Blackberry stains and shared dresses: the costumes of the new Sense and Sensibility
Costume designer Grace Snell used plant dyes for Georgia Oakley's Jane Austen adaptation and had the Dashwood sisters share clothes. The film opens in US cinemas on 16 October.
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Shortly before its US release on 16 October, the costumes of the new Jane Austen adaptation Sense and Sensibility are drawing attention. According to Bustle, director Georgia Oakley wanted a rustic, lived-in look rather than polished Regency glamour. According to Country & Town House, costume designer Grace Snell set the wardrobe in the late 1790s, when Austen was writing her first draft – a transition period between late Georgian and newer Regency fashions that gave her artistic licence.
Natural dyes were used. Lead actress Daisy Edgar-Jones told Bustle that Elinor's lavender dress was dyed with logwood, and real blackberry stains mark the clothing. Several versions of Margaret's stained dress were made: "I had to match the berry stains on each of the dresses," Snell said. Snell said she put emphasis on clothing shared by the sisters; actor Fiona Shaw recalled costumes being handed on to the next sister and re-adapted. "I really wanted to bring our audience into the room with this family, rather than see it through a telescope," Snell said.
The hair, too, is looser than Regency convention would suggest – a deliberate choice by Oakley, according to screenwriter Diana Reid. Edgar-Jones has carried the look onto the press tour: at the Sydney premiere she wore, according to Vogue, a sheer Miu Miu gown embroidered with sequins under a loosely tied corset echoing short Regency stays. InStyle has devoted a video to how the costumes were designed.