Beatrix Aruna Pasztor’s Regency-esque costumes for 2004’s Vanity Fair, as well as 2012’s Great Expectations, are very distinguishable by the aesthetic of starkly uni-colored but otherwise mostly unadorned columns of shiny shot or dupioni silks for outer garments. So, even when reused, the costumes are very distinct.

This burgundy red coat-and-trousers combo was first seen -separately – on Gabriel Byrne as a vampy Marquess of Steyne in the 2004 adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. The coat, originally a long coat, appears to have been altered into a tailcoat for the 2012 Great Expectations. David Walliams wore this particular coat as Mr. Pumblechook. The coat went on to party hard and ended up dissolute on August Diehl in Confessions of a Child of the Century only a little later that very same year.

From there, it went back again, so to speak, to Vanity Fair—this time on Jos Sedley played by David Fynn, for 2018’s television adaptation. The tailcoat eventually danced through the London Ball on entrepreneur and showman Tom Parker, played by Kris Marshall, in the sixth episode of the 2019 first season of Sanditon.

We will be sure to post the second coat and the matching pants in future!

What do you think of this costume’s journey? Comment below!