No more black dress for lady’s maid Anna

Over the years on Downton Abbey, Anna the lady’s maid has had her highs and lows — from finding love to being thrown in jail for a crime she didn’t commit. Only one thing has remained unchanged: her outfit.

The dowdy black uniform has been a constant in nearly 50 episodes since the hit ITV drama began in 2010. The sixth and final season has begun airing in Britain. North American viewers will have to wait for January 2016 for the season to air on PBS. Readers may find spoilers below.

Actress Joanne Froggatt has admitted she cannot wait to see the back of her maid costume.

The 35-year-old is so sick of wearing it that she has all but banished black from her daily wardrobe. “I used to love wearing black at home but I’ve noticed I don’t so much since Downton,” Froggatt says.

In an interview in the British magazine Stella, accompanied by photographs in which she wears striking bright colours, Froggatt says she loves clothes by Victoria Beckham and Mulberry — much to the surprise of viewers she encounters.

“I quite enjoy the low level of expectation in terms of how I look,” she says. “It’s always nice when people meet me and they go, ‘Oh, my goodness, isn’t she lovely?’ rather than, ‘Oh, God, she looks awful.’ ”

By contrast, the actresses who play the aristocratic Crawley sisters — Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary) and Laura Carmichael (Lady Edith) — wear beautiful costumes in every scene, but often go unrecognized in their off-duty wear. Carmichael said she can still go out in public without attracting attention because she looks so different in ordinary clothes.

There is one advantage to having such a limited on-set wardrobe, Froggatt says. “We barely had to do any costume fittings. We’d get two dresses at the beginning of the (season) and that would be that for six months of shooting. Whereas (Dockery, Carmichael) and the others were going in for hours and hours of costume fittings.”