8 thoughts on “Wives & Daughters Week pt. 4: Cynthia’s Costumes

  1. I’m a ‘clothes wh*re’ so I love them all. But my favourite is the teal (my favourite colour) ball gown she wore in London.

    Cynthia’s clothes show her to be ‘dernier cri’ well at least as much as her/Hyacinth/ Dr Gibson’s pocketbook will allow.

  2. I have to say that I think I would love the London ballgown more if the sleeves/shoulders stood out a bit more, and the skirt were a couple of inches shorter, as to me, it looks a bit deflated, but at the same time, I can see it as reflective of the context, if the skirt is fashionably longer but she still liked puffy sleeves even if they were becoming slightly dated….

    I do have an original 1840s dress made in very definitely mid-1840s fabric in the long-waisted pleated bodice style, but with leg o’mutton sleeves (!!) so there were definite transitional oddities, (please excuse the bad, old photo, its the only one I have to hand…)

    http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd23/mabverick/vintage%20clothing/1840dress.jpg

    I think things like this make me a little more inclined to accept it if a costumier gives a dress details that are a few years or even just over a decade out of date, if it fits the character/context. Which it doesn’t really for Cynthia, because we see she’s a real follower of fashion, but I really do like her costuming – although I think I would prefer her skirts to be a little shorter, and I do feel a lot of the necklines on her solid colour dresses needed collars or pelerines. Not really sure about the three-quarter length sleeves on the gold dress either.

  3. Hate the Apollo’s Knot hairstyle, it just looks silly to me. It’s a good thing I didn’t live in the 1830s! (Not questioning the accuracy of the filmmakers, just the fashion trend in general). And her hair foofaraws in that ballroom scene are crazy town. But that teal silk is to die for!

  4. I believe the dress with the contrast striped skirt was made with a printed scarf for the collar. Three points of the scarf were on the collar and the fourth point was made into the stomacher-type bodice panel. It loods great, i think, but the print is a bit late in my opinion. Wiliam Morrissey! But maybe i am wrong, and it is more Indian print, which would be ok for the era. Have a look. What do you think?

  5. But hat tip to reader Susan, who pointed out on our series overview post that there are references near the end of the miniseries to the “young queen,” therefore Queen Victoria, who was crowned in 1837 — making the series timeline mid- to late-1830s! I checked the original Gaskell novel, and don’t see any such references, but I wanted to talk briefly about why the costumes are certainly not 1835-7ish.

    It’s possible that this was a mistake on the part of screenwriter Andrew Davies.

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