Character Dressing

Pat here:

I am a Leo, and I adore clothes for many reasons. How many of you use what you’re wearing as a costume to hide behind or to convey your current mood?   When I pack a suitcase, I have to carry various mix-and-match options, not because I need the extra clothing, but because I may not be in the right humor to wear the all-white dressy outfit. I may want to strike out with something red. I’ve learned to carry an assortment of wardrobe pieces and accessories just so I’ll be comfortable with the environment as well as my frame of mind. (If you go to the RWA literacy signing, guess my mood from what I’m wearing. <G>)

I like to dress the characters in my books similarly.  With the contemporaries, that was easy.  If my heroine was wearing spike-heeled, knee-high boots, watch out!  If she was wearing sloppy shorts and T-shirt with chocolate stains down the front, I might be conveying the same mood—PMS with an attitude—but with a different type of character.

In historicals, dressing my characters for personality and mood is a little tougher because the variety of clothing is limited to some degree. (Anyone else design clothes for Barbies and paper dolls? I even created historical clothing for a school project!)  Sure, a governess can be dressed in dowdy woolens while an heiress can be wearing handmade, imported lace, but that merely reflects social status.  I might have them wear simple designs instead of ruffled, but that only indicates good taste or body type, not character or mood. 

In MYSTIC WARRIOR, I had the option to play more with costume because my heroine lives on an island where everyone wears simple tunics and sandals-- no modistes and no fancy fabrics in a country where one walks mountains and beaches. So when I have her land in late eighteenth-century France, where fashion went from one extreme to the other, I had lots of leeway to assert her character.  Of course she complained about petticoats and corsets and high-heeled shoes and the results when she trailed them through the running sewer of primitive streets.  As time goes on and she learns more of the culture, she gradually progresses to adopting her clothing to suit herself, not completely understanding the differences between rural and city styles but knowing what made her comfortable. That she’s unaware of the provocative differences in these outfits that she designs for practical purposes gives some evidence of her essential nature. I don't think she'd ever understand fashionable fans!

In reality, people of that time period—unless they were royalty—had limited attire.  Yes, women of a certain status had round gowns to wear about the house in the morning, and a walking gown for running errands, and an evening gown for dinner, but they did not have entire closets from which to choose.  In most cases, they didn’t have closets but a small wardrobe that held all their gowns and undergarments.  An expensive evening dress, or a favorite walking gown, might be adapted from one year to the next by lowering waistlines or adding ruffles, but clothing was far too expensive to buy as frequently as our heroines do in historical romance.

 So how did Regency women express their characters and moods when limited to which color ribbon to wear with their white muslins?  That’s my challenge as I return to Regency England for my next book. I suppose not all my heroines are Leos with a flare for fancy dress, but still, I’d like them to choose clothes that express their inner selves. Although I don’t think my dowdy spinster in the first book will be damping her linens anytime soon!

Comments

[Linda Banche]

I think people's clothes generally tell you exactly what they are. People wearing dull clothes most likely are dull. (Nothing against dull people here--I'm one of them.)

But those clothes can be misleading--the prim and proper governess who wears red underwear, the male geek with a completely different side to his character that people rarely see. I love secret identity stories, and they fit well with clothes not making the person.

[april]

I'm the same way. I can't even pick out my clothes the night before because I'll change my mind the next morning. I'm a Gemini which probably explains that. Nowadays, a woman has a lot of freedom - jeans, pants, capris, skirts, dresses, the possibility is endless in terms of clothes and that's not counting shoes and accessories!

I don't necessarily think people who wear dull clothes are dull though, if a person wears bold clothes, they are usually bold. I think there's a certain comfort wearing dull clothes, a practicality.

[NinaP]

Hey Prof. Pat -- Cool post. And you got me to thinking.

I'm not a Leo, so I've never sported fashion sense. But when I prepare for a trip, I only pack clothing designed to convey the attitude I intend to have when I get there. Nothing else is allowed. I never realized that until today. Maybe the old adage is true… clothes make the (wo)man, at least while she’s wearing them. :-)

Nina, thinking the author of "Lady of the Stars" can't really be dull.

[Linda Banche]

Oh, Nina, I love you. Thank you so much!

[Susan/DC]

Deborah Tannen is professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, but she's also written about clothing as a form of expression. She notes that because men have so many fewer choices, what they wear doesn't "mark" them the way women's clothing choices do, from neck-to-toe virginal whites to the literally scarlet woman dress where the neckline plunges down-to-there and almost meets the up-to-there hemline.

I too used to make extra fashions for paper dolls. I didn't have the imagination to make up storylines for them, but I spent hours designing and coloring clothing. One of the reasons I love Regency romance is how pretty the dresses are, with their long classical lines. Must admit, however, that no matter what the era, I generally don't like flounces, as I think they detract from the fall of the gown. When a supposedly beautiful dress is described as having one (or more), I immediately remove it (in a manner that allows the heroine to keep her dignity intact, of course).

