IMAGES: Classic Agatha Christie costumes show in Harrogate

Harrogate’s Royal Pump Room Museum is giving fans of vintage fashion and classic crime fiction the chance to relive the mystery and intrigue of Agatha Christie’s most famous thrillers.
Emily Blunt in ITV's Poirot - Death on the Nile from 2004. Image: ITV/REXEmily Blunt in ITV's Poirot - Death on the Nile from 2004. Image: ITV/REX
Emily Blunt in ITV's Poirot - Death on the Nile from 2004. Image: ITV/REX

A new exhibition launched this Saturday entitled Dressed to Kill will present an evocative display of costumes created for film and television adaptations of Agatha Christie’s novels.

Curator Nicola Baxter said: “The Dressed to Kill exhibition celebrates Harrogate’s link with Agatha Christie herself as well as the era in which the dramas are set.

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“The Harrogate costume collection includes a great selection of costume from the 1900s to the 1930s, the period in which the popular crime dramas are set.”

Emily Blunt in ITV's Poirot - Death on the Nile from 2004. Image: ITV/REXEmily Blunt in ITV's Poirot - Death on the Nile from 2004. Image: ITV/REX
Emily Blunt in ITV's Poirot - Death on the Nile from 2004. Image: ITV/REX

Costumes on show range from Hercule Poirot’s dapper suit and the gloriously glamorous silk gown of a passenger from Murder on the Orient Express to Miss Marple’s sensible tweeds.

The show also offers the opportunity to take a closer look at the detailing of outfits worn in classic films such as Death on the Nile, and includes the white silk mix suit worn by Bette Davis in the 1978 film in which she played the elderly kleptomanic Mrs. van Schuyler - as well as the brown harem pants outfit worn by Angela Lansbury the eccentric novelist Salome Otterbourne.

The show has been put together after a great deal of research into the evolution of Agatha Christie adaptations from decades ago to more recent productions.

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For example, it is believed that a dress worn by actress Emily Blunt in a recent ITV version of Death on the Nile, made of fine and fragile soft chiffon fabric may have also featured in one of the Agatha Christie films of the late 70s and early 80s.

Dressed to Kill runs until December 31.

The Royal Pump Room Museum opens Monday to Saturday from 10.30am-5pm.

More information at www.harrogate.gov.uk/royalpumproommuseum