A better title for this post might be An Excuse to Share Costume Porn. I mean look at this:
Sometimes I think if it wasn’t for costume dramas, we’d have convinced ourselves that Victorians dressed entirely in sepia tones. One of my favorite parts of researching the Victorian era has been discovering all the amazing and colorful clothes wealthy women wore.
When I started writing, I had no idea how character development could dictate costume or how useful descriptions of clothing could be for conveying small nuances of character.
Before I get into specifics, I want to note that I almost never use just one image to help me describe clothing (or for that matter faces). Half the fun for readers is using their imagination and I don’t think they particularly like to be told “No, this is what that dress/face really looks like.” But I like to use visual aids while I’m writing. It helps me keep things historically accurate and reminds me that my male protagonist will never unzip my heroine’s dress.
In the prologue of my first manuscript Ruled by Desire, my heroine Francesca is young enough that she’s still being told what to wear by her guardians. Hence these otherwise out of character inspirations:
The scene is in the hero James’s point of view. Pretty though the dress is meant to be, he takes a dim view:
“Rows of white ruffles covered her from neck to ankle. All that fabric obscured her figure, but she might be hiding a decent bosom under there for all he knew … She was a perfect debutante. Girls like her thronged the ballrooms of London during the season. If he discovered they assembled them in a factory somewhere, he’d feel only mild surprise.”
The description of the dress is brief but it tells us that Francesca is following convention when it comes to her wardrobe, something that has changed by the time we meet her again:
“She’d cast aestheticism aside for less practical attire, taming and restraining her unruly curves. The ruby-red silk, though vivid and unashamed like its wearer, revealed no more than was proper. He saw a hint of upper arm bracketed by short sleeves and long white gloves, and the gentle swell of her décolletage almost always concealed behind the black feathers of her fan. She didn’t go out of her way to display herself, but she disdained to hide.”
This red dress is one of the few times I didn’t use something from the era as my guide. Instead I used this costume from The Age of Innocence:
I’ve loved this costume since I saw the movie back when it first came out.
As for James himself:
“He put a clean handkerchief into her hand. “Take care of it. It’s very fashionable.”
She tried to smile, but it came out wobbly. “A fashionable handkerchief? I never heard of such a thing.” She accepted the small white square and unfolded it. His valet must have slipped it into his pocket this morning. Four neat creases divided it into precise quarters. So much care taken over something insignificant.”
James is rich and privileged, from a set and rank that take fashion very seriously. But whereas an aristocrat might be socially prominent enough to flout the rules, James, as a mere gentleman, must make sure he dresses the right way. We also see how puzzling and trivial all this seems to Francesca.
One of my favorite items that I found was this brooch:
Isn’t it awful?
In my story, it belongs to James’s aunt, Mrs. Price.
““What an extraordinary brooch,” he said, after he’d taken a sip of tea. Actually brooch didn’t seem the right word for what was in fact the stuffed and severed head of a hummingbird, its beak dipped in gold, pinned to the breast of her lemon yellow gown. It must have been a beautiful creature once. Even now, its feathers shone red and gold in the light.
“You like Freddy, do you?” She stroked the bird under his chin, pursing her lips in thought.
Mrs. Price isn’t an out an out villain, but she’s extremely selfish. It doesn’t occur to her that there’s anything cruel or macabre about this bit of jewelry. She sees nothing inconsistent in her naming of the dead bird. Similarly, when she commits a cruelty, it never occurs to her that she might be in the wrong or that there’s any other point of view.
Poor Freddy. Since I can’t bring myself to end the post on that image, here’s a quick slideshow of dresses that I loved that didn’t make it into the story.
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(All images via Pinterest)
Julia Bennet 