Costume Couture, sixty years of Cosprop – by Joyce

Jane and I went to this fascinating exhibition recently at the Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey, just near London Bridge Station. Although it’s not a quilting exhibition I thought it would be if interest to our members.

It traces the development of a huge collection of costumes used in television, film and theatre industries. John Bright’s vision for Cosprop was to develop a more authentic style of costume design based on the close study of original clothing. In the 1950’s Bright visited Clignancourt flea market in Paris and bought Victorian clothing. He also found historic clothes and accessories at Portabello Road Market.

It was fascinating to see the costumes close up, one of the earliest garments was the 1820’s wedding dress for Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, which she was wearing when she was jilted , and wore it for ever after.

Cosprop’s expertise goes beyond the outer layers; for period clothing they would make all the undergarments, bustles, padding, corsetry to create the perfect silhouette, but the actors had to be able to move appropriately too.  As Helena Bonham Carter put it “ we entered Cosprop as ourselves and walked out as the person we were playing “.

Challenges came in the form of moving from black and white television, though colour and then moving from analogue to digital, with the extra fine definition screens that can fill a wall.

Cosprop has contributed to some of the more popular productions over the last 60 years, for example, Upstairs Downstairs, War and Peace, Brideshead Revisited, Howards End, The Forsyth Saga, Downton Abbey, Mrs. Harris goes to Paris, the list goes on and on!!

We really enjoyed it all and then had lunch together.  There’s no cafe at the museum but there are plenty nearby.

The exhibition ends in March ‘26.



I then rushed home to find a period drama on iPlayer and watched Pride and Prejudice looking especially at the costumes!