Fit for the Mitfords
Production designer Matthew Button and costume designer Claire Collins take DQ into the world of Outrageous, UKTV and BritBox’s period biopic of the real-life Mitford sisters, and reveal how they recreated British high society of the 1930s.
A six-part series spanning almost a decade of life in 1930s Britain, Outrageous introduces six aristocratic sisters who refused to play by the rules, with their often-scandalous lives making headlines around the world.
Telling the story of the real-life Mitford sisters – Nancy, Diana, Pamela, Unity, Jessica and Deborah – it explores their sibling bonds and betrayals as they are drawn, individually and collectively, into public scandal, political extremism, love, heartache and even imprisonment.
That the show has a diverse ensemble of characters, a sprawling time period and lavish locations, all set against the backdrop of the decadence and frivolity of British high society at that time, means it was a “designer’s dream” for production designer Matthew Button and costume designer Claire Collins, who partnered to help bring it to the screen.
Produced by Firebird Pictures and distributed by BBC Studios, the show debuted last month on U&Drama in the UK and BritBox in North America.
“Obviously, a lot of projects meld into each other. But Outrageous was so different,” Button tells DQ. “It holds a very special place. It was like nothing I’ve ever really done before.”
“It’s been lovely to do something that’s a true story and recreate people that exist in paintings and photos,” adds Collins. “That was something I’d never really done quite to that degree before.”
Button stepped into the world of the Mitfords not knowing a great deal about the family. “Bizarrely, I went to art school with Deborah’s granddaughter, Stella Tennant, who became a supermodel. I shared a house with her,” he reveals.
But when Outrageous first started to be discussed, he knew it was a real opportunity for a designer – and that he wouldn’t be alone in aspiring to join the production. He and art director Daniela Faggio then spent many days brainstorming ideas for the mood boards they would later present to the production team, hoping their interpretation of the script matched the team’s own vision.
“What was really nice was we did manage to hit the tones they were looking for, which was really good,” he says. “I was incredibly excited about doing a period piece. When we started to get more into the project, we realised we were actually inventing worlds. The 2024 world [when filming took place] bore so little semblance to what we were trying to do, so it was a real challenge when you’re looking at every road marking, every wallpaper, every light switch.
“Everything is kind of wrong beyond the bricks and mortar of some of the locations we had. [The task] was inventing a whole world and, in design, you’re only as good as your weakest link. You’ve got to make sure there are no chinks in that whole illusion. Otherwise you’ve lost the audience, you’ve lost the believability of the project.”
With cinematic ambitions of greater scale than the show’s budget, Button was trusted to run with his own ideas while working alongside lead director Joss Agnew. He also worked closely with Collins when it came to matching locations with costumes and introducing certain colours through the series, such as the reds that are dropped in as the show’s far-right fascism storyline picks up further down the line.
Every decision drew on the “real academic rigour” Button pursued in development, including researching colour palettes, prints and patterns to ensure the look of the series was as authentic as possible. On several occasions, Button had to create original wallpaper designs using 1930s motifs, while he worked with more covered walls than on any other job he had previously completed.
He was also always working on locations across Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire to adapt and augment existing properties for the series, rather than constructing standalone studio sets. One location was High Elms Manor, a Grade II-listed Georgian manor that doubled for the Mitfords’ Swinbrook family estate.
“The most amazing thing for me was [the owners] said, ‘Do whatever you want to it.’ So I was able to actually put up my wallpapers, put my paint everywhere, which was a real coup,” he says. “We managed to have that creative control like I never thought we would have. What was also really nice was, when we left, they said, ‘We love it. Can you leave it?’ So we left them with a whole 1930s-themed manor house.”
The property also afforded Button the chance to build The Black Cat Club in the basement, while other locations included Hall Barn, Gaddesden Place and Tring Park School for the Performing Arts, where a grand staircase was the centrepiece of Unity’s society debutante ball.
On Outrageous, “nothing is what you’d call a ‘walk-in’ [ready to film]. Everything was heavy lifting,” Button adds. “But in that heavy lifting, you are inventing a complete world, which is also incredibly rewarding because pretty much everything the lens looks at, we’ve had to put there.”
Like Button, Collins had just a couple of months to prep for the three-month shoot. Similarly, she got to work by hitting the books and scouring photos, learning as much as she could about the sisters individually and discovering the unique personalities that would influence their costumes.
