Historical Seamstress Reviews the Costumes in "A Portrait of a Lady on Fire:" How Accurate Are They?

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  • čas přidán 11. 09. 2024
  • I wasn't able to cover every costume in the film in this video, so if you watched it and noted something strange that I didn't mention, that doesn't mean I didn't see it! Please leave a comment if you have questions about the costumes or thoughts on the film.
    Resources:
    Article in which the costume designer is quoted - www.vogue.co.u...
    Printed cotton cloak from the Kyoto Fashion Institute - www.kci.or.jp/...
    The Chocolate Girl by Jean-Etienne Liotard - en.wikipedia.o...
    A City Shower by Edward Penny - collections.mu...
    Want to support this channel? You can do so here: ko-fi.com/grac...
    My blog: graciesews.wor...
    My Instagram: www.instagram....
    Oli's Instagram: www.instagram....
    Music: "Waltz in Low Light" by Nat Keefe and Hot Buttered Rum, "No. 1 a Minor Waltz" by Esther Abrami, and "Sonatina No. 2 in F Major" Rondo by Joel Cummins

Komentáře • 47

  • @rmrenfield
    @rmrenfield Před 3 lety +26

    i adore this movie so much, i wish more historical costubers would talk about it ! i thought it was set in the 1770s with the later part being in the 1780s because of heloise wearing the chemise a la reine in the portrait gallery scene

    • @GraciePattenSewing
      @GraciePattenSewing  Před 3 lety +4

      I think that portrait gallery scene is set in the 1780s because of the chemise a la reine, which is confusing because Heloise and Marianne don't look 20 years older. I think it's set in 1760 because I've read that date in descriptions of the movie, but I agree that the timeline is a little weird.

  • @cindyrosser2471
    @cindyrosser2471 Před 3 lety +20

    Even if the character's did not wear caps, at least they had their hair up & not down loose in "beach waves" like is usual with Hollywood period dramas.

    • @GraciePattenSewing
      @GraciePattenSewing  Před 3 lety +5

      Indeed! The film is definitely not a casualty in the Great Bobby Pin Shortage

    • @saymyname2417
      @saymyname2417 Před 3 lety +1

      At 9.30 min the woman in green had her hair parted to one side. THAT is bugging, too.

    • @GraciePattenSewing
      @GraciePattenSewing  Před 3 lety +2

      @@saymyname2417 hahaha I'll take that "artistic license" over beach waves any day, but good observation

    • @saymyname2417
      @saymyname2417 Před 3 lety

      @@GraciePattenSewing - Aaargh, YES! 18th century beach waves would even be worse than this... 😱😱😱 . But well, we have seen stuff far more gross 😁 !

    • @nunyabusiness164
      @nunyabusiness164 Před 2 lety

      should they have had their hair powdered?

  • @isabelhess1510
    @isabelhess1510 Před 3 lety +6

    I watched this movie this year and had the same “oh no, Marianne!” reaction to her nose lol. This film was just gorgeous and you’ve done a great job analyzing the costumes. Thanks!

    • @GraciePattenSewing
      @GraciePattenSewing  Před 3 lety +2

      thank you! 2020 and 2021 have really changed how I think when I see facial coverings in films and TV - my first thought is always "oh no, is their nose covered!?"

  • @jackgriffin5757
    @jackgriffin5757 Před 3 lety +10

    Did you think it was odd that Eloise’s green dress had no trim on it, but still had sleeve flounces. If it had winged cuffs I would’ve been like oh it’s a family dress from like the 1740s

    • @GraciePattenSewing
      @GraciePattenSewing  Před 3 lety

      It didn't strike me as particularly odd at the time, because she could have dressed up the gown with millinery, but that's a good point.

  • @pay1370
    @pay1370 Před 3 lety +7

    i watched this movie after reading andy sameberg's review of it haha, it truly is an amazing movie!

  • @MrsYasha1984
    @MrsYasha1984 Před 3 lety +6

    I will see if I can find this movie to watch, thank you!
    Personally, I switched my bra for stays in everyday wear. Stays are soooo comfy

    • @GraciePattenSewing
      @GraciePattenSewing  Před 3 lety +1

      They are! The movie is available for about $3 on youtube, which is where I watched it.

