Dew of the Sea Costume History, Theology & Thoughts

  Jo: Jo is the hardest of all little women characters to correctly analyse what is right or wrong in her dress code, because she is such an individual. You can't really pin it down and say, "oh she would not have worn that in the 1860's" or "her hair is so inaccurate" because she doesn't want to fit in with society. There is an interesting part in the book where Laurie gives Jo a leghorn hat which was waaaaay out of fashion because she said she wished wider hats were in fashion to shield her face from the sun so he sends her this hat and she wears it to the picnic he arranges with the Vaugn family. The last appearance of the leghorn hat after its popularity in the 1850s was a single appearance in godey's ladies book in 1861 so by roughly 1863-64 it was completely out of fashion. However, as the book specifically states that it was a wide brimmed old fashioned variant, he could have sent her a Georgian leghorn hat wich had a slightly less round crown

      W hilst the new 2019 L ittle W omen was an interesting film ,  fresh and new with a whole different style to any other version of the beloved tale we have seen before…   one finds oneself dist r acted by the strange decisions of the director to A. have the timeline completely out of wack and B. to have the costume design so that one would hardly know what era it was in if not for a me n tions of the war and knowledge of the book that keep it in place. B ut I am here for the costumes...    A nyway ,  let us start with this picture and specifically M eg, the oldest sister and the one who wants to "fit in"(quote M ichara T ewers) .   T he first thing you notice is her big neon green scarf  -  wow ,  you think how is that historically accurate ?   B ut sorry to say it IS in fact an ava i l a ble dye in this time period …  but characteristically it makes no sense .   A lthough the designers wanted green and purple to be Meg's colours so to speak ,   I think from the book