Bridgerton’s Lady Danbury: ‘The corsets make you look amazing, but you can’t eat anything starchy’

telegraph.co.uk:

whole series – a wealthy, well-connected widow. The three magical Ws for a woman of that time. No husband or sons to boss her around”.

Lady Danbury’s many costumes are invariably cut close to the torso – the better to show off that immaculate upright posture – with stiff, high redingote collars, diminutive top hats and that distinctive cane that bring a dash of masculine swagger to her jewel-coloured empire line dresses.

One of her corsets – contrary to the armchair fashion historians who protested otherwise, they wore corsets in the Regency period – was made by Mr Pearl, a fashion favourite who worked with Alexander McQueen, Thierry Mugler, Isabella Blow, and Kylie Minogue. “We became quite good friends,” she says, of Mr Pearl. “You talk about the highs and lows of doing Bridgerton – the corsets, which ran from breasts to hips, are both.

They make you look amazing, but you can’t eat anything starchy. And never loosen it while you’re having lunch. Some of the other actors did and they’re agony to lace up again afterwards.” While surface is of paramount importance in Bridgerton, it’s not everything. “I’m not claiming we’re a searing documentary, but you get a sense of what it was like to be a woman and financially insecure at that time.