  • @selkiemorien9006
    @selkiemorien9006 Před 3 lety

    I never heard of that movie. I love that I discover so many new things to watch, this one looks especially pleasing. Thank you for making a video about it :D

  • @florianabonera9713
    @florianabonera9713 Před 3 lety +2

    Nice review, thanks for this! It's sad how a movie flies under the radar when it's not Hollywood-produced. I cringed too at the lacing of the stays but rejoyced the back shoulder seams so it was fine.
    I think the beach face cover also underlined the "gaze" which is a very central theme throughout the movie. And I felt the uncovered hair could have been used to underline the non-conformity of both protagonists (although the mother wears no cap either), it's also a very theatrical rick to stage the two main charcters front center among the rest of the "ensemble".

    • @GraciePattenSewing
      @GraciePattenSewing  Před 3 lety +1

      That's a good point about making the two main characters stand out from the "ensemble"! It's definitely sad how this film isn't really discussed by American audiences (with which I'm most familiar - I don't know how the film was received in the rest of the world). I imagine that it's also in part due to the language barrier - Americans don't regularly watch foreign films, especially if they aren't in English :(. Hopefully my little review might prompt a few more people to watch it, as it really is wonderful.

  • @JuliaDiotallevi
    @JuliaDiotallevi Před 2 lety

    Thanks for making this, I learned a lot! This is one of my favourite films and I have just started gaining interest in fashion history. I want to wear a stay now! Also I had the EXACT same thought when I saw Marianne wearing her face scarf hahahah I'm glad you included that thought.

  • @lizlengyel6409
    @lizlengyel6409 Před 3 lety

    THANK YOU!!! ever since this movie came out i've been so interested in the minimalism of the costume design and NO ONE wants to talk about it for some reason

    • @GraciePattenSewing
      @GraciePattenSewing  Před 3 lety

      yeah it's sad that it didn't get as much hype (at least in the English language media/internet) as I think it deserved

  • @20000dino
    @20000dino Před 3 lety

    Very informative ! I'm doing cloths and costume drawing studies for my Animation course and immeadiatly thought of using this film as a reference for it, as a lot of emphasis is put on the layers of clothing throughout its run time. This video was really helpful. Also, you speak with so much passion, it made me enjoy it so much more ! Thank you Gracie :)

  • @margaretdalton2651
    @margaretdalton2651 Před 3 lety +2

    Ha ha ha, I had the same reaction to Marianne’s wearing her « mask » improperly - it should cover her nose! Maybe it was uncomfortable... Covid hadn’t yet arrived on Brittany! You may wish to view many Celine Sciamma’s interviews where she discussed in great detail that it was important to her to not be anachronistic in her costume choices for the entire cast. And she deliberately chose the colors of the costumes. I loved yr video, nonetheless! P.S. Sophie’s costume was the most accurate to the period.

    • @GraciePattenSewing
      @GraciePattenSewing  Před 3 lety

      glad to hear it wasn't just me! I'll check that interview out; thanks!

  • @france7678
    @france7678 Před 3 lety +2

    Hi Gracie, France from Québec here! why are the characters not wearing a fichu ? And unrelated question : when would a girl begin wearing the stays ? You’re so sweet, I love your channel !

    • @GraciePattenSewing
      @GraciePattenSewing  Před 3 lety +2

      thank you! all children wore simple, loose stays from a very young age (toddlers) because it was believed to help develop their posture. I think boys aged out of the stays around age 5, while girls continued to wear them and the children's stays morphed into adult stays as the child grew older. I imagine that the lack of fichus is a stylistic detail on the part of the designers.

  • @TheVintageGuidebook
    @TheVintageGuidebook Před 3 lety

    I haven't see this film but now it's on my list!

  • @JustaFruits
    @JustaFruits Před 2 lety +1

    You said the clothes on their faces was to express erotism, but more specifically, it was a way to express consent. To kiss, they both have to remove the clothes over their mouths, and in doing so, both physically show that they want to kiss.
    Still weird looking, but a very nice social commentary imo

  • @georgetteromero7260
    @georgetteromero7260 Před rokem

    Hi, i found a font that says the movie was set in 1770 especifically, and I was expecting the moment of the chemise a la Reine or the Robe Voulant. Any way, I will do a video covering my point of view and thougts,

