How to dress as landed gentry for little money?

Michelle79

Hello everybody,

My friends and me are planning to perform a litlle theatre play and we a searching for tipps how to dress up our characters for little money. The play will most likely be set in the early 20th century, but the exact date , will not be mentioned. It starts in a rural village of England, though it is not mentioned where.
Our characters include:

*three young men in their 30s, who are very rich and part of the landed gentry
*their old eccentric and very rich uncle
*a man-servant
*an inn-keeper
*a cook
*a farmer
*villagers, who celebrate and should be dressed up a little for that occasion, they are - however - poor, so not too dressed up

I can sew, so sewing-patterns would be also a great help.

We are also looking for things that could be present in an English landed gentry house. The person living there is very educated and also traveled a lot. We thought of lot's of books (we already have them) and thinks he might have aquired on his journeys.

rachbc

For the set stags heads, family portraits, antiques etc

Watch Downton Abbey for the costumes inspiration! Country house tweed suits, servant would probably wear a black day suit or possible evne tails, cook long dress and white pinny/ mop cap. Famrer tweedy trousers and a loose shirt and casual waitcoat

Mens stuff can probably be got from chairty shops, womens you wil need long skirts so may need to make

Merry_Wanderer

Freecycle might be good for props, a woman picked up my old dining table last year (which was 1970's) to use for a play.

You might be able to get shirts in sale bins, and from cheap school uniform offers (older boys), you might be able to get away with using normal shirts if jackets are worn, and also quite easy to customise the collar. You can use tea to stain white garments and give them an old world look (some costume depts. do this). I was in Matalan last week and they had rails upon rails of sale stuff for £2.50 or less - lots of long summery dresses, many that were cotton and could be easily adapted. Similarly mens trousers. Worth looking in some highstreet sales for things you can customise.

charity shops and car boots are good for clothes and bric a brac, and ebay might be a good place to look for costume bits too. Items of costume jewellery, monalce, pocket watch etc.

Gather as many pictures as you can for ideas - it's good to start off with some designs, and keep an open mind. Sounds fun.

duckeggblue

If you give charity shops enough notice,they could put stuff aside thats too tatty to put out.

spike7451

duckeggblue wrote: »

If you give charity shops enough notice,they could put stuff aside thats too tatty to put out.

I bought a tux & shirt ect from the Cancer charity for about £10 for an Army dining in night,Wasn't going to risk my expensive mess dress uniform for this particular bash.

meritaten

watch some old miss marple films or poirot for inspiration - keep an eye out in charity shops for suitable clothes - esp suits for the men! at home, the rich often wore 'smoking jackets' which look just like mens silky patterned dressing gowns (and I've definately seen those in charity shops)! Cricket sweaters and trousers havent changed any over the years, and golfing attire too. for authenticity for womens clothes its usually the hemline thats important! a tweed skirt and twinset and pearls were virtually a uniform for middle aged women. Tea dresses arent so different from the frilly floaty styles popular a few years ago - a hunt through charity shops should turn these up!
above all - good luck and have fun - and dont forget the make up for the women - dark red lippy, pale powder and rouge!

cheeswright

faced with a similar problem - and NO money at all
my sister adapted the play so that once a character had walked on stage and played the first bit of their part
their clothes would be mysteriously stolen leaving them just in their underwear
so everybody wore either just the one suit - once
or the one dress....:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
it may well have been quite distracting....but really quite sucessful

...although perhapse not for all the right reasons.....