If you’re a Janeite who can’t make it to Cincinnati’s Taft Museum of Art this summer – and will therefore miss your chance for an in-person look at dozens of costumes from iconic Jane Austen screen adaptations – you may want to check out a museum spokeswoman’s recent local TV appearance.
The chitchat is bland, but the visuals comprise closeups of items included in the traveling exhibit, “Jane Austen: Fashion & Sensibility,” which features nearly fifty costumes from eight screen adaptations of four different Austen novels.
Most of the garments come from two of the best adaptations -- the BBC’s iconic 1995 mini-series of Pride and Prejudice and the Oscar-winning 1995 Ang Lee-Emma Thompson film of Sense and Sensibility. If your disposition is Proustian, a glimpse of an orange headdress or an embroidered wedding gown will instantly transport you back to beloved scenes.
The show, which opens on Saturday, continues until September 4, and throughout the run, the Taft has planned a series of tie-in programs on music, history, fashion, and costume design. Cincinnati road trip, anyone?