BY ALEXANDRA FREAN 
MEDIA CORRESPONDENT 

THE success of the BBC's dramatisation of Pride and Prejudice last year has led to a war of words between the corporation's costume department and the bra manufacturer Berlei. 

Will Wyatt, managing director of BBC Network Television, yesterday set the record straight between the two by quashing claims from the lingerie company that its products had been responsi ble for "giving a lift" to the "eye-catching cleavage" of the actresses in the series. A Berlei press release had to be hastily corrected. 

Addressing a conference held by the consumer group The Voice of the Viewer and Listener, Mr Wyatt said that the BBC's designers had been affronted by Berlei's claim. The attire worn by the Bennet sisters had been painstakingly recreated using authentic methods. 

Noting that "the quality of production and the audience figures are not the only things which stood out in Pride and Prejudice", and displaying an impressive knowledge of lingerie, Mr Wyatt added: "Any support for the actresses came from the historically authentic soft corset, or, on occasion, by the Empire line ties under muslin. A modern bra would have completely ruined the line." 

A sheepish spokeswoman for Berlei acknowledged that the company had been wrong to claim it had made the bras used in the series. "We cor rected the error as soon as it was pointed out to us," she said. She added, however, that Berlei's Bustier bra was able to recreate the lift given to the Bennet girls in Pride and Prejudice, "without the necessity of wearing a corset". 

A gentleman to the end, Mr Wyatt said it would be churlish not to acknowledge the contribution to the Pride and Prejudice cleavage phenomenon from the actresses themselves, including Susannah Harker, Julia Sawalha and Jennifer Ehle

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