Rivals costume designer honoured to make outfit for Dame Jilly Cooper

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The man behind the costumes on the hit TV series Rivals has said it was an honour to create an outfit for the late author Dame Jilly Cooper.

The drama, starring David Tennant, Danny Dyer, Aidan Turner and Emily Atack, is based on the second book in Dame Jilly’s best-selling Rutshire Chronicles series about the competition between two firms.

Costume designer Ray Holman, from Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taf, said he wanted to create something that Dame Jilly, who had a cameo role in the show, loved to wear.

“One of the things I suggested was a blue satin suit and she adored it,” he said.

“She loved it so much she wore it to get her damehood and she wore it at the Hay festival.”

Holman told BBC Radio Wales he was inspired by the way Cooper dressed when she was younger.

“It didn’t feel like she wore many dresses… Jilly was a country woman.”

Holman was working on the set of the second series when the author died aged 88 in October following a fall at her home.

“‘Everybody had to go to the studio and they told us what had happened to Jilly and there was a lot of emotion,” he said.

“We carried on filming but they said don’t go home after.

“They wheeled out a glass of champagne for everyone and said this is what she would have wanted.”

Ray Holman

He said Dame Jilly was heavily involved in the production.

“To see the joy on her face when she came to visit with all the amazing actors and crew, and she was really, really supportive.”

The second season is set in 1987 with the backdrop of a general election.

Holman said the costumes were crucial to making the era feel authentic, and that he dipped into his own collection of original Vogue magazines to begin researching the decade.

Many costumes were made especially for the cast while others were purchased from vintage stores.

“I’m always searching for vintage jewellery,” he said.

“In fact, Splott market [in Cardiff] was the place to go, and one of the stallholders was saying, ‘why are you buying all this?’.”

Holman said he was also guided by Dame Jilly when creating different looks for her characters.

Dame Jilly told Holman that Corinium TV executive Lord Tony Baddingham, played by David Tennant, had “once seen a production of Bugsy Malone, and he loved the power suits and the big pinstripes and that’s what he bases his look on”, he recalled.

Holman also said Tennant was happy to embrace the style, especially as “everything David wears as Tony is made especially for him”.

The costume designer has worked on a host of TV dramas from Broadchurch to Torchwood, and has dressed three Doctor Who iterations – Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi and Jodie Whittaker – working closely with each to develop their different styles.

“It’s a brand and it needs to be curated carefully,” Holman said.

“Whoever is playing the doctor, you listen to what they need to wear, what they want to do and you work that out. It’s very collaborative.”

Disney+

Although Holman is accustomed to working on glamorous big budget productions, he is also fiercely proud of his working class roots.

He said he wanted to help others from similar backgrounds know that they too could have careers in the creative industries.

“A careers teacher said to me that a person like me couldn’t do that, and sent me to an insurance company, even though I had a place a college – and I believed him.

“I went to the insurance company and, after two months, I realised I’d done the wrong thing.”

Holman and other production creatives have launched membership organisation Screen Craft Guild Cymru to encourage the next generation who want to work in the industry as costume designers, make-up artists or production team members.

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