Three Items of Clothing

Historian Robert Seatter selects three more objects from the BBC’s archive store and tells the stories behind their creation.

What do they tell us about the changing history of the organisation and about the expansion of the media and the nation at large.

Robert’s choices are unexpected, revelatory and sometimes, with the cruel benefit of hindsight, funny.

In this selection, Robert unpacks three iconic items of clothing, created for both the fictional and the real world:

1) The WHITE LINEN SHIRT worn by Colin Firth as Mr Darcy in the famous lake scene in the 1995 Andrew Davies BBC TV production of ‘Pride and Prejudice’.

2) A FLAK JACKET designed to protect the wearer from high explosive weaponry especially shrapnel and worn by John Simpson, BBC World Affairs Editor, when accompanying a convoy of US Special forces and Kurdish fighters in Northern Iraq in April 2003.

3) THE BAKER BOY or Newsboy cap worn by the character Tommy Shelby played by Cillian Murphy in BBC TV’s 'Peaky Blinders'.

Sharing her insights into the designs and the role of the BBC as trendsetter and social influencer is fashion designer and The Great British Sewing Bee BBC TV judge, Esme Young.

Producer: Mohini Patel

Made to mark the BBC Centenary, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2022.