Jane Austen is indubitably part of the ‘tourist industry’ in Bath. The novelist lived in the city between 1801 and 1806, lodging with her family in Sydney Place. (Her father died and is buried in Bath). Two of Jane Austen’s novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, are partially set in Bath. In fact, scenes in Northanger Abbey take place in the Assembly Rooms, the home today of Bath and North East Somerset Council’s world-famous Museum of Costume. The connection between the novelist and Bath continues right up to the present day as scenes in various film and television adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels have been filmed in the city.

This multi-layered association between Bath and Jane Austen lead the Heritage Services section of the Council to choose Jane Austen as the subject of the special exhibition at the Museum of Costume in 2004. The result was an exhibition entitled Jane Austen: Film and Fashion. The exhibition continues at the museum until January 2005.

When thinking closely about fashion in Jane Austen’s novels and costume in the film and television adaptations, a central paradox quickly becomes evident. Reading the novels, one is struck by the lack of detail of the clothes worn by the protagonists. It tends to be the ‘sillier’ characters, such as Mrs Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, who talk about dress. On the other hand, the works of Jane Austen are amongst the most popular subjects for the television and film genre that we now call ‘costume drama’. Given this lack of first hand information, how do costume designers working on costume dramas decide what their cast of characters is to wear?

This is the question that Jane Austen: Film and Fashion sets out to explore. The exhibition does this by juxtaposing film costumes worn in eight film and television adaptations of Jane Austen’s work with fashionable dress from the Museum of Costume’s collection that would have been worn in the time at which Jane Austen was writing.

For example, two cotton overdresses (complete with billowing underskirts) worn by Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson as Marianne and Elinor Dashwood in the 1995 film of Sense and Sensibility are displayed alongside two late 18^th century printed cotton dresses.

The intention is to show the inspiration for the film costumes while at the same time highlighting how the nature of these pieces are conditioned by the specific context in which they were conceived and made. Thus, for example, Elinor’s dress reinforces her ‘sensible’ character through the choice of a restrained fabric. Marianne’s dress, by contrast, is made of floral fabric and she has a rose pinned at her breast, thus emphasising that she is the ‘sensibility’ of the work’s title. The dresses are not as full as their historic counterparts: the designer John Bright was instructed to reduce the amount of fabric used in the dresses so that the actresses had the slender silhouette required by the Hollywood film producers.

The exhibition shows twenty costumes from adaptations of each of the novels, with pieces from two versions of both Mansfield Park and Emma. Each piece comes with its own story: Maybe the actor had a hand in deciding it’s nature, maybe it was difficult to source the right type of fabric, and creative lateral thought was required. The exhibition highlights some of these concerns. In addition, there are also over thirty examples of fashionable dress from the Museum of Costume’s collection, including men’s dress, day dresses, outdoor wear and evening dresses. All are the type of fashions that Jane Austen’s characters would have worn and thus form the starting point for the costumes that are created for film and television adaptations of the novels.

Rosemary Harden