“They were so, so different,” she says, “so actually what I thought would be the biggest challenge at the beginning [to differentiate them] was really easy. They were so clearly defined and I just had to broaden the gap to visually show those personality differences.”
For example, Collins leaned into Nancy’s literary links with the Bloomsbury Group and her artistic group of friends to create her style, while Diana’s look was inspired by a diary passage where she reveals a belief that she looked more attractive when she didn’t smile. “That’s why all of her portraits and photos have quite a steely, cold feel about them,” she says. “We decided we’d use that and interpret that idea with her clothes as well. So all of her clothes feel quite steely and icy and not rich. She’s not very approachable-looking.”
Pamela and Deborah both sport country attire, with the former in gender-neutral tones and men’s active wear, though “the biggest cheat” on the show was Jessica. “We were really keying into Jessica’s rebellion against her situation, not being able to go to school, not being listened to, and we decided to play on a modern version of loungewear. So she never really gets dressed properly for anything, never really dresses properly for dinner. She’s always in slouchy, not very well-fitting clothes. It all feels a little bit haphazard, and I decided that was her only way to rebel against her parents.”
Working with the show’s cast is also a big part of the job for Collins, who found the perfect collaborators in Bessie Carter (Nancy), Joanna Vanderham (Diana), Isobel Jesper Jones (Pamela), Shannon Watson (Unity), Zoe Brough (Jessica) and Orla Hill (Deborah). “I don’t think I’ve ever worked with so many incredible women,” she says. “They were all genuinely really knowledgeable of their characters, really knowledgeable of the journey and really open-minded to how we could work together.”
With copies of the script and location photos, Collins and her team would map out the outfits for each character in a particular scene, aided by the fact writer Sarah Williams shared the aim of making each character identifiable, relatable and very real. They also added some modern touches that defy the conventions of the time.
“You almost don’t realise you’re looking at a period costume in some of them, especially Nancy’s wardrobe. It feels very functional,” she says. “We were really keen to use a lot of knackered old jumpers that have holes in, portraying that side of aristocratic life where they were asset-rich but very cash-poor.”
That the Mitford sisters would share hand-me-down garments meant Collins could use the same items in various ways across the eight-year span of the story. “I’ve never done a show where things have crossed over between actors so much,” she remarks.
Even so, the costume demands for the series, with numerous characters who required various costumes for day and evening occasions across a number of years, meant the scale of Collins’ job was “pretty bonkers.” A character like Nancy had 59 story days across the series, and the passage of time meant relatively few items of clothing could be repeated as part of the character’s capsule wardrobe.
“A lot of the makes for her ended up being almost like a one-scene wonder,” she says. “Trying to weigh the cost and time spent creating those lovely pieces against how much camera time they get was quite challenging.”
Another unforeseen challenge was the high demand for 1930s attire while Outrageous was filming, with Collins facing competition from four other series for ready-made garments. That meant costume cutter Esther Hunter was tasked with turning out a dress or costume every three or four days.
Two assistant costume designers, Jessica Alloway and William Porch Burgess, also worked alongside Collins, with Burgess predominantly overseeing the roughly 1,000 crowd costumes that were worn by up to 800 supporting artists in each of the two filming blocks.
“In that lovely way of making telly, we would change them to service two different scenes,” the designer notes of the background artists, “so there were a few occasions where they started the day as opera-goers and ended the day as cinema-goers. There were big changes for the crowd in the middle of the day.”
On one occasion, however, there simply weren’t enough boots to supply the army of extras amassed for a Nazi rally. “The boots the Nazi uniforms came with were very narrow in the calf, so we couldn’t quite get this one gentleman’s rather large cycling calves in any pair of boots,” Collins recalls. “He ended up in a welly that we had to spray-tan brown, and we planted him somewhere at the back and hoped no one noticed.”
The project means Collins has now come full circle, after her first job out of university was also set in the 1930s – an episode of Poirot. “It felt quite nice to go back to the very beginning,” she says. “It’s the first time I’ve designed 1930s, but I’ve mainly designed the early 20th century period. It’s very much where I enjoy. Anything early 20th century, I’m very happy in.”
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tagged in: BBC Studios, Britbox, Claire Collins, Firebird Pictures, Matthew Button, Outrageous, U&Drama, UKTV