Joanna Bobin — aka Lady Cowper — relates her personal experiences working with the incredible costume team on “Bridgerton” for the past three seasons.
I am standing in my underwear — sadly not my best; with a 7 year old, a job and a home to run, I never seem to be quite that organised — in a harshly-lit room in in Hertfordshire, England, getting draped with some of the most beautiful handmade fabrics you will ever see and being scrutinized by 20 pairs of eyes. Apart from my slightly frayed undergarments, the only other thing I have on is a pair of flesh-colored pop socks and sensible low-heel shoes. No, this is not an audition for a quirky Home Counties porno. And no, this look will not be shared on my Insta Stories anytime soon. Rather, this is my first costume fitting for season three of Shondaland’s hugely successful Netflix period drama Bridgerton, and just like my experiences in the previous two seasons, at this point tears start to well in my eyes.
To understand why this might be, I need to paint the picture a little more for you. Costuming for Bridgerton has always been not just a cornerstone of its extraordinary look and feel, but arguably also the source of its insane success. Since season one, the designers on the show have torn up the rule book, and while giving a nod to the Regency period, they’ve successfully incorporated colors, styles, and shapes from every possible era. Old school-authentic BBC period drama, this is not. Like every aspect of Bridgerton, the producers and designers on this show seemed to come at costuming from the very first episode, with a totally fresh perspective on period drama and where it should be allowed to go.
In case you’ve been living under a rock (or maybe just had other things to do), Bridgerton first hit our screens back in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic. In the hideousness of lockdown, it brought a bright, sexy, and joyful love story into the desert that was that depressingly drab time. Everyone sitting at home in their gray tracksuits could escape for eight hours into a world of brightly colored taffeta, silk, feathers, and pearls and, in the end, come away feeling boosted by it.
I met a doctor not long after the first airing of the show who, upon finding out my connection to it, shared with me that after a night in the ICU of her local hospital at the height of the pandemic, she would crawl home in the early hours and only wanted to watch episodes of Bridgerton over and over. Escaping into that bright and beautiful alternative universe for a few hours was her salvation before sleep would come.
I am lucky enough to have been on the show since day one. Not long after booking it in the summer of 2019, my agent had given me an address for a costume fitting, somewhere out in West London, along with my appointed time and day. I duly arrived with my then-2-year-old daughter and mum in tow to watch her (don’t ask; a complicated arrangement of last-minute childcare, the fate of the working mum). I waited in the reception area, watching legions of ridiculously handsome young actors filing in and out (there are worse ways to pass an afternoon) until someone, very nice and covered in pins and tape measures, called me through into an aircraft hangar filled with costumes. So far, so normal, right?
We were led to the aircraft hangar room, where we were met by the glorious Ellen Mirojnick, the costume designer for season one, and John Glaser, now the costume designer for season three and the wearer of the most excellent trainers ever to be seen on a man over 40. They were both heavenly sweet to my 2-year-old, not batting an eyelid at her being there despite being surrounded by thousands of dollars’ worth of incredibly delicate costumes and jewelry. In fact, they gave her the most joyful game of choosing a little tiara from the vast boxes of sparkling things they had. She skipped with delight and would end up not taking it off for a week.
Most large costume houses deal in several TV and film productions at once, covering everything from World War II to medical dramas. They will therefore have vast racks of shoes, coats, dresses, and suits to cover every eventuality. As I was shown into my little booth — a small side area divided from the rest of the room by a curtain, supposedly to protect my privacy, provided I kept perfectly still and if I were the size of a bird — I blithely asked which other shows they were working on. “Oh, just this one,” the assistant replied. “This one what?” I replied. “Just this show,” she said. “They’re all for Bridgerton.” Oh, okay.
As far as the eye could see were rack upon rack of the most beautiful, vibrant, and extraordinary costumes I had ever laid eyes on: dresses in every color and fabric, jackets, shoes, ribbons, corsets, sashes, gloves, men’s long coats in the most divine textures and hues, trousers, boots, and waistcoats.
