#LainaReadsAnne Fashion in the 1934 Adaptation

Editing Laina: In my initial thread on Twitter, I said I’d do adaptation fashion all in one, but I think that might both get too long for Twitter and be hard to navigate on my blog, so each adaptation will get its own post instead.

I find this time period of clothing a bit harder to date/figure out, but I think most of this is pretty solidly 30s clothes. Maybe some stuff has a bit of a 20ish vibe, but it kinda just seem like they used anything they could get their hands on.

Like, Mrs Blewitt’s dress here looks very 30s to me, as do this kid’s.

This picture could practically be a screencap of the movie.

And the kids clothes also read 1930s to me.

Comparing this shot of the class and this actual photo from 1934… yeah, those are very similar, right?

Like maybe in the early scenes, they’re trying to make it look kind of old-fashioned or kind of rustic, but it honestly doesn’t seem that way to me, not really. Mostly they just seem kind of boring, lol.

Jumping ahead a little, I think one of the biggest things that looks super 30s is the outfit she wears as “adult” Anne. (It also has a floor-length skirt.)

I found some sewing patterns from the 30s that really remind me of it.

I was going to mention her hair but honestly that pattern with the green dress – the hair is almost exactly the same. It’s 30s hair, completely.

Now, we’re going to be talking about Anne’s Christmas dress. As a reminder, you can read about Anne’s dress here. I personally picture it something very much like this

(I stole this picture from Dr. Kate Strasdin’s twitter – please don’t sue me. It’s just so perfect.)

Now, puffed sleeves did actually make a comeback in the 1930s! So it’s not impossible to do have those on a dress and for Anne to want them. Let’s compare Anne’s dress, and some patterns with puffed sleeves.

It’s incredibly underwhelming, frankly. It looks like a normal everyday dress, not a party dress. Frankly I think this is the thing I was most disappointed in from the 1934 one. Overall, the costuming in this is just very bland.

Shout out again to Library and Archives Canada and the Vintage Patterns wiki.

#LainaReadsAnne but make it fashion, Part 3

Original thread found here. Are you ready to talk more about Anne of Green Gables fashion?

Cool! Let’s talk about Crimson Peak!

Wait, no, come back, I promise it’s going to swing back to being about Anne. …eventually.

This post will have some spoilers for Crimson Peak so if you haven’t seen it, maybe skip this one because it’s a great movie and I highly recommend it. Just keep in mind it’s a Gothic Romance story, not a true modern horror movie. I specifically want to talk about the costumes, but the plot influences the costumes so there are some aspects I can’t talk about without some spoilers. But do come back after you’ve watched it.

Just trust me on this one. I know it’s a leap, but you’ll understand in the end.

Crimson Peak is set in 1901 which I personally think is a nudge early for the aesthetic they’re going for but since they only establish that through one props, I just pretend it’s set in 1904.

The aesthetic of the movie is big Gibson Girl hair and even bigger puffed sleeves, and I personally just don’t think that fits 1901 perfectly. But you know, I’m not a fashion expert and the person working on the movie is, so I just pretend it’s set in 1904 lol.

Now this is a movie that overall has amazing costumes but I’m going to focus on two of the main characters, Edith and Lucille, Edith being played by Mia Wasikowska, and Lucille by Jessica Chastain.

The movie uses a lot of silhouttes that are authentic to the time period, but it plays with colours and fabrics in a way that may not be as historically accurate, but is honestly kind of stunning. The costumes really tell you a lot about the characters.

Edith, for instance, is a young, rich heiress wearing very fashionabl clothes. They also use the puffed sleeve to add to the butterfly motiff she has throughout the movie. She also wears a lot of yellow for plot reasons (seriously, watch the movie) and I love it. The first outfit we see her in is this amazing mustard/golden coloured walking dress, and the shape and structure of it is so good

I also love her hat.

Later she takes off the jacket and her sleeves are delicate and beautful and the light comes through them and I die a little.

One of my favourite things this movie does is it has the characters repeat outfits so you see them in different light and settings.

Also, remember when I went on that ramble the other week in the middle of the night about Victorian/Edwardian hair jewelry and I showed you a bracelet with clasped hands? Edith’s belt here was inspired by that bracelet.

