"On the bed lay the apple-green, watered-silk ball dress with its festoons of ecru lace, neatly packed in a large cardboard box. It was ready to be carried to Twelve Oaks to be donned before the dancing began, but Scarlett shrugged at the sight of it. If her plans were successful, she would not wear that dress tonight."
--Gone with the Wind, Chapter V
For me, one of the best things about working on this blog is that I have gained much richer appreciation of Margaret Mitchell and her staggering abilities as a researcher. Because the more research I do myself (with all kinds of easy, modern shortcuts available to me), the more amazed I am by MM's impeccable fidelity to historical details, not matter how small or how large.
This week's selection for Doppelganger Dresses is an excellent example of this. The quoted passage is just a little scrap of detail thrown into the narrative about Scarlett's preparation for the fateful Twelve Oaks barbeque. But even this small mention matches up with the historical record, as we've found a very lovely evening dress of the period that resembles Scarlett's own ball gown.
After the jump, you will find the fashion plate in question. It is taken from the January 1861 edition of Godey's Lady's Book, so just a little over three months prior to the barbeque. Check it out and let us know what you think. Do you feel that it matches up with the description in GWTW?
Description from Godey's Lady's Book: "Simple and elegant dress of green crape, over green silk; the bouffantes of the skirt, corsage, and sleeves caught up by ruches of white crape. Chatalaine of Cape Jessamine blossoms, without foliage; cluster of the same on the left of the skirt; drooping wreath to correspond, mixed with foliage."
After the jump, you will find the fashion plate in question. It is taken from the January 1861 edition of Godey's Lady's Book, so just a little over three months prior to the barbeque. Check it out and let us know what you think. Do you feel that it matches up with the description in GWTW?
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| Green evening dress, January 1861. From Godey's Lady's Book. |
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| Close up of the dress. |
I like it....Scarlett would have looked so tantalizing.
ReplyDeleteOh, yes! What a great post! Scarlett would've loved that dress! In the days when Scarlett lived at Tara the clothes she wore would've been made, not bought (by whom I'm not sure, we know Scarlett was a competent seamstress - she did wonders with the fabric Rhett brought her) and we also know that ladies read Godey's at the time. Im sure three months would be ample time to copy a design from the magazine. I hope my bitching hasn't nudged anyone in the direction of checking the month on fashion plates! I bet Scarlett would have been attracted to the turquoise dress too. I think that if you like green, you're probably going to like blue as well.
ReplyDeleteCan I just say it's wonderful to have a doppelganger again after that hideous scare the other day over the comments!
I never imaginned it that way though. The GWTW film team did actually execute the dress. There are shots and screen tests of Vivien wearing it. It's often inaccurately described as a different version of the barbecue dress, though it clearly matches the Book's description. If anyone has the same dvds as I do (which I imagine you would) you can see her wearing it at times with blue flowers in her tumbling hair, and also with the leghorn hat. I've never seen it from the waist down. That's how I imagined it. But I will now imagine it differently! And now that I've brought up tumbled hair, can I just say one of the things that really annoys me about the film? In the opening scenes Scarlett wears her hair down. The Book clearly states she is wearing her hair netted in a chignon in the opening scene and later Ellen comments that Carreen can put her hair up when she is fourteen. It was clearly a big step in a girl's life and I get the impression ladies only wore their hair down, or partially down, in the evening and that was closer to the 70s. I know it was to make 26 year old (Yay! My age!) Vivien look 16, but it annoys me just the same.
ReplyDeleteInteresting point about the dresses being made not bought. Another detail I would have never thought of on my own - Where did the dresses come from? Were all of them made at home using patterns? Did they go to like a city seamstress for at least some of them?
ReplyDeleteAs for the turquoise dress, I am sorry but that dress makes me laugh every time. It looks like tufts of grass are growing out of it!
I have no idea about her dress in the movie. I would love to see pictures of it. But I was just thinking the same thing about hairdos. Good observation about Carreen and her desire to wear her hair up!
ReplyDeleteWell, now! How can you say such a thing! Scarlett loved the garden and foliage and wearing flowers in her hair! Anyway, no need to fall out over trivia!
ReplyDeleteOn the buying/making issue. I have been thinking about it and am pretty sure the majority would've been made. Scarlett tears up her linen petticoat which sounds like a pretty detailed and intricate garment, and she even laboured on it for a long time or something. When Scarlett tears down the curtains the ladies of the house gather in the dining room and it is made overnight. They certainly knew how to create garments. If a lady couldn't sew, she was nothing. Might as well become a lady of the night! And because they all had different shapes, it was much more difficult for clothes to be store-bought. I think it's more likely that when they went to Atlanta they bought dress-lengths, bonnets, shawls, coats/cloaks, gloves, shoes and jewellery.