It was like some magical 19th century John Lewis haberdashery department from your favorite dream (or maybe that’s just me). It turns out there were actually more than 7,000 costumes I was looking at. The jewelry alone took up the entirety of one side of the room. And tucked away behind these things were masses of little rooms filled with hundreds of busy, talented people sewing and cutting and measuring and imagining. These people meant business. And as the lovely assistant measured point-to-point on my body — measurements I had no idea would interest anyone (elbow to back knuckle of the little finger?) — I knew this world I had entered might just be a bit different from all the others.
By season three of Bridgerton, we had moved on somewhat, and with the success of the show, the aircraft hangar had changed to an entire building in a remote corner of Hertfordshire. The Cowpers, for their part, now had some intriguingly fun storylines which John decided would be entirely reflected in our costumes — mostly in our sleeves.
With the interior of the Cowper’s home — an incredible design by Alison Gartshore based on the dark and austere Sir John Soane House, Pitzhanger Manor, at Ealing — a whole world of background story suddenly opened up and John had such a deeply creative understanding of what we could play with to reveal even more about these characters. For Lady Cowper, whose wit and defiance make her one of the sharpest Ladies of the Ton, this meant rich fabrics for glamorous full length house coats, the ubiquitous sleeves, dramatic jackets, huge sharp collars (always great for creating neck length and a snooty countenance) and enormous wraps. Her bags and gloves for outings were either handmade or vintage and always exquisite — and frankly worthy of their very own Insta account.
Fabrics were brought in from huge fashion houses such as Chanel and Dolce Gabbana, as well as from young up-and-coming designers from both his native New York and around the world. Indeed, John’s creative brain is on another level in terms of design and he was never afraid to try anything — literally anything, whether adding, copying, recycling, embellishing — and was always immediately decisive about it working or not. ”NO! NO..” would be his cry as I tried on the eight pair of gloves.
So, there in this neon-lit room in my underwear, the eyes that are scrutinizing me are inside the heads of some of the most talented creative designers in the business: John’s incredible assistant designer, George Sayer, with her team of seamstresses, tailors, designers, and jewelers, and teams working only on decorative headpieces, beading, shoes, bags, and purses of every description. Often from scratch. If they can’t find the color or the piece that they need, they make it. Or borrow it or repurpose it. I am always so happy to see my dresses from previous seasons repurposed and pop up on a supporting actor in a ballroom scene.
So, when I arrive at the fitting and they begin to add pieces of fabric that start to take shape as a coat or a dress as the glorious look, the feeling is almost indescribable. Most of all, I am overwhelmed by a sort of variation of impostor syndrome. A sort of “Erm, you do know you’re all doing all of this for me, right? Not Meryl Streep or Nicole Kidman or Judi Dench? It’s just me!” What I really want to shout is “An hour ago, I was cleaning up Coco Pops and using a nit comb. I’m the one who still gets excited seeing my name written across the script and the door of my trailer.”
But in the end, I don’t. I manage to stay calm. I let these geniuses work. And I just try to enjoy this glorious moment.
Of course, this isn’t all just for me. It’s for the show, and it’s their job — I get that. But with this level of creativity and attention to detail, there is something incredibly moving about being on the receiving end of it. To know that whatever is being made is solely for my use, for my body, for my coloring, for my character. Overwhelmingly, I just feel incredibly lucky.
And I desperately don’t want this to sound like an irritating actor gush — it is resolutely not. I’ve spent long enough in the trenches as an actor and have surely paid my dues in all the usual ways of the hideous waitressing/bar work/temping/cattle-call audition/humiliation/misogyny/no-money merry-go-round to feel how momentous these moments truly are.
So, more than anything, standing in that room with tears in my eyes, I feel genuine gratitude for these people, a little bit of pride in myself after my 30-year journey to get here — and that someone might have possibly left some pins in the sleeve. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
