The new Sense and Sensibility, helmed by indie darling Georgia Oakley and led by Daisy Edgar-Jones, is a big-screen Jane Austen adaptation with a difference. It’s more traditional than Dakota Johnson’s zany, off-beat Netflix-produced ; more organic than the frilly, candy-coloured stylings of Anya Taylor-Joy’s ; and more elemental than Ang Lee’s slightly more buttoned-up 1995 version of Sense and Sensibility starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. It’s perhaps closer to Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice than anything else, but that, too, is slightly glossier than the more down-to-earth world we’re presented with here – a supremely romantic 18th-century idyll (Sense and Sensibility was published in 1811 but likely written in the late 1790s) made up of rain-soaked fields, crumbling cottages and dashing suitors.

Its plot will be familiar to those who have read the classic or seen the aforementioned last adaptation: sisters Elinor (Edgar-Jones), Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles) and Margaret (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) Dashwood, along with their mother (Caitríona Balfe), find themselves at loose ends after the death of their father. When their half-brother, John (Tom Brooke), and his wife, Fanny (Stacy Martin), leave them with a greatly reduced income, they move from their grand estate, Norland, to the artfully dilapidated Barton Cottage in Devonshire to begin a new life. There they encounter family friend Mrs Jennings (Fiona Shaw); the solemn Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum), who takes a liking to Marianne; and his romantic rival, the charming John Willoughby (Frank Dillane). Meanwhile, Elinor, back at Norland, had fallen for Fanny’s brother, Edward Ferrars (George MacKay), but, after a long separation, will their love endure?

Crucial to bringing this tactile, ravishing romance to life is Grace Snell, the double British Independent Film Award-winning costume designer behind (Parts I and II), and , who brings a certain freshness to the Austenian formula: pared-back silhouettes, a more muted colour palette, natural dyes, antique fabrics, hand-sewn frocks, muddy boots and a glorious undoneness, which brings to mind Sofia Coppola’s and Andrea Arnold’s .

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I first met Snell a year ago, on the set of Sense and Sensibility, in the sumptuous interiors of West Wycombe Park, where the cast were shooting a London ball scene. (The sisters decamp to the capital in the film’s second half.) Then, many months later, she provided costumes which were styled with straight-off-the-runway confections in Edgar-Jones’s British cover shoot for the August 2026 issue in honour of the film. Now, ahead of the movie arriving in cinemas on 25 September, she returned to speak to me over Zoom, laying out the unexpected historical and contemporary references on her mood board, Austenian couples dressing, and the need to move beyond bonnets.

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This version of Sense and Sensibility is set at the end of the 18th century. Can you talk me through some of your starting points?

Loosely speaking, it’s set between 1795 and 1799 – we left it a bit ambiguous. I went to Sands Films in Rotherhithe – they have an amazing archive of paintings from the time. One I came across was “Pinkie” by Thomas Lawrence, from 1794. That would go on to influence Marianne’s pink sash [which Margaret eventually inherits]. Also on my mood board was Henry Fuseli. I’d seen an exhibition at the Courtauld, and it was amazing: Fuseli and the Modern Woman: Fashion, Fantasy, Fetishism. It’s these amazing, shocking drawings of contemporary women [in the late 18th- and early 19th-century]. The silhouettes, shapes, the fetishised headdresses, the very revealing busts and more high fashion elements – that was inspiring for Fanny Dashwood, Mrs Jennings and the people at the ball [in London], where everything is a bit intimidating for the sisters. We also worked with a dress historian, Eleanor Houghton. I only had nine weeks to prep for this film, so she assisted me with research. I also went and viewed some original garments in Cosprop, and I had some more modern references on my mood board, too.

What were your more contemporary references?

Mascha Schilinski’s Sound of Falling, because our film begins with the girls in mourning and we wanted to experiment with different shades of black – greyish black and greenish black. Also [the 2022 Icelandic-Danish film set in the late 19th-century] . I’m obsessed with that film. That isn’t our period, so you have to be very careful when you bring references like that to the table, but Georgia loved the connection between the costumes and the landscape in that film. We also had Roman Polanski’s on the mood board, and André Téchiné’s The Brontë Sisters, with Isabelle Huppert. We’re not in the Brontë world, but in those books and adaptations, there’s also that connection to the landscape.

I know that Georgia wanted to step away, at least slightly, from the typical Austenian look of cap sleeves and bonnets. How did you navigate that while also maintaining historical accuracy?

We were to avoid cap sleeves. And it’s not that she didn’t like bonnets – it was that there had to be more than bonnets in this world. So then our milliner, the dress historian and I tried to find alternatives. We came up with mourning caps, and the cap hood that Elinor has.

Georgia came to the table with a lot of art, landscapes and [images of] working class people. A lot of her references were from working-class Victorian and Regency England. When we saw the set for Barton Cottage… it’s gorgeous but it’s small and falling down. And that helped in thinking about money – how much money could they live on and what could they afford clothing-wise? There was a focus on practical clothing and not being too clean. In our heads of department meeting, when we were working out what the film would look like, Georgia would show us some references and say, “It’s not this.” One of those was heavily patterned clothing with lots of textures and frills. She wanted it to be much more pared back. Then, we could have more frills and adornment for the ball, and for Fanny and characters who are more wealthy.

