Costume Couture: Sixty Years of Cosprop

Now showing18 July 2026 – 16 January 2027£13.50

Costumes, accessories and sketches from London costume house Cosprop, founded by John Bright in 1965, from Pride and Prejudice, Downton Abbey and A Room with a View.

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On now All of November 2026

Since September, the white shirt Colin Firth wore out of the lake as Mr Darcy in the BBC's 1995 Pride and Prejudice has hung at Dovecot. Thirty-one years on, it is finally dry.

Cosprop is the London costume house John Bright founded in 1965, and this show fills the North and South Galleries with its work: costumes, jewellery, design sketches, workshop photographs and short films on how the clothes are made. It runs from Helena Bonham Carter's cream 1906 ensemble in A Room with a View to Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow and the jewelled little Maharajah from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. You will recognise plenty of Sunday-night television: Downton Abbey, Victoria, Gentleman Jack.

The Wee Review called it "a rare treat". Scots Gay Arts gave it five stars, and its critic ran out of time before a train, so allow longer than you think. Tickets are £13.50 (£12 concessions, £6.75 with Art Fund or Young Scot), bookable online, Monday to Saturday 10am to 5pm.

Editor's pick

The white shirt Colin Firth wore coming out of the lake in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice hangs among 60 years of Cosprop costumes. The Wee Review called it "a rare treat". For anyone raised on Sunday-night period drama.

Look for

Mr Darcy, wet shirt and all
Look for the white shirt Colin Firth wore out of the lake in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, plus his olive-green wool tailcoat and camel moleskin breeches.
Lucy Honeychurch's 1906 ensemble
Helena Bonham Carter's cream cotton and linen outfit from the kiss near Fiesole in A Room with a View, built from original period pieces that were dyed and remade.
Tatyana's red ballroom dress
Liv Tyler's red satin and shot-silk 1830s evening dress from Onegin, with original sleeve cushions John Bright put in to give it presence in the ballroom scene.
Young Elizabeth in sage velvet
Cate Blanchett's 1550s green velvet dress from Elizabeth, with gauze sleeves over cream silk undersleeves and pink and green embroidery.
Karen Blixen's wedding suit
Meryl Streep's 1914 cream silk suit from Out of Africa: a high-collared jacket in pleated, black-piped net over a hobble skirt.