive","tag-tv-and-film"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Wardrobe-secrets-of-Downton-Abbey-Peaky-Plinders-and-Hollywoods-biggest.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2285557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2285557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2285557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2285559,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2285557\/revisions\/2285559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2285558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2285557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2285557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2285557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}