Informed Practise Research

Having been given Mrs Bennet the indepth research can begin. 

Mrs Bennet is a mother, and from a different generation to her daughters. Potentially a lot of her clothes had been handed down from her mother or sisters, and so the shape and style of her dresses will be of the fashionable Georgian style, unlike the evolving regency style adopted by her younger daughters.

You can see the difference between the empire line on the contemporary regency dresses, compared to the more Georgian Styled dress below 

Mrs Bennet’s style of dress is similar to the à la polonaise style, which was a favourite fashion of the English women.

From screen shots of the dress you get the impression that there is panelling at the back of the dress with gathering or pleats to give the fullness achieved.

From these screen shots of the movie, I went fabric sampling with another costume student working on Elizabeth Bennet’s costume. Together we collected potential options for many of the characters, from Jane, to Mary, to Elizabeth and Mrs Bennet.

Mrs Bennets dress is very difficult to find a fabric for, so that will be a problem we may come across as we move further along in the costume making process, for now however we shall present what we have found to the designer and see what their ideas are as well.

On with the project x