It sat at number 89 in the House of Dior. Eye-catching, the “black velvet [dress]: long skirt covered in jet beads, the bodice a pale froth of chiffon, tulle, and lace,” the “Tempest,” as the dress is named, is what inspires widowed cleaning lady Ada Harris to go to Paris and get a dress of her own in the 1958 novel Flowers for Mrs. Harris, according to BBC Culture.
The novel, written by Paul Gallico, highlights Mrs. Harris’s journey to obtain her own Tempest and experience the feeling of “IT!!” Although Mrs. Harris begins as a lower-class cleaning lady, she makes enough money to travel to Paris in search of an equally elegant gown, and she leaves as a new person, a sophisticated, confident, and cultured woman.
As portrayed in Gallico’s novel, it’s the dress—the fancy, stylish garment— that changes a person and the way others view that person. The most famous example of this concept, Cinderella, might help ring a bell. Without her fashionable new ball gown, her fairy godmother’s gift, Cinderella would’ve never gotten past the front door of the palace. Not only can an outfit change a person’s looks, it can also change their personality. In The Six Swans by the Brothers Grimm, clothing turns boys into swans. In Donkeyskin by Charles Perrault, a costume allows a girl to escape her abusive father’s wrath. In The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Anderson, a beautiful pair of shoes changes a girl from a pathetic orphan to a vain, spoiled “princess” of a child. “Magic is inherently about transformation. Clothing is also the easiest way for humans to transform, disguise, reveal, and become apparently more or less than they are,” fashion historian Hilary Davidson tells BBC Culture. “Clothing is our second skin, our socio-cultural skin, and determines a large amount of how others perceive us. To use clothing to change our seeming [appearance] is, on some level, an enchanted act.”
Fairy tales aren’t the only genre to develop this concept. Films such as Miss Congeniality (2000) and The Devil Wears Prada (2006) also use this theme. In these films, rather than just a new outfit, young women are “made-over,” receiving a new haircuts, flawless makeup and, of course, a whole new wardrobe. These changes give each heroine a new identity, as if barren winter trees suddenly experienced spring again.
Similarly to the way that superheroes hide their identities in ordinary, everyday people such as Clark Kent aka Superman and Peter Parker aka Spiderman, Audrey Hepburn’s character in the film Sabrina (1954) transforms herself from a poor, overlooked adolescent to a sophisticated, commanding woman. Julia Roberts’s character, sex worker Vivian Ward from Pretty Woman, effectively shows two sides of her personality: “before” and “after.” Before her transformation, she allows others to shame her for wearing thigh-high boots. The next day, returning to a snobby clothing store dressed lavishly in white, she ridicules the salesgirls who wouldn’t help her, saying: “Big mistake, big, huge.”
Nice clothes are meant to boost confidence, to elevate their wearers’ self-esteem, not to change or justify their wearers’ places in the social hierarchy. “Within these early fairy tales, dress was incredibly heavily associated with status,” says Colleen Hill, a “curator of costumes and accessories at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology,” according to BBC Culture. “For example, Cinderella showing up at the ball wearing a gold and then a silver dress essentially indicated that she was royalty. I think all of us have made those kinds of fashion mistakes where we buy a pair of shoes that we can’t actually walk in, or a dress that is a little too tight, but at the time, we were hoping we could fit into. There’s always this idea that the next thing we buy will actually be the perfect thing, [which] is certainly wrapped up in this idea of consumerism and transformation.”
Whether it be in a fairy tale or a movie, a philosophy or real life, aspects of fashion actually shape the ways we think, and reveal a lot about us. In fairy tales and films, the way one dresses represents one’s social class; however, fashion also shows our “taste,” our moods, and the way we feel about ourselves on any given day or night. Many of us are just like Mrs. Harris is when she first sees the Tempest: “a singularly determined woman, moving through the world in pursuit of that perfect feeling of ‘IT!!’”
Sources: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220712-mrs-harris-goes-to-paris-and-the-fairy-tale-myth-that-endure
The novel, written by Paul Gallico, highlights Mrs. Harris’s journey to obtain her own Tempest and experience the feeling of “IT!!” Although Mrs. Harris begins as a lower-class cleaning lady, she makes enough money to travel to Paris in search of an equally elegant gown, and she leaves as a new person, a sophisticated, confident, and cultured woman.
As portrayed in Gallico’s novel, it’s the dress—the fancy, stylish garment— that changes a person and the way others view that person. The most famous example of this concept, Cinderella, might help ring a bell. Without her fashionable new ball gown, her fairy godmother’s gift, Cinderella would’ve never gotten past the front door of the palace. Not only can an outfit change a person’s looks, it can also change their personality. In The Six Swans by the Brothers Grimm, clothing turns boys into swans. In Donkeyskin by Charles Perrault, a costume allows a girl to escape her abusive father’s wrath. In The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Anderson, a beautiful pair of shoes changes a girl from a pathetic orphan to a vain, spoiled “princess” of a child. “Magic is inherently about transformation. Clothing is also the easiest way for humans to transform, disguise, reveal, and become apparently more or less than they are,” fashion historian Hilary Davidson tells BBC Culture. “Clothing is our second skin, our socio-cultural skin, and determines a large amount of how others perceive us. To use clothing to change our seeming [appearance] is, on some level, an enchanted act.”
Fairy tales aren’t the only genre to develop this concept. Films such as Miss Congeniality (2000) and The Devil Wears Prada (2006) also use this theme. In these films, rather than just a new outfit, young women are “made-over,” receiving a new haircuts, flawless makeup and, of course, a whole new wardrobe. These changes give each heroine a new identity, as if barren winter trees suddenly experienced spring again.
Similarly to the way that superheroes hide their identities in ordinary, everyday people such as Clark Kent aka Superman and Peter Parker aka Spiderman, Audrey Hepburn’s character in the film Sabrina (1954) transforms herself from a poor, overlooked adolescent to a sophisticated, commanding woman. Julia Roberts’s character, sex worker Vivian Ward from Pretty Woman, effectively shows two sides of her personality: “before” and “after.” Before her transformation, she allows others to shame her for wearing thigh-high boots. The next day, returning to a snobby clothing store dressed lavishly in white, she ridicules the salesgirls who wouldn’t help her, saying: “Big mistake, big, huge.”
Nice clothes are meant to boost confidence, to elevate their wearers’ self-esteem, not to change or justify their wearers’ places in the social hierarchy. “Within these early fairy tales, dress was incredibly heavily associated with status,” says Colleen Hill, a “curator of costumes and accessories at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology,” according to BBC Culture. “For example, Cinderella showing up at the ball wearing a gold and then a silver dress essentially indicated that she was royalty. I think all of us have made those kinds of fashion mistakes where we buy a pair of shoes that we can’t actually walk in, or a dress that is a little too tight, but at the time, we were hoping we could fit into. There’s always this idea that the next thing we buy will actually be the perfect thing, [which] is certainly wrapped up in this idea of consumerism and transformation.”
Whether it be in a fairy tale or a movie, a philosophy or real life, aspects of fashion actually shape the ways we think, and reveal a lot about us. In fairy tales and films, the way one dresses represents one’s social class; however, fashion also shows our “taste,” our moods, and the way we feel about ourselves on any given day or night. Many of us are just like Mrs. Harris is when she first sees the Tempest: “a singularly determined woman, moving through the world in pursuit of that perfect feeling of ‘IT!!’”
Sources: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220712-mrs-harris-goes-to-paris-and-the-fairy-tale-myth-that-endure
