‘Downton’ comes to North Carolina estate

Costumes worn on PBS show fill elegant Biltmore rooms.

Biltmore Estate is always dressed to impress. The Gilded Age mansion, built on the outskirts of Asheville, North Carolina, by a scion of one of the wealthiest families in America, literally sets the scene in “Being There” and other films that require high-ceiling posh.

But through May 25, the patent leather dancing pump is on the other foot: Rather than doing double duty as an elegant movie set, some of its 250 rooms are hosting “Downton Abbey.”

Well, at least clothing worn by the cast of the popular PBS drama.

And despite the velvet ropes cordoning off tourists, the formal dresses, top hats, cravats and purses in the “Dressing Downton” exhibition look as at home as they do at Highclere Castle, in southern England, where the popular series is filmed.

The exhibition’s 47 mannequins are fully dressed in “Downton” costumes. They are not displayed in chronological order: Biltmore rooms were chosen to complement the outfits.

The Salon, for instance, has a dapper white suit worn by the Earl of Grantham (actor Hugh Bonneville) alongside a white dress worn by his wife, Countess Cora (Elizabeth McGovern); in front and to the side of them is an elaborate purple getup worn by his mother, Dowager Countess Violet (Maggie Smith).

Their placement echoes the show: Violet’s garb looks clearly oldfashioned, and her purple signals Victorian-Edwardian half-mourning — a hue/attitude that turns up in her ongoing regret for the end of tradition and the onset of modern times that make it hard to maintain their elaborate gentry life.

Each “Downton” room holds a stand bearing an as-seen-on-TV shot of the displayed attire plus words about what was going on in that scene. There’s also an optional $10 audio guide that offers room-by-room details about the show, the costumes and Biltmore anecdotes.

The real-life Vander- bilts of Biltmore were more affluent and less mired in the past than their counterpart Crawleys of “Downton Abbey.” That said, like the Crawleys there was an Anglo-American marriage (Edith Stuyvesant Vanderbilt married English aristocrat John Cecil); both families dined formally and were served by uni- formed attendants.

The below-the-stairs plot of the program is also covered.

While those “Downton” scenes are actually staged in London (Highclere’s kitchens are too small for filming), the uniforms worn by footmen, maids, cooks and other help are on display here.

JOHN WARNER / THE BILTMORE COMPANY Mannequins needed to be created to match individual actors’ and actresses’ dimensions. EDG consultant Nancy Lawson adjusts a hat.