Happy Birthday, Margaret Mitchell!

November is the month for Gone with the Wind birthdays. Margaret Mitchell was born on this day in 1900.  Happy birthday to our favorite author! 

Rue de la Paix

In honor of her birthday yesterday, this week's collage celebrates the one and only Vivien Leigh. 

Vivien Leigh's colors by ¤annieann¤ featuring pink sandals

Doppelganger Dresses, Part 10: Ellen O'Hara's Opening Scene Dress

Today's entry for Doppelganger Dresses comes to us courtesy of reader MCM84, who discovered a wonderful lookalike dress for the first costume Ellen O'Hara wears in GWTW (dark blue dress with black trim and buttons).

Check it out, along with a special bonus, after the jump. And many thanks to MCM84 for his great find and his graciousness in sharing it with us!

Happy Birthday, Vivien Leigh!

Vivien Leigh would have celebrated her 97th birthday today. Happy birthday to one of the most talented and beautiful actresses to have ever graced the silver screen.


Image from fanpop.com.



Poster of the Week

This Italian poster (date unknown) features a vibrantly colored depiction of Rhett and Scarlett's famous embrace at Rough and Ready. 

 Image from http://www.movieposterdb.com.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween to our readers! We recognize that many of our non-American readers might not celebrate the holiday, but whether you celebrate it or not, we hope you all enjoy our look at some GWTW-era Halloween traditions, along with a special slideshow of fancy dress fashion plates.   

Let's get things started. Back in the day, Halloween was celebrated more in the British Isles than on the U.S. side of the Atlantic. The handy Godey's Lady's Book explains more in this October 1872 essay about Halloween customs on both sides of the pond:

About the day itself there is nothing in any wise peculiar or worthy of notice, but since time almost immemorial All Hallow Eve, or Halloween, has formed the subject theme of fireside chat and published story. There is, perhaps, no night in the year which the popular imagination of the Old World has stamped with a more peculiar character than the evening of the 31st of October…

There is a remarkable uniformity in the fireside customs of this night throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Nuts and apples are everywhere in requisition, and are consumed in immense numbers. From this fact the name of “Nutcrack Night” has often been applied, especially by the people of the north of England… But the grand sport of Halloween is the “ducking.” A number of apples are placed in a tub of water, and the juveniles— the use of their hands restricted— take turns in diving therefor, catching them with their teeth.

In this country Halloween was for a time strictly observed, but of late years it has been forgotten by almost all, except the juveniles. Amongst the old-style English, Irish, Scotch, and Welsh residents, the games mentioned above are practiced to some extent, and the occasion is also made noticeable for the baking of the old-fashioned potato pudding. Amongst the American people but little other sport is indulged in than the drinking, by the country folk, of hard cider, and the masticating of indigestible “crullers,” or “doughnuts.” The gamins make use of the festival to batter down panels, dislocate bell-wires, unhinge gates, destroy cabbage-patches, and raise a row generally. 

--Godey's Lady's Book, October 1872

Of course, these days, most people associate Halloween with dressing up in costumes and while that wasn't the practice in Scarlett's era, we couldn't let the day go by without mention of Victorian fancy dress...or fashion plates. You see, although it wasn't a Halloween tradition,  fancy dress parties in general were part of high-society social calendars. Costumes of literary or historical figures were popular choices, as were peasant costumes or "native" dress from foreign lands. Other common sartorial choices included representations of nature or the four seasons. 

So in honor of Halloween and Victorian costume parties, we've got a colorful selection of GWTW-era fancy dress styles below for you to enjoy. Happy Halloween!

Doppelganger Dresses, Part 9: Melanie's Dress for Scarlett's Wedding to Charles

Today Doppelganger Dresses features what I think to be Melanie's prettiest costume in GWTW, the blue and white gown she wears to Scarlett and Charles' wedding.

One of the unique features about Melanie's dress is the crisscross pattern of wide ribbons that decorate the hem of the skirt. It turns out that variations of this style were actually common in the early 1860s. With this in mind, we've found two dresses that bear resemblance to Melanie's own. Interestingly, both dresses incorporate pink instead of blue like the movie version. 

Check them out after the jump and let us know what you think.