Good afternoon everyone,

This is one of those Fem Fris where I just want to look at pretty dresses, and I hope that you are going to enjoy that too.

There is seemingly no upper bound to my enthusiasm for articles about adapting Jane Austen books for the screen. I'm not totally sure why that is because I don't especially love Regency fashion. Maybe it's because it takes so much thinking to do justice to the sincere and radiant world that Austen created. Anyway, here's a really long article from a fashion historian about all of the screen adaptations of Pride and Prejudice in order:

It seems to be a truth universally acknowledged that, aside from a few too many low necklines during the day on women’s gowns, the designer Dinah Collin was as close to accuracy is it’s possible to get. In her own words, the production’s costumes had to appear ‘fresh and light…as natural for each character as possible…The key is to make the clothes like real clothes from a wardrobe rather than a set of costumes worn by actors.’

http://www.willowandthatch.com/costumes-jane-austen-pride-prejudice-period-dramas/

Maybe you're looking for something a bit more modern, though. In that case, how about the fashion in Spencer, a film which walks the line between real and not at all real in a way that I loved:

Since the film is set in the early 1990s, she looked through images of Diana from about 1988 to 1992 to get a sense of her overall style at the time and identify what she wore repeatedly in that era — plaid and gold double-breasted buttons, for example. “I’m sure that doing The Crown, for instance, is good fun because you’re trying to find the exact details and replicate,” she said. “But given that our movie isn’t one of exact replication, it’s a work of art you’ve got leeway to interpret in different ways. It’s great to do costumes that have that freedom.”

https://www.vulture.com/2021/11/how-spencers-costumes-evoke-the-aura-of-princess-diana.html

Love,

Alex.