I think this dress is my favourite though. The colour is again amazing, as is the shape. She stands out so much against the dark, gloomy, cold environment surrounding her.

Also small detail – these buttons being down the front show this is a dress that Edith would be dressing herself in, as at this point she wouldn’t have a personal maid or anyone to help her get dress. I just think that’s neat.

Shout out to this dress that I just really like, also. I just think it’s gorgeous.

Now let’s talk about Lucille. Lucille is Edith’s foil in the movie, and they use the wardrobe choices to paint a picture of how very different they are. Edith is bright and fresh and full of life.

Lucille is darker and stuck in the past.

The first time you see Lucille, she’s wearing this amazing red dress with an amazing train. Red, also, is a very important colour in this movie, and it is used very sparingly. This is a statement by the movie and it’s very effective.

Her hair is also much different from Edith’s. Edith is doing much more of the elegant bird’s nest Gibson Girl type of hairstyles. Lucille’s is a pretty harsh middle part and overall rather old-fashioned for the time period of the movie.

(My screencaps are really getting into some spoilers here but some of this stuff you don’t see til the end, so, sorry. I warned you.) Lucille’s hair is also significantly longer than Edith’s, which also reflects an old-fashioned vibe.

Lucille’s dresses are beautiful. They are expensive, very well made, and that red one is a work of art.

But they are at least a decade out of date – deliberately. I would put them at… early 1880s? Personally? They do not fit the time period, and she would stand out a lot at parties. People would notice.

(Big spoiler) It’s implied that the dresses Lucille wears are possibly her mother’s, or otherwise secondhand from a source I won’t say because BIG spoiler, but they’re all dated by a lot. It’s a character informing quality, just like Edith’s dresses, and that’s such a clever way to show that the character is both strapped for cash and stuck in the past (as women back then would often take old gowns and have them remade into new ones).

Side note, I really like that they both wear corsets. You get a glimpse of Edith’s at one point, and you can find behind the scene pictures of Jessica Chastain in one if you google, but it’s just a good touch because it just looks so much more accurate. Foundation garments make a huge difference in getting the silhouette of a time period right, especially one like this.

And one really neat thing is they have Edith and Lucille in different styles of corsets. Corset shapes and styles change over time, and that changes how your clothes look. It’s like the difference between a T-shirt bra and a bullet bra.

So, how does this relate to Anne of Green Gables? (Bet you thought I wasn’t getting back to this?)

The difference between Edith and Lucille’s clothes is actually very similar to the difference between Anne and her peers.

Look at the contrast between Edith and Lucille.

They DON’T look like they’re from the same time period. I want to see that kind of difference in Anne movies, because I think the dresses Marilla makes for Anne are very much in the 1880s style, versus the early to mid 1890s style that I think is current in Anne.

You should be able to see a difference between Anne and her peers, and I think Crimson Peak is a great example of how to do that. And the costumes are so great and serve such a purpose in the storytelling.

Also, Crimson Peak is just underappreciated and I wanted to talk about it.

#LainaReadsAnne but make it fashion part 2

Remember when I did these? I’m back to recapping on Twitter! Currently I am working on the 1985 mini-series and I realized I had fashion threads that I had never put on my blog!

So here’s that. Original thread found here. /editing! Laina out

In our last Anne fashion thread, we established what I believe is a timeline for the book Anne of Green Gables. I believe the timeline is 1890 to 1895, and showed you a whole bunch of pictures of fashion of the time.

Before we get super into this thread, I do want to address something I did plan on talking about last thread, buuuuut the thread got really long. This thread, and this view of history, is a very white, cis and abled view of history.

Residential schools began in the 1870s in Canada, for instance. History is often recorded by the privileged. And beyond that, I am not remotely qualified to talk about historical people of colour in this context as a white person.

However I do have a few neat pictures I’m going to share… as soon as I cull down the massive amount of photos I bookmarked. We don’t ah. Need 200 pictures in these threads. Your girl got SUPER carried away searching in the Canadian archive XD (1893 is seriously an amazing year for sleeve puffs.)

Editing Laina note: I’ve gotten more into using my tumblr again and I reblog a lot of cool pictues under the tag “historical fashion” so if you want to see more pictures, check that out!

Alright, let’s just look at some pictures I think are neat. These are Mi’kmaq First Nations people, in Elmsdale, Nova Scotia in 1891.