[Patricia Rice]

LOL at the flounces. What about flounces at the hem? They're kind of perky. "G"

And I agree that dull clothes don't necessarily make for a dull person. When I'm trying to "blend," I wear lots of dull colors, because I want people to see ME, not my clothes. When I want to hide...watch out. "G"

I'm thinking men may have more means of expression than Dr. Tannen gives them credit for, except the Victorian age, perhaps. Up until and for some while after Brummel declared black to be the only suitable color for gentlemen, men wore a variety of colors and stitched waistcoats and lapels and neckcloths. And just think of the zoot suits of the 1920s!

And I love the Red Hat Ladies! I'd join them but bright red isn't my color. "G" Wonder if a magenta hat would suffice?

[kay]

Every time I read about flounces I cringe. I agree that they detract from the line of the dress. Flounces are the sort of the same as a ruffle, only bigger aren't they? When I was in high school (age giveaway here) ruffle blouses were in, I even had a Dr. Kildare ruffled blouse. I stay away from ruffs now.

[Mary Jo Putney]

I not only didn't design clothes for dolls--I really didn't have any dolls. I was a teddy bear girl all the way. *g*

Even now, my dress sense is feeble at best. I wear a lot of black because it's easy and I can toss something burgundy with it and a piece of nice jewelry and I'm good to go.

OTOH, if you want to talk about interesting jewelry (not conventional and boring but interesting pieces), I'm THERE!

[Patricia Rice]

Oh, I remember those lovely Georgian ruffled blouses! I adored mine. They're very good at disguising skinny chests. "G" So Regency gowns with flounces on the neckline were disguising what they didn't have. Flounces on the hemline simply added fun swish.

And MJ is right about jewelry. It can be a real conversation starter, provided you want to converse, of course!

[piper]

If astrological signs have anything to do with clothing sense, then I'm assuming that Aries don't have any.

I surely lack style. I live in jeans and t shirts. I work in jeans and t shirts. When I pack for a weekend away, I pack jeans and t shirts. If we are planning a supper out while I'm away, I pack a newer pair of jeans and a nicer t shirt. In summer, I have resorted to denim skirts and short sleeved (even sleeveless t shirts). I pack a week in advance because I don't worry about changing my mind. Accessorize? Not in this girl's vocabulary. I like jewellrey, but I don't wear anything that anyone will notice - with the exception of a couple of very nice diamond ring.

See? No imagination. That's why I leave it to you who know how to dress for your mood and how to accessorize to write novels - which I will read and enjoy, in my jeans and t shirt.

[Patricia Barraclough]

I work with kids most of the time, so what I wear usually reflects what I am doing with them. Think Miss Frizzle and the Magic School Bus. I have skirts and pants with boats, sea creatures, flags, dinosaurs, snakes & lizards, trains, etc. My t-shirt selection is even more wide ranging. I am a children's librarian and really do dress to fit what I'm doing not how I feel most days. I wore regular skirts and tops two days in a row last week and several patrons comment - one of them asked what was wrong. When not at work, I like to be comfortable - gauzy peasant skirts and loose tops.
My problem is I'm a 25 year old trapped on the body of a 62 year old. What I really would like to wear, I can't.

[Maggie Robinson/Margaret Rowe]

Oh, paperdolls. I adored them.

I work with a woman who lays her clothes out the night before. This wouldn't suit me, cause there are some days I have to wear red to wake up. I actually organized my closet by color to help me out on mornings like that.

I have too many clothes, and they're mostly dull, but I do jazz things up with funky cheap jewelry. I am grateful to live in a time of synthetic dyes, because I would have been most unhappy in white muslin.

[Sherrie Holmes]

Sherrie here. "I'm a 25 year old trapped on the body of a 62 year old." Oh, Patricia, I am so with you!

I am a complete clothes horse. I adore clothing, and I have very definite opinions on what I want. I tend toward "elegant" when dressing, but that does not mean subdued colors. I love bright colors, being one of the lucky peeps who can carry them off. And jewelry! How I covet jewelry! I've hundreds of earrings and dozens and dozens of necklaces and lots of bangle bracelets.

I also have a secret and very unfortunate White Trash tendency, which I can subdue most of the time. I only let it out at home, where it is safe to look like trailer trash. Break out the huge hoop earrings and hot pink plunging necklines! (somewhat marred by sensible shoes and orthotics)

Once, purely on a whim, I bought a pair of heels that I never wore and which sat in my closet and shamed me every time I looked at them. I loved them, but I just couldn't wear them in public. They were pink. Open toed. Sexy little holes across the top and sides. And the coup de grace: a large pink leather bow on top. They looked like the kind of shoe worn by someone who lived in a single-wide in an Arkansas trailer park. I hated to give them to Goodwill, but I could never wear them in public.

[Patricia Rice]

You realize y'all are giving me all kinds of wonderfully kinky ideas for stories, don't you? Just look at the variety above from jeans to duckies to scandalous pink heels! Dang, if only I could import those to Regency England. Although I'm sure I could always do something funky with shoes, if only the gowns were shorter!

[piper]

I have to say that even if I live my life in jeans and t shirts, I love my shoes.....
Heels, runners, sandals, pumps, slingbacks. If it is designed to go on a foot and it looks nice I want it. I will bring more shoes for a weekend than I will clothes