OSCAR-WINNING COSTUME STARS CELEBRATE 60 YEARS IN SHOWBIZ

TUCKED behind an unassuming bottle green door on North London's Holloway Road is a treasure trove of jewellery, hats, dresses and shoes that have graced the bodies of Britain's and Hollywood's brightest stars.

- BY EMMELINE SAUNDERS

For 60 years, Cosprop has been providing beautiful theatrical costumes to TV, theatre and film productions, and the owner counts some of the UK's top names as repeat customers, and personal friends.

Now a new exhibition at London's Fashion and Textile Museum shines the spotlight on this sparkling gem of British creativity. The costumier, run by 85-year-old John Bright, is responsible for some of the most iconic onscreen costumes, including Helena Bonham Carter's Oscar-winning frocks in A Room with a View and Meryl Streep's white silk wedding suit in Out of Africa.

It has designed period costumes for films and TV series from Downton Abbey to The Duchess, The Pianist and Napoleon and the upcoming Wuthering Heights remake starring Margot Robbie.

They also dressed Dame Maggie Smith - who "hates the colour green," says John - for ITV's Downton Abbey.

The Cosprop office is part archive, part atelier, where skilled seamstresses and tailors painstakingly handstitch beautiful garments that may only be shown fleetingly on screen in a single scene.

It specialises in period costume, stretching from the 18th Century right up to the 1960s, and everything from cotton bonnets to 1920s-style brogues can be hired by film crews.

For people in the know, it is the go-to costumier for all their needs.

"Helena Bonham Carter's been in many, many times," says manager Chris Garlick, as he shows us around the dressing rooms where masquerade masks and dressmaking pins jostle for space on tabletops.

"Room With A View was her first big break so she absolutely loves John.