WANT TO GO?
What: "Dressing Downton: Changing Fashions for Changing Times," a traveling exhibit produced by Exhibits Development in cooperation with Cosprop Ltd., London.
Where: Taft Museum of Art, 316 Pike St., Cincinnati
When: Through Sept. 25. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. All tickets are timed and must be reserved in advance. Last entry is at 4 p.m. Closed Mondays. Book tickets at www.dressingdowntoncincy.com
Admission pricing: $20 for adults, $15 for youth 6-12; free for children 5 and under. Taft members are free.
Audio guides: Narrated by historical advisor Alastair Bruce and with comments by the costume designers for the series, these are available for $6. A color catalog featuring film stills and costumes sells for $17.95.
ALSO: An exhibition-inspired menu is available at the Lindner Family Cafe at the Taft Museum. You can dine on Mrs. Matmore's Pasty; Crawleys' Creamy Crab and Celery Salad, and Daisy's Summer Salad. Reservations are required 24 hours in advance. Lunch is served daily; brunch on Sundays. Call (513) 352-5140 or email cafe@taftmuseum.org
OTHER PROGRAMMING:
- A free lecture, "From Script to Screen: Crafting Costumes" is slated for 6:30-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug 4. The lecture is free but note that the galleries will not be open. The speaker is Dean Mogle, head of the costume design program at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
- Cincinnati historian Cheri Brinkman will lead an interactive talk titled "The Mannered Life Before the Great War" at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 9. Tickets are $15 for non-members, $10 for members.
- A fashion panel and trunk show for young professionals, "Fashion a la Carte," is slated for 5-8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 19. $35 admission includes the exhibit, light refreshments and live music.
- Ragtime Dancing will be taught from 6:30-8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 15. Dressing in vintage costume is encouraged; tickets are $15 and the galleries will not be open.
- For registration for all programs, call (513) 684-4516 or visit www.taftmuseum.org.
“If you’re tired of style, you are tired of life.”
— A quote from Mr. Carson on “Downton Abbey”
WORTH THE DRIVE
Arts writer Meredith Moss visits special exhibitions and performances throughout our region in this periodic series. If you have an arts-related discovery you’d like to share with our readers, contact Meredith: MMoss@coxohio.com.
Please include a daytim phone number.
Where best to show off the lavish costumes worn by Lady Mary, the Dowager Countess or the Earl of Gratham?
That was the dilemma faced by Tamera Muente, assistant curator at Cincinnati’s Taft Museum of Art and the installing curator of the museum’s current exhibit “Dressing Downton: Changing Fashion for Changing Times.” The touring show, which will be in Cincinnati through Sept. 25, is a treat not only for fans of the popular PBS series, but also for fashion mavens and those who love historic costumes.
In addition to the 26 ensembles on display in the museum’s special exhibition gallery, 10 costumes are scattered throughout the historic home. Muente’s challenge? To decide what would go where.
“This exhibit is such a nice fit for us because the television series takes place during the same period of time as Charles and Anna Taft lived in this historic house,” Muente explained. “Having costumes from that period allowed us to display some of them throughout the house, which enlivens those interiors and helps people imagine what it was like to be in the house when people were living there and wearing that kind of clothing.”
“That kind of clothing” ranges from country tweeds and riding outfits to servants’ uniforms and sumptuous evening attire. Photos from the show and wall labels identify exactly when and where they were worn in the series and how they reflected the times.
Anna Taft moved into the Cincinnati house with her father in 1871; the Tafts lived in the house until 1931. “Downton Abbey” begins in 1912 and runs into the 1920s. The exhibit, which covers the first four seasons of the show, traces the evolution of British fashion from 1912 through the early 1920s. The clothing reflects the historic events that were occurring —World War I, the Roaring Twenties and the Jazz Age.
“It really was fun!” Muente says about her job of matching fashions to specific rooms in the house. “My immediate thought was that the footman costume should go in the dining room. We put the two tweed gentlemen’s walking outfits in the foyer. I imagined that Lord Grantham and Sir Richard Carlisle had just come in from outside on a country estate. They’re surrounded by our original large landscape murals painted by Robert S. Duncanson, the kind of country landscapes these men might have been walking through.”
The most stunning display, says Muente, are the three dresses in the Taft’s music room. They were worn by Martha Levinson (played by Shirley Maclaine), Violet, the Dowager Countess (played by Maggie Smith) and Lady Edith (played by Laura Carmichael). “I put them in the music room because they are all dressed for a party scene, and the music room is where the Tafts entertained people,” Muente explained. The character of Martha Levinson, she notes, provides a local link. In the script, Martha is from Cincinnati and her daughter, Lady Cora, was born in the Queen City as well.