I agree with you Bugsie, Margaret Mitchell must've been amazing. I've been researching fashion plates too lately, and I've found so many things that vividly spring to mind as MM's descriptions. She must've seen things and really held on.
Last night (after a few) I water-coloured a couple of fashion plates I printed off, including that wedding one with the fringed silk I liked (from ages ago) and the jockey feather hat. They look really cool and I will post them next week if anyone is interested. I tried to incorporate my vision of Scarlett, though some of the shades of green are off, because I'm a novice and I didn't always stay in the lines, because I was drunk.
Can I also ask, re jade green watered silk party dress. How do all you other nutters interpret jade? Because there are several types. I always favoured pale jade.
When I turned 21 my friends gave me the 65th anniversary four disc set. One of the discs has a long documentary on the making of GWTW and it includes these shots. It also has screen tests of different actresses and it intersperses the same same scene. Quite cool. Don't know what they were thinking with some of them though. It's the dressing for barbecue scene. There are different Mammys. I like that VL and HMcD are together.
ReplyDelete"Scarlett stood in her apple-green "second-day" dress in the parlor of Twelve Oaks..."
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this is the same dress as her ball gown? After all, how many apple green dresses can one girl have? I'm sure even Scarlett would have realized the color would have become overdone.
On another note, I'm sure Scarlett had a whole new trousseau made for her when she married Charles. Do you think it was all died black when he died?
Er, dyed was what I meant... ;)
ReplyDeleteLOL, don't worry, I was just kidding with the dress. I am sure young ladies would have loved it. And after all, Plunkett had Scarlett wear a dress with birds on it, so a little grass is nothing :P
ReplyDeleteIt makes sense for them to make their dresses, yeah. That scene when they make Scarlett's dress out of the curtains came to my mind as well. They must have been pretty good if they managed to have the entire thing done in a few hours!
As for water-colored fashion plates, I think you've anticipated my fashion-plate wall joke :P You *must* post them. It's actually a cool project. I won't take it up myself, though, because I am blessed with 2 left hands.
As for the jade green, it was probably pale, but I like to imagine it darker b/c I don't really like pale green. I think the color of the other version of Plunkett's party dress is pretty close to how I envisioned it. Don't know if that still qualifies as green.
Yes, certainly. I have always read it as the same dress. It was her new dress. She loved it. She didn't get to wear it that night. So she wore it two weeks later. Set your mind at ease.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree. She wouldn't have overdone it in green. We know her best dresses of Spring 1861 were green plaid, black with lace (before she was widowed), rose pink and lavender (which she wanted to give to Carren - another clue that the baby O'Hara had a blue/purple pallette).
Yes, I think the trousseau (glad you mentioned it first and I didn't have to spell it on my own) was probably still being produced when news of Charles' death arrived. Ellen would've known it was inappropriate for Scarlett to continue wearing her belle dresses. And I get the impression they would've been too detailed to be worn by a widow in deep mourning. I think they would've been put in the cupboard and a new widow trousseau was made. I think Scarlett would've modernised them in 1863 when she came out of mourning.
Oh good observation! It could have been the same dress and what an irony then, that the dress she was sure she would not be wearing at the ball because she would have already eloped with Ashley would be the dress she wears to his wedding.
ReplyDeleteAs for the trousseau, I don't know how extended it would have been, considering the short span of time between the engagement and the wedding itself. But yes, I imagine it would have been dyed when Charles died. But wouldn't some of the dresses be ornate, like the ones above, making them improper for a widow, even dyed?
But how would she get them to Atlanta to modernize them? I suppose her old belle clothes would be at Tara and she would have trouble explaining why she needs them.
ReplyDeleteThis actually raises an interesting question. Did Ellen know Scarlett abandoned mourning? Or did she still wear black when she went to Tara?
Oh, no problem, but if you want, you can go back and edit your posts in disqus after they are posted.
ReplyDeleteCan you get spell-check on these comments?
ReplyDeleteYes, I mentioned that before. Remember, she visited Tara reasonably regularly, and what she did in her own bedroom was her own business. I can't imagine Ellen inspecting her trunk before she left. I feel she would have had some black in her post mourning wardrobe (she had plenty of black dresses and would've altered them, remember she was approaching her third year, and it would've been acceptable for her to wear grey and have trimmed black gowns), so I don't think it would've been strange for her to suddenly put on black to catch the train home. And I think people travelled in more subdued colours.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Ellen knew the extent of it, but I think Ellen did.
