Ray Holman, Rivals costume designer, on perfecting 80s style

A Disney+ smash hit based off Jilly Cooper's 1988 novel of the same name, Rivals is a show about big ambitions in the media, notably at fictional production company Corinium, bigger hair-dos and even bigger trousers.

With an extremely well cast (David Tennant, Aidan Turner, Emily Atack, Danny Dyer, Victoria Smurfit et al) ensemble by the producers (Felicity Blunt among them), it meant getting one of the best costume designers in town on board to portray each unique character in a special way that respected the Eighties norms. Ray Holman was the man for the job, having done the dressing for Doctor Who, Broadchurch and Fleabag.

The costumes, alongside the acting and plot twists, are what make this show so special. It nostalgically harkens back to the late Eighties when Britain was in its golden age, and we get a snapshot of Cotswolds high life. There's Tennant in power suits worthy of a vintage Armani ad as he clings onto this throne, and then there's Nafessa Williams, who gives boardroom dressing a sexed-up, new age American twist. Emily Atack (when dressed) is every man's favourite housewife, while Lizzie Vereker is the dowdy wife with a strong ambition.

We sat down with Holman to discuss how he brought the characters, from David Tennant's Tony Baddingham, the station controller at fictional Corinium, to Aidan Turner's Declan O'Hara to life with realism.

Where did you begin with the inspiration?

We looked at original source material from the period which meant dipping into my collection of magazines including Vogue, Cosmopolitan, The Face, ID and various interiors magazines I have in my collection. Also, many fashion and etiquette books like The Gentleman which I gave to my team to read during filming. We used libraries, the internet and any specialist accessories publications. I have a large collection of costume books and magazines which I started collecting when I started work in 1984. We also printed loads of images from the 80’s and covered the office walls with them so we could show actors, directors, executives the feeling of the time. Also, we looked through original collections at all the costume hire companies to see what was there and in good condition, we hired anything relevant to our scripts that was still wearable especially for the supporting artists, the world of Rivals is a heavily populated one. 

How closely did you follow the book in terms of characterisation?

We partly followed the book, that was our original source reference point but also were led by the scripts and our lovely executives would guide me about what we really wanted to reference from the book, so there is direct reference throughout, and we also added and interpreted some things to suit our actors in character.

Which characters were most fun to dress?

To be honest it was all fun, but we had a lovely time designing, copying and reproducing a lot of the women’s clothes especially the things worn at parties and events. I have a love of tailoring, and it was brilliant to work with our tailor Chris Kerr on the bespoke and ready-made suits for the men as we went through the series. Knitwear figures a lot in the book, and it was great finding garments that could be worn on our Cotchester Round Up programme within the series and we designed some specific ones like the bunny jumper for Daysee, the Mohair jumpers and our weathergirl one which adds a bit of wit to the story, these were made for us in Wales by Corgi Knitwear. I loved dressing Cameron (who we found a lot of original designer pieces we could use for her, but also and equally loved doing Tony’s clothes for David Tennant which were all bespoke.

All the characters are so different and clearly defined that there was pleasure in dressing them all.

How does Aidan Turner's character Declan O'Hara's clothes paint a picture of his character?

Declan, played by Aidan starts our series working for the BBC, a ready-made suit in grey, his personal clothes are masculine, unpretentious and a nod to working fabrics with the corduroy jacket, Irish tweed jackets and check shirts. By the time he’s presenting his show at Corinium he’s wearing a bespoke suit (from original 80’s fabric) and his characteristic yellow socks from the book. So, he has clearly defined lines between his on-screen persona and his off screen through the clothes he wears.

And what about David Tennant's character and then Danny Dyers?

Tony, played by David Tennant is described in the book as admiring Bugsy Malone and basing his suits on the chalk stripe suits in that, slightly gangster, bullish and yet bespoke and expensive. He’s insecure about his status and wears everything including tie pins, cufflinks and sleeve suspenders, more is more for Tony.

Freddie played by Danny Dyer is also self-made, he’s clever and his clothes are a mixture of what Valerie buys for him and his slightly shiny business suits that he needs to wear for meetings, he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to technology. I love his period polo shirts in modern fabrics and his digital watch, he’s a true rounded caring human and that shows through his clothes.

Were there any challenges with the costumes?

The challenges were to get the colour pallet and feel for the series right. We wanted colour but not primary colour, we wanted shoulder pads but only when needed and more than anything I wanted it to be grounded. Our characters live in The Cotswolds, they range from a Lord and Lady through to the family who wait, clean and serve them and, we have the workers at the TV station. The other thing I needed was for it all to look natural especially for Rupert, effortless on everyone. Hopefully the Supporting Artists do just that, they paint the period without jumping out of the screen. Every episode has a different “big event” in it and those were really challenging because they are all so varied ranging from the garden party through to the end debate via a beauty pageant, I think we managed to make them all suitably different and yet still very British.

What did you enjoy most about doing the Rivals costumes?

I enjoyed revisiting my 20’s while doing Rivals, I lived it and so it was a great privilege to represent it through a modern lens and I really enjoyed the broad range of costumes we were able to explore from the television workers at Corinium to the hunt and the Spanish episode.

How did you source the watches? And what does each one say about the characters?

This answer is a big one. I have a great friend called Natalia Georgiadou who is a specialist in providing wardrobe services for productions. She put me in touch with Omega and Longines and they were really keen to help and sent a choice of watches to use from Switzerland. The main thought was they needed to exist during or before the period. We did the same with sunglasses and Ray-Ban helped us so much. Lord Tony Baddingham (David Tennant) has a flashy watch, while Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) has a leather strapped Longines, not showy but clearly expensive and tasteful.

Lizzie Vereker (Katherine Parkinson) bought her Omega watch as a gift to herself when her first novel was published and loves it. Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner) has a ‘personal watch’ and a ‘show watch’, the show watch looks a bit more flashy, masculine.

Freddie Jones (Danny Dyer) has a gold Timex digital that displays his love of technology and all things futuristic, but is cast in gold as a symbol of new money. Lady Monica Baddingham (Claire Rushbrook) has a ‘day watch’ which is an old military watch by Rolex from WW1 and her ‘dress watch’ is an Edwardian rose gold inlayed with mother of pearl. Both are from my collection and both show her love of antiques and her old money childhood.

Charles Fairburn (Gary Lamont) is most likely wearing his father’s watch which isn’t that old, but it comforts him especially as he’s taking care of his mother who is suffering from memory loss. James Vereker (Oliver Chris) has a gold and flashy watch like him, it’s just a bit vain…

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