In this time period, Canada also had a huge Chinese immigrant population, but I had some trouble finding pictures from that time period. So this is a little later, from 1913, but it’s neat.

And in something relevant geographically to Anne, Nova Scotia had (and still has!) a significant Black population. For instance, Mary Matilda Winslow who as amazing. This pic is from about 1905 but again, trouble finding stuff.

She was the first Black woman to graduate from the University of New Brunswick. So just some pics I thought were neat.

Also, here is Mary Macdonald, Sir John A Macdonald’s daughter, who had hydrocephalus and used a wheelchair her entire life. And historical disability rep is neat.

Now let’s talk about hair!

So, hair. Interestingly enough, around this time period, “Titan blonde” hair was considered quite fashionable. That’s a golden-brown colour with a reddish tint. It’s the colour of hair Nancy Drew was said to have and that the old covers depicted her as having.

If you want a refresher on hair care in this time period, we talked about that in a previous post. Today we’re going to be talking about some styles from the time.

Do remember that girls Anne’s age in most of the book wouldn’t be wearing their hair up. Girls under 16 didn’t wear their hair up. It’d be either loose, or just braided. Wearing your hair up was a sign of adulthood, remember.

And some people did just wear more simple, slicked back buns. Not everyone was a super complicated style person.

(Also look at those amazing sleeves on the last one.)

One popular style was to take the hair around the crown of the head, make a top knot out of it, and then use curling tons to make waves/curls and pin those around the top knot. Often that layer of hair was shorter, deliberately or because of heat damage.

People would also use heatless curling methods like rag curls, but a lot of people used heated tongs. And kinda singed the crud out of their hair lol. Frizzy was in.

Also, bangs were in fashion! Short, frizzy, often singed bangs. But it’s one of not all that many historical time periods when bangs are in.

There are a lot of pictures of very intrique Victorian hair fashions, and I think that’s generally more of a special occasion thing, and especially more for people who are higher class. For Anne and Avonlea, I think this is more accurate.

If you’re doing your own hair, it’s probably not going to be as complicated as someone who has a maid to do it for them. (The first picture in this set is probably my favourite of all of these. So pretty.)

Also, these little straw boater hats were really in. But you have to keep an eye on where people are wearing them. They wore them quite far foward, not back towards the crown of the head. Hat placement is totally different depending on the time period.

The thing I think a lot of Anne adaptations may do is place it in the early 1900s as Anne grows – specifically into the Gibson Girl era. Which imo, you shouldn’t reach that while Anne is at Queen’s. (Aka the first book.)

It can’t worth with Sir John A Macdonald but fashion-wise it mostly works. Sleeves briefly got smaller towards like the early 1900s, but they really get big again around, like, 1905, so you can kinda swing it. It’s just kind of a pet peeve XD

(The Gibson girl aesthetic is based on the works on Charles Gibson. He had a Type, and the world was like, “Yeah that’s hot, let’s all do that” basically.) I just don’t think Anne should be wearing Gibson girl-style hair at 16/17 as that shouldn’t be happening yet.

According to my timeline, at least. Check out this magazine cover, for instance. It’s from 1895, illustrated by Gibson and more along the lines of what I’ve been showing. (And again a boater hat.)

You can also see this in this cover for College Girls by Abbe Carter Goodloe, released in 1895 and also illustrated by Gibson, and which you can actually read here.

Also around 1895 is like one of my favourite times for puffed sleeves, lol.

But when you compare what I think of as really being Gibson Girl hair in his art, it’s a lot bigger, and kind of looser. (Beach picture from 1898, other picture from 1908.) It’s just kind of a different vibe.

This kind of hairstyle is often called Victorian but imo it’s not really. It’s Edwardian and kind of a lot less mainstream before… maybe 1903? I personally think this hairstyle is more accurate to 1901-1910 time periods with some overlap on either side.

I probably won’t pick at this too much because I kinda love Gibson girl hair. It’s like an elegant bird nest. I like the aesthetic. But I don’t think it’s super accurate for Anne’s time period.

Shout out again to Library and Archives Canada, University of New Brunswick’s Archives and Special Collections, New Brunswick Black History Society, and the Canadian Museum of Immigration.

