Look of love: The story behind the costumes in The Pursuit of Love

18 May 2021

One of the stars of The Pursuit of Love are the clothes, reflecting author Nancy Mitford's own fashion obsession. Costume designer Sinéad Kidao takes us through some of the Bright Young Things looks on show from Lily James's character Linda, and the research ensuring on-screen authenticity that complements the plot.

This scene is when Linda is at her most decadent. The Bright Young Things - the social set Linda was part of - were known for their love of fancy dress, and this was the one moment to show Linda ‘frittering her life away’ at endless parties.

The production designer Cristina Casali was inspired by Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis , so that film was used as a starting inspiration for the costume too, to complement the set.

The choreography was also an inspiration and the team wanted something that would move really well. The costume consists of a woven gold lamé cloche hat, dress and cape with beading detail. Lily’s necklace is an Art Deco-inspired piece made by Bulgari.

This multicoloured silk dress and bright green tilt hat is worn by Linda to The Ritz in 1941. While in Paris, Linda’s look became quite graphic and high fashion. This look is still very chic, but it is more colourful and brings a little of the old Linda back… now that she is back living in London in Cheyne Walk.

Linda’s wedding dress was loosely inspired by the Norman Hartnell dress worn by the Duchess of Argyll, a society beauty of the day, in 1932. The bodice is vintage and was re-worked to add a skirt and fluted sleeves, 8-foot train and veil.

The fashion for wedding dresses at this time was medieval-inspired, with heavy embroidery and wide fluted sleeves. Linda’s jewellery - necklace, earrings and tiara - are from the archives of Bulgari. Her pearl and diamond necklace is made up of 12 pear diamonds and 670 round diamonds... there was a lot of security on set that day!

In Paris, Linda becomes a disciple of French style and Nancy Mitford specifically narrates her shopping experiences:

“Linda had never before fully realised the superiority of French clothes to English. In London she had been considered exceptionally well dressed, when she was married to Tony; she now realized that never could she have had, by French standards, the smallest pretensions to chic. The things she had with her seemed to her so appallingly dowdy, so skimpy and miserable and without line, that she went to the Galeries Lafayette and bought herself a ready-made dress there before she dared to venture into the big houses.”

This black silk, polka-dot blouse on the left, with pleated organza collar and cuffs, and flared skirt, was an homage to late-1930s French couture. For Paris, Linda’s hair is up, her look is chic, and the graphic black and white patterns are a world away from her more British looks.

On the right, Linda arrives at the Paris Ritz in another black silk organza dress, this one with overblown silk flower pattern. This dress is an original 1930s piece, although the label was missing so the designer is unknown.

When Linda first meets Fabrice, he comments on her ‘hideous’ mink coat. Instead of an actual mink coat, the costume team had a coat made: the colours in this wool check are very Linda - pink, green, blue and brown.

The collar was from an original 1930s coat that was damaged, and so it was re-purposed for this, so it still fits in with Nancy’s original description. The coat, while not hideous, is wool and tweedy and unlike the high-fashion styles she wears in Paris. Underneath is a ‘ready-made’ style suit which Nancy also described - she wears it while working at the refugee camp in Perpignan.

Mitford's novel describes Linda and Fanny in matching dresses for the first ball, which were made by the wife of Josh the Groom. This organza dress is a slightly earlier style, one which they might have chosen themselves.

Emily Mortimer wanted Linda and Fanny to look sweet and girly, and not at all sophisticated. When Merlin’s house party comes round they are mortified by their dresses, despite having initially been so excited by them.

This outfit is one of the many that Linda tried on while shopping at the Galeries Lafayette. In the book, Nancy Mitford describes how:

“Linda occupied her days buying clothes, which she paid for with great wads of banknotes given her by Fabrice.

‘Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,’ she thought. ‘And as he despises me anyway it can’t make very much difference.’

Fabrice was delighted. He took an intense interest in her clothes, looked them up and down, made her parade round her drawing-room in them, forced her to take them back to the shops for alterations which seemed to her quite unnecessary, but which proved in the end to have made all the difference.”

On the day of filming there were piles of clothes that Lily tried on and dressed up in... it was a lot of fun.

Hunting played a prominent role in the lives of the Mitfords, and the character of Linda loved it - here, she is wearing traditional hunting attire: navy coat, tattersall waistcoat, jodhpurs, stock and bowler hat.

It was around this time that ladies began riding astride rather than side saddle, and wearing jodhpurs as opposed to skirts.

Linda was always dressing up, accessorising and personalising her own outfits. As well as studying the Mitfords themselves, the design team looked through the archives of society photographers like Bassano and Lafayette, studying girls born around 1910, for inspiration.

There was one honourable lady, who featured in photographs from the 1920s through to the 1930s, who was always dressing up and wearing things in quite an unexpected way. She wore scarves around her head, big overblown flowers and mis-matched jewellery.

For Linda, it was scripted that she had a yellow scarf that she always wore … the costume team decided that sometimes it would be on her wrist, sometimes worn as a headscarf, sometimes as a bow around her neck … but it was a big factor in showcasing how Linda styled herself in an unconventional way.

As well as The Pursuit of Love, Sinéad Kidao's costume design credits include Steve McQueen's BBC series Small Axe, This Way Up for Channel 4, and Nosedive, the third-season opener of Charlie Brooker's anthology series Black Mirror.