The Hour is Nigh

Let me tell you about a BBC drama production, especially for those of you who live outside the UK.

It is called The Hour and it is set in the late 1950s around a news and current affairs programme at BBC's Television House, London, called, funny enough, The Hour. The second series is currently on our screens at the moment and to be perfectly honest with you I'm not too sure of the story lines - I only watch it for the clothes!

Beautiful late 1950 fashions - pencil skirts, suits, wide-legged trousers, hats, cocktail dresses, full skirted dresses - it's fabulous.


 I'm not even too sure about the characters' names, but on the left is the foreign affairs correspondent who wears trousers (shocking) and shirts, just like my Katherine Hepburn inspiration for SWAP 13. No one messes with her: her wit is rapid and her put-downs relentless.

Beside her is the heroine of the series - the producer of the The Hour. Her clothes are what I'd like my wardrobe to look like and she wears these fitted dresses and stilettos with such ease and comfort while trying to get a television programme on the air and the presenter is in prison and such dilemmas ruin her day. She comes to work in her emerald green cocktail dress from the night before and changes in the office into this amazing blue fitted suit with yellow silk blouse. That's the type of life she leads.










I managed to get some crappy screen shots this week to show you the clothes.

The protagonist is the main presenter of the The Hour - his name is Hector - who is public schooled, well connected, served as an officer in the recent WWII, married money but is a womaniser, alcoholic and not very dependable. However, his long suffering wife has the most glamourous wardrobe you've ever seen.

And  just where have we seen this dress before?

Oh, it's Vogue vintage 1043 and look, here I am wearing it too. Even if I say so myself - I think mine fits better

Then Hector has a bit of a fling with a younger woman and she is bringing the start of the glamour of the very early '60s into the show.


















And there's this other journalist, Freddie, who has married a French girl and she is introducing the easy, relaxed and casual fashion from Europe - short hair, skinny pants, big shirts, but I couldn't get a picture of her and her style. She looks like and dresses like Audrey Hepburn - my other SWAP 13 inspiration!

In typical BBC style the show covers heavy social issues like racial discrimination; high level corruption in the government and police; the pressure of a current affairs TV show and so on. It is not as superficial as Mad Men bed hopping and as bucolic as Downton Abbey but could well match both of these for costume design.

I have one tiny gripe though - INVISIBLE ZIPS!