The designer chose rich colors and exotic fabric for Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst to indicate that the two sisters were, as Jane Austen put it, "very fine ladies... but proud and conceited... in the habit of spending more than they ought." Their dresses contrast with the unassuming cotton muslins of the middle-class Bennet girls who were unable to afford such finery. They are examples of how costumes can define a character's station in life.

In contrast to the richer fabrics and colors of eighteenth-century formal wear (as in Jefferson in Paris), plain dark wools had become de rigeurer for elegant Regency coats. Although breeches for evening wear were usually light-colored, these black ones are more in keeping with Darcy's brooding image.