S30
THE ENVELOPE LOS ANGELES TIMES THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2019
I
T WASN’T JUST
Lady Mary and the
biting Dowager
Countess who tran-
sitioned from the
much-loved PBS
series “Downton
Abbey” to the fea-
ture film version in
September.
Costume designer Anna Rob-
bins was more than ready to
make the move to the big screen,
where her designs play out in
their full and intricate glory. The
story now is set in 1927 and sees
the cast changing outfits seem-
ingly as often as they turn
around. It’s a glorious turn of
events given the gowns on parade
with an expected royal visit and
its attending balls and formal
events.
Educated as a lawyer, Robbins
says her legal skills help her pull
together divergent research
important in design, “and, of
course, I’d rather be investigating
a 1920s costume than a 1920s legal
statute, any day.”The film has a beautiful color
palette of lavender, aubergine,
navy, light blue, and then
peach and brown. Was it a
complicated process to arrive
at this palette choice?
It’s quite an organic process.
For me, “Downton” was never
excessively bright and not too
primary. The characters already
have established palettes, which
suit them and that already work
together well with the other
characters and their suited pal-ettes. So there’s a kind of “Down-
ton” world color I learned over
the years. For the film it’s a case
of being a very taut and consid-
ered exercise to make sure the
colors are absolutely on point
and work in each setting.Lady Mary’s clothes are ex-
ceptional. Let’s start with her
breakfast vested suit and tie.
The estate suit. We’ve seen
that caramel tawny-toned suit
before, by the way: A handful of
costumes are series repeats, since
I wanted a feel of an existing
wardrobe. Lady Mary managed
the estate — she was a woman in
a man’s world — and I wantedher to compete in that field, so I
played with the man’s three-
piece suit. Even though she
couldn’t wear the jacket seated at
the breakfast table, we managed
to track the wool down and made
the waist coat. It’s an amalgama-
tion of new and old, and I wanted
to make sure it was our opening
view of her.Mary’s gorgeous pleated navy
ball gown — please tell us its
story.
It’s a Fortuny Delphos gown. I
collaborated with Fortuny on it.
They’d loaned us some original
pieces from their archive for the
series and so we’d worked to-gether over the years. The gown’s
not an original vintage piece, or a
replica, it’s a kind of brand-new
original. We dyed the hand-
pleated silk — I call it a Prussian
blue. It’s stunning in the setting
and definitely one of my favorite
costumes. Michelle Dockery was
born to wear that dress!What about the day dress with
the falling front side-ruffle
Lady Mary wore to lunch at
Princess Margaret’s — was
that a vintage piece?
Yes, it was an amazing original
vintage dress I’d found with this
extraordinary print of little
churches and hedgerows. It was
an original silk dress but had seen
better days. Even so, I just adored
it, so we took the dress fabric,
used what we could, and I com-
missioned the print be reprinted
on silk; it matched perfectly for
that wonderful ruffle and the
skirt. I really love that dress.Lady Mary’s gorgeous silver
and black ball gown. Was that
your original design?
It’s an oyster color, a very pale
warm gray, and was an original
French beaded evening dress; I
found it at a vintage London
trader I knew quite well. I knew I
wanted to use it for Lady Mary’s
final scene.
The original dress was knee-
length, so I had another silk
hand-beaded with the exact same
lines of silver and clear glass
beading and then grafted on the
lower portion with a perfect
color match to create a floor-‘Downton’s’ real
stars? The gowns
Costume designer
Anna Robbins
combines the new, the
vintage and the
borrowed to dress up
‘Downton Abbey’ for
its big-screen debut.
BY JANET
KINOSIAN
COSTUMEdesigner Anna Robbins, a two-time Emmy nomi-
nee, with two of her creations for the “Downton Abbey” movie.Genaro MolinaLos Angeles Times