Sense and Sensibility 2026: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Galliano in the Rain and the Austen Film Dressed for Real Life

Every couple of decades Britain hands Jane Austen a new camera. Every time, somebody asks whether we really needed another one. This weekend American audiences gave a polite but clear answer. Sense and Sensibility, the new adaptation starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, opened in US cinemas on October 16 and took 7.2 million dollars from 2,545 theaters, good for fifth place. The weekend belonged to a video game, as weekends now often do: Street Fighter landed at number one with about 31 million dollars. Somewhere Marianne Dashwood is composing a sonnet about it.

But box office is only half the story here. The other half is hanging on the actors. Their wardrobe is one of the more interesting costume jobs a period film has done in years.

A new Elinor, a new Marianne and a very familiar shadow

The film is directed by Georgia Oakley, whose debut Blue Jean won her a following on the festival circuit, with a screenplay by Australian novelist Diana Reid. Working Title produced it, Focus Features released it in the US and Universal handles the rest of the world. Edgar-Jones plays Elinor, the sister who holds everything together. Esmé Creed-Miles plays Marianne, the sister who feels everything at full volume. Caitríona Balfe is their mother, George MacKay plays Edward Ferrars, Frank Dillane is Willoughby and Herbert Nordrum is Colonel Brandon. Fiona Shaw plays Mrs. Jennings, a performance RogerEbert.com calls riotous, which anyone who has watched her in Killing Eve will find completely unsurprising.

The shadow, of course, is 1995. Ang Lee’s version gave you Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman, plus an Oscar for Thompson’s screenplay. It is the kind of film people rewatch with a blanket and a cup of tea. The new one knows that and does not try to replicate it. Critics have mostly responded kindly: on Rotten Tomatoes the film sits at 76 percent from 101 reviews, while audiences give it 88 percent. The consensus line is roughly that it does not top earlier adaptations but has a wistful identity of its own. For an Austen film, that is not a bad review. That is practically a proposal.

Why 7.2 million dollars is not a disaster

On paper, fifth place sounds modest. In context it looks more respectable. Rotten Tomatoes’ weekend analysis pointed out that the 1995 film opened in just 70 theaters with about 721,000 dollars and went on to gross more than 43 million on the back of word of mouth and awards attention. Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice from 2005 made about 7 million in its third weekend after expanding to 1,299 theaters and finished at 38.4 million.

The difference is the release strategy. The new film went wide straight away, which gives you a bigger first weekend but less time to build buzz. The same analysis puts the production budget at 25 million dollars and expects the domestic total to finish below that figure. International markets and streaming will decide whether this one ends up as a quiet success or a beautiful footnote. The film opened in the UK in late September after a premiere in London’s Leicester Square on September 15.

Galliano in the rain and paparazzi in the parlour

Here is where it gets interesting for anyone who reads fashion history for fun. Costume designer Grace Snell told Marie Claire that her references went far beyond Regency fashion plates. The structured jackets paired with voluminous skirts take cues from Japanese avant-garde design, specifically Rei Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto. Snell named Comme des Garçons’ 1994 Metamorphosis collection as an influence.

Then there is the rain. Austen fans know how weather works in this story: when Marianne gets caught in the rain, it leads either to a handsome stranger or to a dangerous fever. For this film Snell looked at John Galliano’s 1986 Fallen Angels collection, famous for its wet, clinging muslin. She told Marie Claire it was “really inspiring” to see how fabric reacts with water. Her team used a nearly weightless cotton that turns translucent when wet. In other words, a Galliano show from the 1980s now informs some of literature’s most famous wet weather.

The third reference is the most surprising: candid paparazzi shots of celebrities from the 2010s, with layered scarves and coffee cups in hand. Snell wanted the sisters to look loosely put together, dressed for real life rather than for a portrait. Historically, the film also shifts its fashion lens to the late 1790s instead of the early 1800s favoured by most adaptations. You will notice fewer bonnets and more loose hair, a choice that will delight some viewers and make certain costume purists clutch their reticules.

Clothes that tell you who has money left

The costume logic also follows the plot. The Dashwood women lose their home and most of their income early in the story. You can see it in their wardrobes. Elinor wears practical clothes. One of her lavender dresses is remade from an earlier gown into a slimmer, more practical shape. Snell’s guiding question for her was simple: “How does this serve me to get me through the day?” Marianne gets the ribbons, lace, sashes and embroidered stockings, plus a mourning look in yellow. Her romantic styling was partly inspired by a 1782 painting of Emma Hamilton as Circe.

And then there is the sibling rule that anyone with a sister will recognise. Marianne borrows from Elinor’s wardrobe while Elinor slowly picks up some of her sister’s ease. “They kind of lean in and borrow from each other,” Snell said. She was careful not to let them simply swap personalities, though: “We don’t want them to flip.”

Why this matters beyond Austen fans

Period dramas have become one of the most reliable trend engines in fashion. Bridgerton put empire waists and corsetry back into mainstream shops. The regencycore wave never fully receded. What this Sense and Sensibility suggests is a different direction: less frosting, more texture, history filtered through the way people actually dress today. If you have been layering a scarf over an oversized jacket while holding a coffee, you are, it turns out, accidentally dressed like a Dashwood.

Whether the film builds the long word-of-mouth tail its 1995 predecessor enjoyed is still open. What is already clear is that the wardrobe gives it a reason to exist next to a classic. Austen wrote about women who had to make very little go a very long way. A costume department that remakes dresses and borrows from the archive of Galliano and Kawakubo seems to have understood that better than most.