Anne of Green Gables Book vs 1980s Miniseries: The Wincey Dress
Anne's wincey dress: A comparison.
Wincey is a fabric originating in the British isles made of a twill weave with a linen warp and a woollen weft. It was a coarse and scratchy fabric that would definitely make you "wincey" a bit!
This petticoat (probably from the Victorian Era) is labelled as being made of wincey or Lindsey- woolsey (the alternate name for it). This too is a yellowish colour it may even have begun the same colour as Anne's (yellowish-white) and yellowed with age!
Put your Anneish imaginations to work and imagine this fabric as a dress, a short tight and ugly dress and there you have it! Anne's dress.
So using this information, how does the film compare?
So in the film it's important to know the key things the designer might have had to take into account. So for instance in this case they had to try and make a 16 year old look like a 12 year old.
So onto a part by part comparison.
Colour:
Book: yellowish-white
Movie: yellowish-greenish-grey with a ditsy floral print
Fit:
Book: very tight
Movie: loose
Length:
Book: very short
Movie: a little shorter than the average 12 year old's skirt but not noticeable.
Below is a chart showing the lengths of hems for young girls, movie Anne's hem hit around the 10, and a halfish mark rather than twelve but I imagine book Anne's length to be more of an 8.
Overall style:
Book: very ugly
Movie: stylised homelishness not that ugly at all. The beginnings of cottagecore!
So what do you think?
Should Anne's dress have been different or do you think the stylisation was merited?
Let me know in the comments!
I think what they did with the dress in the movie was interesting. It may have been more striking and therefore more effective in highlighting her orphan plight if they had stuck to the book and made it ugly, but what they gave her instead is quite nice and isn't too pretty
ReplyDeleteyeah, i definately think its way too pretty! its cottagecore dreams nowadays!
DeleteAll the illustrations of Anne with a pretty dress and no sailor hat make me a bit annoyed - angry even. The people who did the illustrations, and especially those who dressed her for the movie, had no idea of what life was like for the desperately poor people of that era. In skipping over that, it's almost like they've burned the book and are making something new from the ashes. Anne is not supposed to look engaging at the train station. She's supposed to look like an unloved orphan girl who's at the end of a very long string of bad look. She's the woebegone child you feel sorry for, not the successful little girl she will turn into
ReplyDeleteAnd then there's Matthew. They've cut off most of his hair and made him look respectable. He's an older man who is afraid of everyone, especially girls and women. He's not clean-cut and handsome. And visually, to an outsider at that time, Matthew and Anne would be two of a kind, and perhaps not people who they would want to invite home.
But, we have what we have, I guess. I prefer to read and reread the book. It was written some 44 years before I was born, and I feel a kinship with all the characters that surrounded Anne. They were all poor country folk, just as we were back then. Maybe they should have consulted some older country-folkl when they were deciding on the clothes and appearance of the characters. But perhaps they didn't think that would sell.
its, true, filmakers don't like to present the heroine as being "homely" much they are too afraid it would make the heroine unlovable. but with Anne her appearence is supposed to be homely, as it really adds to her beauty of spirit, also always putting out these perfect heroines can really trigger issues in especially teen girls who then think they are ugly. whereas just as Anne begins homely and grows up to be quite a good looking girl. an uncommon beauty, so will most awquard teens. when I look back at pictures of when I was 12 I was definatly homely and even a little bit ill looking. but now I look much better. not quite a natural beauty, but definatly not ugly. in fact I hardly ever see ugly people becuse I believe ugliness is usually to do with spirit. if you think your ugly you'll look awkward which will not look great, but if you are confident that you are your unique kind of beauty and are filled with an inside joy, you'll naturally give yourself beauty. there is more beauty in the grandmother who puts her love into everything than there is in the model who thinks she needs to be something she's not to starve herself and have perfect clothes and makeup to be loved. sorry if this is an intense reply but I have seen the damage done by the upholding of a perfect ideal which is near impossible to reach for most people.
Delete