Sewing With Nancy

Today on Sewing With Nancy during the "Nancy's Corner" segment, we're going to revisit fashion through the great designs and costumes of Downton Abbey. Today, I have with me Laura Fiser, who's a curator at Paine Art Museum. And, Laura, you have the opportunity of having 36 of the great fashions and costumes here on display. We're going to show the day wear. Yes, it's a special treat to have the costumes of Downton Abbey here at the Paine and they are just beautiful and really trace the evolution of fashion from the Edwardian period of the 1910's through the early Jazz Age of the 1920's. Now, we're going to start with a garment that I think kind of sets the stage from Violet Crawley, the Dowager. Yes. We have her terrific two-piece silk lilac day dress. And it really sets the tone, and it shows how the costume house that works with the designers of Downton Abbey. It's called "Cosprop" in London, how they use costume to set the tone of the character. And we see Violet wearing a really high piece, high Edwardian dress. It's a day dress, if you can believe that, even though it's so formal. Yes. But it shows how she was staying true to the corset. It has the small bustle in the back and you see the S-curve of the design and a fantastic little bolero jacket. And she's worn it a lot on the four seasons that I've seen. Yes, and throughout Season One, you see her wearing it often. And, interestingly, it's a completely remade design based on 1910's examples. So, the costume house of Cosprop made the fabric based on an Edwardian pattern. Wow. They made the dress based on the little pattern for that silk bolero jacket, and everything is authentic, hand crafted, and true to the period. Oh, it's phenomenal. And, then, her daughter-in-law, Cora is wearing a beautiful cream, accented with black. Yes, and that is a beautiful example of another silhouette that was popular for day wear, in particular, during the Edwardian period. And it's called-- it has an underdress-- and then an overcoat called a "lampshade silhouette." So, it's sort of introducing us to the A-line silhouette that would become so popular, even today, and it has incredible hand-worked black frogging embroidery. That is incredible. Then, her husband, the garment standing next to her, played-- Robert Crawley, has this linen suit. Right, and that also dates from Season One. He and Cora wore that ensemble at the flower show at Downton Abbey and it's a great linen day suit and shows a carefree period. We're looking at about 1912, 1913, into the 1914 period and the outbreak of World War I. So you don't see any signs of the turmoil of what would be the war years. Sure. It's all carefree and light and breezy. Now we're going to look at some of the Crawley daughters' garments and we have a red coat and it's military-style or war-like era and that was worn by Mary Crawley. Right, that's a fantastic example of how suits became very popular during the war years. So, this dates from the World War I period and it's a two-piece dress with a very tailored look that was inspired by men's military uniforms. And it's all wool and then with velvet trim, and it's a full ensemble. You see the hat and the handbag and handbags were starting to be used by women during the war years, in particular, because they had greater roles outside of the home. Then, Edith Crawley, this was one of her garments and this coat, I can't believe the embroidery. This is an antique. It's vintage. Yes, it is. Nearly a hundred years old. It dates from Season Three. So, right at 1920. Sure. Edith wears it into London for a meeting with Michael Gregson and it shows the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement. It's all original silk embroidery, silk chenille embroidery and shows a return to handcraftsmanship during that period. It was sort of anti-industrialization and a return to kind of medieval or folk style embroidery. Then, the last garment we're going to look at for this segment is a statement made by the mother-in-law. Yes, Martha Levinson, played wonderfully by Shirley MacLaine and she's the flamboyant American. Very wealthy woman, and you can see all of that in this fantastic fox-trimmed coat that she wears at her arrival at Downton Abbey. Well, how fascinating. Well, we have more from "Dressing Downton," which we're going to have in our next program of Sewing With Nancy, focusing on evening wear. Laura, thank you for being with us during this segment. We'll look forward to your return. If you'd like to rewatch this segment, go to

NancyZieman.com

. You can click on "Nancy's Corner" or watch any of the Sewing With Nancy programs that you would like to watch online. Thank you for joining us. Bye for now.