After her father’s death, Elinor becomes the head of the house, and we see her in waistcoats and clogs chopping wood. There’s a frugality to her.

She steps into that role and it comes very naturally to her. She dresses for the jobs she’s doing. Her waistcoat goes over her dress – it’s warm and made from this amazing antique wool that we found. She gets stuck in and rolls up her sleeves.

Do you have a favourite Elinor look?

When she goes to the gallery in London – I love that bonnet and the jacket. We actually made the jacket from a Victorian skirt that was falling apart. It’s this lovely inky blue and brown. And the bonnet took a lot of work, because I thought, if I’m going to get one classic bonnet in this film, it needs to be the one. We spent two weeks talking about how we wanted it to look. The taffeta was dyed with plant dyes, and it was designed to fit Daisy’s face. And then the bonnet was in the shoot!

Coming onto Marianne, can you talk me through your key inspirations for her look?

One was John Galliano’s muslin dress collection, “Fallen Angels” from 1986, and particularly how the muslin looks [when] wet. I knew Marianne would be in the rain a lot, so that was a big inspiration. And then , which was really fashionable, which Marie Antoinette wore. It’s a dress shape that felt very romantic. It was like [Marianne] had this idea that when she moved to Barton, she’d be like Marie Antoinette retreating to her little cottage. Then, for the ball, we thought maybe Mrs Jennings had paid for their ball gowns. We took inspiration from Ancient Greece. The ball is painterly and lit by candlelight, so the dresses were designed to work in that light. Marianne has this double layer of beautiful gold silk that’s really, really thin, that would catch the light.

I also love that the sisters share clothes.

After Marianne gets her heart broken, she discards her pink sash – it’s the loss of her innocence. Then it’s given to Margaret who wears it for the ball, and so now it’s about her coming of age story. And Elinor and Marianne share a couple of dresses. Marianne wears one of Elinor’s dresses when she goes to have her final chat with Brandon, when she’s been through her illness and has gotten better. That was Esmé’s idea – she wanted to show how each sister had taken qualities from the other, the sense and the sensibility, and learned from each other. We wanted to show that through the clothes, too.

Do you have a favourite Margaret look? Mine is her berry-stained dress.

That is my favourite. I absolutely love that look. We had to make a few of those dresses because she gets wet. I had to match the berry stains on each of the dresses [laughs]. We picked blackberries and then used them to stain the dresses. And she has a hat, which started life as a bonnet, but then I punched out the middle so it became [almost like a flower crown]. It’s fun – it adds to her mischievous, adventurous nature.

How do the girls’ costumes change over the course of the film? They go from more well-off, to a period of mourning, to Barton.

The clothes were designed in chapters. The Norland chapter is our grief chapter – that’s where we had shades of black, which we achieved with our natural dyeing processes. I didn’t ever want to have true black – I wanted a varied palette. Then, our Barton chapter is a bit warmer in tone, there’s more colour coming in. And then our London chapter is more monochromatic – navies, browns, greys, and for the ball in particular, all whites, so that it does feel quite sparse and has a contrast to Barton, which has a bit more life to it.

And what about Fanny, Mrs Jennings and Mrs Dashwood?

Fanny’s silhouette is much more Regency – it’s slimmed down, she’s showing us where fashion is going. Mrs Jennings is a mishmash – she’s got stuff that she loved back in the day, and also some high fashion things. It’s a real melting pot of fashion eras. And Mrs Dashwood, she’s in mourning… I didn’t necessarily want her to feel too chic, but I wanted her to feel like she was keeping up with the fashions of the time. So, her lovely black taffeta mourning overdress is beautiful. It’s tailored and handmade. For her, it was about finding beauty in simplicity.

Coming onto the men, are there connections between Elinor and Edward’s outfits that we should look out for?

They do look like they go together. I think you’re drawn to somebody that you see yourself in. Sometimes relationships are a mirror. So, for Marianne and Willoughby, there is a fun playfulness with how they wear clothing, and I wanted that thread to be quite obvious. And with Edward and Elinor, they’re designed, particularly palette-wise, to be very complementary. We have Elinor in her lilac dress and Edward in his lovely green cutaway coat. Then, in London, they’re both in a lot of blue because they’re feeling blue.

And Willoughby has a distinctive arc. He has to marry for money and status. He starts off almost looking like one of the farmers. Marianne sees that and falls for that. Then when he comes to visit and brings flowers, he’s got lovely flourishes. I took inspiration from the French in some of his styling. It’s a bit more experimental, more peacocky. Then, at the dance, he’s got this beautiful moleskin, rust-coloured jacket, and she’s in her pink. I love those colours together – they’re not supposed to go together, but they do.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Sense and Sensibility will be in cinemas from 25 September.