    • @georgetteromero7260
      @georgetteromero7260 Před rokem

      And, ofcouse, the setting comes with a lot of problems with the hairsyles

  • @pipersalyn200
    @pipersalyn200 Před 2 lety

    excellent and informative video! i have a couple questions if youre okay answering them.
    1. how accurate is the dress Heloise is wearing in the portrait with her daughter? and would you consider her daughters dress to be just a shift?
    2. is Heloises wedding dress accurate? to me, it looked like a recoloured version of her green dress

    • @GraciePattenSewing
      @GraciePattenSewing  Před 2 lety +1

      glad you liked it! in her portrait with her daughter, if I recall, she is wearing a robe en chemise, which became popular in Europe by the mid 1780s. I've always interpreted her wedding dress as a hallucination by Marianne, rather than an actual representation of what the dress looked like, but from photos, the white dress Heloise is wearing looks more like a dressing gown than a gown for formal wear to me.

  • @TheInga90
    @TheInga90 Před 3 lety

    Great video - please make more!:D I do have a question, though: is it really true that front closing first appeared in the 1770s? I thought the general rule was that robe a l'anglaise had front closing, regardless of the decade, while robe a la francaise used a stomacher? I did a search on gowns from the 1750s and -60s and there were several gowns with front closing. Have I misunderstood something?

    • @TheInga90
      @TheInga90 Před 3 lety

      Come to think of it, it might be due to my very poor searching skills😅 But please make me wiser!

    • @GraciePattenSewing
      @GraciePattenSewing  Před 3 lety +1

      This is a great question! I wrote somewhat of an essay in response lol so I'm going to try to post it in two parts. here's the first bit: The terms used to refer to dresses in the 18th century can be pretty confusing. Personally, I haven’t seen any front closing gowns of English/Anglo-American or French provenance from before the 1770s, and as far as I am aware front-closing dresses did not come into fashion in these places until the mid-1770s. The terms robe à la française and à l’anglaise are somewhat imprecise as they literally translate to “dress in the French style” and “dress in the English style,” referencing the fashion in either of those places, which changed over time. As far as I can tell though, these terms refer more so to the cut of the back of the dress than its front closure. Robes aux françaises have what we call Watteau pleats in the back and were sometimes referred to as sacques, and there are extant examples of sacques with stomacher and closed fronts (the closed-front sacques are generally later than the stomacher-front sacques).

    • @GraciePattenSewing
      @GraciePattenSewing  Před 3 lety +1

      Here is the second part: Robes aux anglaises are a little bit more complicated, as the term seems to refer to what we see as multiple kinds of dresses. This dress (1778), with the pleated back cut in one with the skirts but the front of the bodice being a separate piece of fabric, is described à l’anglaise: pin.it/19Ps7EN. This is fairly similar to what is called an English gown or a “nightgown” in the period. This dress (1784), is also described à l’anglaise and has the back cut separately from the skirts, similar to what is called an Italian gown: collections.mfa.org/objects/352895. In my quick search for images, I have not been able to find any plates with stomacher-front gowns described à l’anglaise, but gowns referred to as English gowns often had a stomacher and a pleated back cut in one with the skirts. I hope this makes sense, and your question has made me realize it may be useful to make a video describing the different types of 18th century gowns, as there’s a lot of different words and ambiguities that can be pretty confusing!

    • @GraciePattenSewing
      @GraciePattenSewing  Před 3 lety +1

      Also, I am not an expert so if your research has different or contradictory conclusions, that's awesome! It's all in the name of better understanding.

    • @TheInga90
      @TheInga90 Před 3 lety

      @@GraciePattenSewing Thank you so much! I find this area quite difficult to research, but you have made me wiser. Yes, please make a video about the different 18th century gowns - there is so much information I cannot find when I search for it. But it is as you say, the different terminology and words makes everything very confusing! Again, loved the video:))

  • @ZohraZenab
    @ZohraZenab Před 3 lety

    my fav movie 😍♥️🔥😘

  • @lindsaygrizzard7260
    @lindsaygrizzard7260 Před 2 lety

    Also that green would likely be arsenic dyed wouldn’t it? Wondering if they added that on purpose?

    • @GraciePattenSewing
      @GraciePattenSewing  Před 2 lety

      I think that arsenic green dye was a later invention, but the green probably has other symbolism!

  • @tulsiclarity3228
    @tulsiclarity3228 Před 3 lety

    12:45 wait from where? kinda really wanna know more about queer people from the past haha, its so sad that much of our history been "written out"