You don't have spell-check in the comment form when you type? I do have it here; it underlines my misspelled words in red.
ReplyDeleteSorry, Mammy
ReplyDeleteWell, for one thing, I can't imagine the ladies from Atlanta not writing to Ellen about something like that. It's odd that even though Scarlett laments in advance of what a scandal her dropping mourning would be, we don't actually get to see that scandal and she's still accepted in society.
ReplyDeleteLOL, I can't believe you just called me that. You might have just earned yourself serious brownie points with iso :P
ReplyDeleteThe bird dress is among my favourites. Must be a reflection of my garish taste!
ReplyDeletenot at all...
ReplyDeleteHmmm. Valid point. But after Gerald's drunken night in Atlanta, Scarlett feels certain she can do what she pleases now. I guess if it was Mrs Merriwether who originally wrote Ellen, she saw that there was no reaction and felt she was interfering and stepped back. Maybe people held Ellen with slightly less respect because there were no apparent repurcussions from the incident.
ReplyDeleteSocial rules were definately relaxed during the war.
Hmm...Well, I now wonder if other people have it, so it's an option in Disqus that you have to select or sth, or if perhaps my browser does the spell checking.
ReplyDeleteI must get off the computer and out of my kimono before I get epilepsy. Thanks for a highly entertaining morning. Enjoy the weekend!
ReplyDeleteThanks, you too!
ReplyDeleteYes, they probably would have been, especially considering she would have been going to live with Charles in Atlanta (I'm assuming).
ReplyDeleteI actually don't think there was ever an open intention of Scarlett going to live in Atlanta any time during the war. I get the idea that Pitty wrote and virtually begged Ellen to send her. Scarlett only went because she was suffering from PPD and found Tara, Charleston and Savannah boring.
ReplyDeleteOh, I assumed what Andrew meant was a scenario in which Charles lived/the war was over soon (like everyone supposed would happen at that point). Then yes, Scarlett would have probably went to live with her husband in Atlanta and needed to have dresses adequate for that.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing about your fashion plate. To me, you could have a cross section of Scarlett's April 1861 wardrobe. If th dark dress was done in black bombazine it would match the description of the frock with princess lace collar Scarlett was originally going to wear to the barbecue, and with a few alterations, the seated model in stripes could match the barred lavender muslin. Looking forward to finding the green plaid taffeta.
ReplyDeleteI have an idea that being only 1920s MM might've had a better chance of getting her hands on actual copies of Godey's, seeing as they were only 60 years old. Probably at flea markets.
I concur with Bugsie- you absolutely must post your water-colored fashion plates! They sound so lovely. Also, can I just say how nice it is to come back from an evening away and find 30(!) comments waiting on the blog? I love it!
ReplyDeleteHere's my take on the jade-colored dress: when I think of jade, I immediately think of a darker, richer green. But there is also light green jade, of course, and I think this would probably have been Scarlett's selection. She was so partially to shades of light green.
Also, MM earlier describes Scarlett's famous green bonnet as "lined with water silk of a pale-jade color" and the description of Scarlett's surprise dress is very similar: "her new jade-green watered-silk dress." So in my mind, I can see this dress as being a similar shade to the bonnet lining.
How right you are, sir! Bugsie is the embodiment of Mammy. :P
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've also wondered what MM's access to Godey's/other ladies' fashion magazines would have been. My guess is that she would have been familiar with them. I know when Plunkett came to Atlanta to conduct his research, she directed him to several Atlanta matrons who had old dresses, patterns, designs, etc. in their possession. From that, it seems plausible to think that old editions of fashion magazines were collected and/or generally known about in Atlanta circles. So I suspect that MM would have seen them, giving her strong interest in everything related to the antebellum/Civil War period.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the hair being up. And remember, when goes to Atlanta and Uncle Peter meets her at the station she recalls that Charles had told her all about how Peter had practically raised him and Melanie. Uncle Peter was the one who had told Melanie when she was allowed to put up her hair. So it was a big deal. I'm guessing akin to when girls nowadays are allowed to start wearing makeup.
ReplyDeleteI can't find a way to edit my comment, but obviously I meant when Scarlett goes to Atlanta.
ReplyDeleteGood point. And I deleted your second comment b/c your name showed up in it ;)
ReplyDeleteYes, that was what I meant.
ReplyDeleteI think it depends on what browser you have.
ReplyDelete