Fashion has a social role. What we wear tells people a lot about who we are, or who we want others to think we are. The time span of the BBC costume drama Downton Abbey encompasses some of the most momentous social upheaval in British and American society, and the show’s costumers have worked hard to use the costumes to define character and to illustrate the place in society that the characters occupy.  Join cultural historian Madelyn Shaw,Curator of Textiles for The Smithsonian Institution, for a look at where--sartorially-- the Grantham family, their servants, and their social circle have been and where they are heading as we wait for season 6. Feel free to dress for the occasion!