What to wear?

On August 13th, 2022, I made a quick trip to Cincinnati’s Taft Museum of Art to see Jane Austen: Fashion & Sensibility exhibit.

Fresh from London, it was a collection of costumes from several film and TV adaptions of Jane’s novels with an emphasis on the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice series and, particularly, the outfits worn by Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth.

Oh yes, “the shirt” was there. Or, to be more precise, one of the several shirts used when filming the dripping-wet Darcy during the memorable lake scene.

The Museum Experience
The Taft Museum of Art occupies a 200-year-old house that has historical associations with the Taft family of President William H. The main hallways are lined with period-inspired rooms that feature the extensive art and artifact collection donated to and for the people of Cincinnati by the family. And there is an adjacent exhibition area, the Fifth Third Gallery, that hosted the main exhibit.

I say “main” because, at first, the collection seemed fairly small: one exhibition hall with clothed mannequins arranged along a serpentine path, culminating in a room dominated by Emma’s wedding dress from the 1996 film.

I thought: “Is that all there is?” (Cue Peggy Lee.)

Fortunately, ’twasn’t true. I overheard a security guard telling waiting guests that there were additional costumes to be seen in the other museum rooms. After “working the big room” for a good amount of time, I ventured out into the museum proper to be rewarded with a treasure trove of additional costumes set amongst the curated rooms of the former mansion.

(There was a companion exhibit, Jane Austen in London: A Wall-Sized Map, which was particularly appealing to me, of course. But I get off topic.)