Common Sense
Some escape the summer heat by going to a movie.
Others seek refuge in a museum.
Still others indulge in a good book.
Jane Austen: Fashion & Sensibility combines all of those into one beautiful exhibition at the Taft Museum of Art.
This special exhibition displays costumes from eight acclaimed film adaptations of Jane Austen’s classic novels. The collection is making its North American debut at the Taft.
Extending from the museum’s Fifth Third Gallery into the rehabilitated house and among a newly reinterpreted permanent collection, Jane Austen: Fashion & Sensibility featurs approximately fifty costumes and accessories worn in popular film and television productions.
Fashion & Sensibility will provide an unforgettable opportunity to see, up close, costumes worn by Hollywood celebrities including Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Judi Dench, Colin Firth, and Hugh Grant. The exhibition will bring to life beloved characters from Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Mansfield Park, while revealing powerful themes of class, gender, and social dynamics in Austen’s world.
Drawn from the collection of award-winning British costume house Cosprop Ltd, these meticulously tailored ensembles will transport audiences to the Regency era through ball gowns, wedding dresses, day dresses, hats, jackets, waistcoats, riding habits, and other middle- and upper-class clothing.
The Taft also presents Jane Austen in London: A Wall-Sized Map in the museum’s Sinton Gallery in conjunction with Fashion & Sensibility. Measuring seven by thirteen feet, this massive work on paper represents a monumental achievement in cartography and will illustrate London locations from both Austen’s fiction and her life. The 18th-century map is lent to the museum by the Estate of Sallie Robinson Wadsworth.
If You Go
Taft Museum of Art
316 Pike Street
Museum hours: Wednesday–Sunday: 11 a.m.–4 p.m. General admission includes access to Jane Austen: Fashion & Sensibility, Jane Austen in London: A Wall-Sized Map, and the museum’s permanent collection galleries located in the Taft historic house.
Admission: Free for members; $8 for guests of members; $18 non-members; $16 seniors; Pricing available for groups of 10 or more.
Tickets are on sale now at taftmuseum.org/Tickets.