17 thoughts on “TBT: Sense & Sensibility (1995): Mrs. Dashwood & Mrs. Jennings

  1. For Mrs.Jenning’s chintz dress, she is definitely wearing some sort of overbodice in the later images. Her ball gown is so lovely, I did not know there was a Renaissance revival in the early 19th century!

  2. Ironically, the thing I keep coming back to is Mrs. Jennings’s pearl necklace (I love pearls). That thing must have cost a fortune, and of course she could afford it. :)

    1. I could really fancy the one with the cameos, that she wears the night she invites the girls to go to London.

    1. This was an add on line. When the director felt that the scene needed more dialogue, he’d send someone to Emma’s trailer. This is one of many. Another is in the library, “These are mostly foreign..”

  3. I remember thinking that Mrs. Jennings’ “light brown gown” moved like silk. Might have to go watch again.

  4. Beavan must be a fan of those fabric-crowned hats. The Kate Beckinsale Emma has hat design that looks somewhat better than S&S, but at least one poufy-crowned monstrosity makes an appearance: https://austenprose.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/kate-beckinsale-as-emma-woodhouse-in-emma-1996-x-350.jpg?w=640. It doesn’t make much sense there, either.

    Another point about S&S: there are nowhere near enough white cotton dresses. That family portrait posted near the top clearly indicates – like most late 1790s portraits do – that white was the standard for fashionable women’s dresses at the time. Portraiture depicts many, many older ladies in white. Colors in dress usually came from the accessories, not from the gowns themselves. This is something that the Netherfield ball scene in P&P 2005 surprisingly got right.

  5. I absolutely love Mrs. Dashwood’s wardrobe in this. I love all of the characters’ costumes but Mrs. Dashwood’s hats/caps/bonnets are particularly fabulous.

  6. While I don’t love the asymmetrical dress I love that they had one. It’s such a common thing in contemporary fashion plates and you rarely see it them on screen. My favourite sort of asymmetrical outfit is when miss Crawford wears a red shawl over her pale dress in Mansfield park.

    1. P&P 1995 uses that Mary Crawford dress on one of the extras, I think. Actually, there are several asymmetrical dresses in P&P 1995, but they are all on extras and bit players.

  7. I want all the millinery from this film, whether accurate or not. I’m also feeling the urge to reread Emma Thompson’s published diary from the filming, which is delightful on the order of drinking a strongly spiked hot chocolate. Apparently Gemma Jones is wonderfully foul-mouthed in real life.

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