#LainaReadsAnne, but make it fashion

…clearly I couldn’t think of a title for this post. Original Twitter thread found here.

Today we’re going to be trying to figure out the time period that Anne of Green Gables is set in and talking about the fashion of that time. This is going to be a multi-part series with a lot of images. Seriously, I have like 10 pages of notes and a LOT of pictures bookmarked.

So I’m gonna ask y’all to be patient with the speed on this one, okay?

Let’s start with what we know about the time period of Anne of Green Gables. (Not any of the sequels – in this thread, I will be treating AOGG as a standalone work.)

First, Montgomery wrote it in 1906 so it can’t be any later than that. In “Anne to the Rescue”, the Prime Minister who’s visiting Charlottetown is definitely John A. Macdonald. Marilla comments on his nose and that was something many political cartoonists caricaturized about him.

He was Canada’s first Prime Minister, and also technically the third as he served twice with another dude between his two terms. The first time was from 1867 to 1873 which is way to early to be Anne’s time period IMO.

Going by the fashion of the time alone, you’re looking at straight, tight sleeves and very slight bustles. Puffed sleeves don’t fit.

Purple dress by Southend Museum Services via Wikimedia commons. Red dress photo is public domain from the Met via Wikimedia commons. First fashion plate is public domain via Wikimedia commons and the second is by Nicole.c.s.y93 via Wikimedia commons.

John A. Macdonald’s second term was from 1878 to 1891. “Anne to the Rescue” takes place in January of Anne’s second year at Green Gables. December of Y2 is when Matthew gives Anne the Christmas dress, and that year the size of the puffs have gotten even larger.

Let’s backtrack slightly and define our time periods.

Canada became a country (according to white people) in 1867. I’m sure y’all knew that. In any of the time periods Anne could be set in, the British influence will still be very strong. Because of that, in this series, I’m going to use the British eras for reference. (Eras in British history refer to who was ruling at the time.)

Queen Victoria = the Victorian era. King Edward VII, her son = the Edwardian period. Victoria’s reign was 1837 to 1901, and Edward was on the throne 1901 to 1910, but there is actually some overlap when you’re talking fashion, since fashion changes aren’t instant. Like, if you look at early 1890s, they look very 1980s.

As well, sometimes the term Edwardian is retroactively applied to fashion things that happened during the actual Victorian period as Edward was a big leader and influencer of fashion. So some stuff from before 1901 can be considered Edwardian. I know it’s a bit complicated, but we’re all on the same page, yeah?

Also Victoria Day is May 20th this year. Her birthday was May 25th so our holiday is the Monday before the 25th. May long weekend is also my town-wide garage sale. Not related, just a fun fact.

As Canada is a Commonweath country, obviously the British influence was huge. And still is, to some extant. We have the Queen on our money, we have Victoria Day, Boxing Day, we spell thing with u’s. It was even greater in Anne’s time period, though. Canada was colonized under Queen Victoria’s reign. So when we’re talking fashion, it makes the most sense to me to look to that direction than to look to the US for context.

Another thing I find interesting – they have afternoon tea in Anne, and Queen Victoria was the one who made that a Thing. One of her ladies in waiting began having a small meal in the afternoon, usually around 4, as she couldn’t wait for til a 9pm dinner. (I get that. My blood sugar isn’t down for that schedule either.)

The lady would invite friends into her dressing room for it and Victoria caught wind of it and really liked the idea, and it became an elaborate thing. That’s where “tea gowns” are from. Which I’m not going to get into because this thread is going to be long enough, but look up sometime. That was in the 1850s and you can see how normalized it is in Anne by our time period.

I just thought that was neat lol.

So, 1870s fashion we talked about.

Moving into the 1880s, it’s not too different. Still narrow sleeves, and skirts narrow as well besides a brief resurgence of the bustle in the middle of the decade. This is, I believe, the fashion period that Marilla is using to make Anne’s dresses in the beginning of the book.

This, for instance, is a great picture from the mid 1880s – from this site, used with permission.

This was a wealthy family from Ontario wearing their best clothes, so this wouldn’t be so much everyday clothes but it helps you get the idea.

Random trivia, the lady on the bottom left with the very short hair – she may have been recovering from a bad illness. A lot of the time when women in this time period cut their hair very short, it was because they were very seriously ill and couldn’t manage the upkeep.