Attracting fans
Muente, a “Downton Abbey fan herself, believes it’s the characters and the writing that have made the series such a hit. “Of course it’s a beautifully produced show. The costumes and settings are exquisite and so is the cinematography. But you can’t have the longevity without strong writing and incredible characters that you want to know about. You want to know what’s going to happen in their lives.”
Among her own favorite characters are the Dowager Countess, Thomas Barrow, Lady Mary. “Over the six seasons, these characters grow and evolve,” she says. ” Someone like Thomas Barrow is a villain who changes through the years, and that’s fascinating. Lady Mary has that same kind of evolution, and Edith as well.”
The clothing, she adds, is all wrapped up in the evolution of the characters. “In Edith’s case, for example, she goes from being a petulant middle sister to an incredibly independent career woman, and in her style you see that. She wears London career fashions in the 1920s when she starts to work at the magazine. One of those costumes is a black cape-style coat with silk embroidery that’s an original garment to the 1920s and encapsulates that independent career-woman look.”
Muente says when you walk into the galleries, you “often hear people chatting excitedly around the costumes.” It seems like they are having a great time! We’ve been seeing a lot of friends come together. They have lunch, shop, see the exhibit and reminisce about their favorite show.”
Creating the exhibit
The exhibition’s award-winning costumes were produced for the TV series by the London costume house of Cosprop Ltd. Since 1986, when the Academy Award for Costume Design was awarded to a Cosprop designer, the company has supplied costumes for 29 nominated films. In 2011 and 2012, four of the five films nominated for Best Costume Design included costumes from Cosprop.
Cosprop has a staff of 40 and stock that numbers more than 100,000 costumes and accessories. New Yorker Nancy Lawson, who works with Cosprop in America and was co-curator of the exhibit, came to Cincinnati to supervise the project and install the costumes.
“We’re not allowed to touch the costumes, so she did the detail work,” explains Muente, who said the costumes arrived by truck in large crates and were already on the mannequins. “She did the detail work — putting on the accessories and fluffing up the fabrics, folding them properly, adding the hats and jewelry, sprucing them up. I put together the layout of the show ahead of time and when she arrived we worked together to arrange the mannequins so they were in proper posture.”
Many of the costumes, especially the vintage ones, are quite fragile. “There are beaded dresses and if the beads came loose Nancy could repair them,” Muente said.
Favorites?
There are three kinds of costumes in the exhibition. In some cases, the designers created garments completely from scratch with new materials in the style of the period. In other cases, they incorporated period fragments such as beaded panels and lacework. In the third instance, vintage garments were used.
One of Muente’s favorites is the melon colored 1920s gown worn by Lady Rose. “It’s original to the period, silk velvet with beautiful bead work,” she said.
It’s tempting to touch the beautiful fabrics, but that’s a definite “no-no.” The museum has come up with a great alternative: a display of fabrics that you’re invited to touch including silk, velvet, linen and lace.
Getting the most out of your visit
- When you arrive, spend a few minutes watching the introductory video for the exhibit. It's narrated by Alastair Bruce, the historical advisor to "Downton Abbey," who talks about the fashion in its historical context. Bruce also narrates the exhibit's audio guide.
- Check out the fun quotes from the show that line the corridors. "Nothing succeeds like excess," the Dowager Countess says.
- A new exhibit, "London at Large," is a monumental wall-sized map that measures 7 feet high by 13 feet long. Its scale is 26 inches to the mile and you can identify places in the city where "Downton Abbey" scenes took place such as the Grantham London house and Lady Rosamund's home on Belgrave Square. The historic map, an engraving on 24 sheets of rag paper mounted on cotton muslin, was created between 1737 and 1746.
- The Taft's executive chef has come up with a "Downton Abbey" lunch menu with some of the dishes taken from the pages of "The Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook," one of the wide array of books available in the Taft gift shop. Lunch reservations must be made in advance.
- The rooms at the Taft are beautifully furnished and your walk through the museum provides an opportunity to see the collection that includes more than 700 works of fine art. In addition to European old master paintings, you'll see 19th century American paintings, European and American sculptures, Chinese ceramics, European decorative arts, furnishings.
- You'll want to spend some time browsing at the gift shop where you'll see items ranging from hats and teas to "Downton Abbey" inspired- jewelry.
WHAT PEOPLE LIKED
Folks I chatted with at the show seemed to be enjoying their visit. Sandy Meltzer of Shelbyville came with three friends who were all “Downton Abbey” fans. Although Meltzer didn’t watch the show, she was impressed with the exhibition. “I liked the fashion and the dresses are so beautiful,” she said. “They’re prettier in person where you can see the beads sparkle. It was definitely worth the drive.”
Jennifer Gibson, visiting from Alabama, said “Downton Abbey” was a great escape. “While it was a soap opera, it was enjoyable to see what it would have been like to live in other times.”
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