In general, your early 1880s has a lot of 1870s influence… typical for most decades of fashion. It’s pretty minimal in silhouette.

Brown plaid dress and floral dress by the Met via Wikimedia commons.

The bustles from the later half of the decade are kind of great though. (Bustles are the big butt bumps.) This isn’t even as big as they could get.

LACMA, Met, Met, they’re all public domain, I’m getting tired here, lol.

Going up to the very end of the 1880s, you’re still in that same area.

Some pictures from 1888. Pictures from here out are from Libraries and Archives Canada or the Met’s fashion plate collection. All are public domain. Click to enlarge I think.

And some stuff from 1889

Oh and this is a series of photos from I think an ice show in early 1889 which… what is going on in this ice show? There’s another I can’t find now, I think, where her skirt is just a tennis net?

Okay, back to establishing our timeline. Sleeves begin to puff as we move into 1890. Some of these pics have specific dates which is super cool.

So, we have March 1890, May 1890, and July 1890.

I particularly like this one from October 1890 that’s titled as “Nidd, Mrs. & Friend” and how much it looks like an awkward prom picture.

Last one from 1890, specifically December 1890.

Moving into 1891, the sleeves continue to get larger but usually not as huge as they’ll eventually become.

Also I keep wanting to make up backstory for these people. Like that second picture especially. Who are they?

More from 1891

Now the reason I’m focusing a little extra on 1891 is because that is the absolute latest that “Anne to the Rescue” could happen. John A. Macdonald was no longer Prime Minister after June 1891.

He was also dead.

I found a couple articles that referenced Macdonald visting P.E.I. in 1890, but it was a casual visit to a Senator friend in Charlottetown. The political meeting of the book seems to be purely fictional.

That Senator friend just happened to be Donald Montgomery, one of L. M. Montgomery’s grandparents. (Her father’s father, not the one she lived with after er mother died.)

Montgomery even met Macdonald on that visit. It happened in August 1890.

There’s an article out there called “The Hijacking of “Anne”” by Virginia Careless that puts the year Anne came to Green Gables as 1880. She uses the sequels to make this timeline and honestly? My suspicion is that as we get into sequels we’ll mostly discover that Montgomery wasn’t great at math.

Careless uses later events that I’m not looking at because I only want to use evidence from AOGG itself for this particular thread.

And I’m sorry, but puffed sleeves were NOT a thing in 1880.

Do you see a sleeve puff??

Careless says, “That date is more in keeping with her longing for puffed sleeves in 1880, when she came to Green Gables. In 1877, her eleventh year according to the Treasury, such sleeves were not possible with the fashions then current.”

NOPE makes no sense! I know the article is from 1992 but like. You got paid for that, Careless.

Going by the date of Macdonald’s visit to Charlottetown and his death, and the fashion trends of the time, I am comfortable saying Anne came to Green Gables between 1889 and 1891. Specifically I think she came in June 1890. I think Macdonald’s fictional visit happens in 1891, and Anne gets her dress in December 1891.

Thing in the sequels may contradict this, but that’s where I think we stand judging by AOGG alone.

The timeline I think works:
1890 – Anne comes to GG in June, is 11, Y1
1891 – Croup in January, Christmas dress, Anne is 12, Y2
1892 – Hair dye, Queen’s class, Anne is 13, Y3
1893 – Mostly just a lot of school, Anne is 14, Y4
1894 – Queen’s exam, white sands hotel concert, Anne is 15, Y5
1895 – Year at Queen’s, Matthew’s death, Anne is 16, Y6

Also you can’t just say any puffed sleeve fits Anne’s time period. Sleeve puffs in the 1830s are much lower than the ones in the 1890s (and beyond).

Plus it doesn’t work with the tea thing. Can you tell I’ve discovered a pet peeve?

I think that’s about good for today. Not the last thread you’ll be seeing on this though! We have many things to discuss.

Shout out to Library and Archives Canada and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s fashion plate collection.

Both were big helps in this and future threads.

Editing Laina: #LainaReadsAnne will be returning live soon! I’m getting caught up on a few things, and then we’ll be getting back into recaps! My summer job just got in the way.

Peace and cookies,
Laina