Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Style Question Wednesday: Literary Fashion

Oh you know me - I drag you into the depths of my deep blue sea and once you are under, I give you a nice glass of champagne and send you bubbling back to the surface.

Today's style question is just such a bubbly elixir!


Oh, every style book I have EVER seen contains images of the famous iconic fashionista whom we revere:
  • Audrey Hepburn
  • Jacqueline Onassis
  • Grace Kelly
  • Coco Chanel
  • Katherine Hepburn
  • Kate Moss
  • Patti Smith
  • Every french woman...
  • insert own icon...
But WE will not be boxed in with pictures.  Not us.  What I want to know is more cerebral and may take a moment to think about:

What literary character's fashion do you (or did you!) most identify with?  Can be from a new book or a classic - your choice!

Now given the title of this blog, you might think I would say Anne of Green Gables. 


But no, it would not be Anne, though I have come to acquire her red hair..

After much deliberation, it would have to be Jo March from Little Women.


Why? Because Jo March was a klutz about clothing, just like I am.  Do you remember the scene in chapter 3 where she and Meg are going to the party?

Describing her dress:

'I'm sure our pops look like silk, and they are nice enough for us.  Yours is as good as new, but I forgot the burn and the tear in mine.  Whatever shall I do?  The burn shows badly and I can't take any out."

And then her gloves:

"Mine are spoiled with leomonade, and I can't get any new ones, so I shall have to go without," said Jo, who never troubled herself much about dress.

Given the fact that I cannot see a bit of grease or dirt without attracting it to me, I have to say that Jo is indeed my literary fashionista!

How about you - what character's dress do you love or is emblematic of your style?  I would love to know!!!

Cannot wait to hear - have a wonderful Wednesday and stay safe out there!

24 comments:

  1. I love little women and i love Winona Ryder.
    This is the perfect role for her.My favorite role of hers is in "The House of Spirits".
    My daughter is named after her(Winona).

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  2. Thanks for all the answers to my question yesterday,i still havent figured it out:(

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    1. Okay we will put our minds back on this today and see what we can figure out!

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  3. Is there a character somewhere, anywhere, named Martha Markdown?

    I do remember the excitement of young Laura Ingalls over a brown dress with buttons down the front and piping at the front and on the collar. It inspired me to insist on a brown silk dress with buttons and piping for a high school event, and magically the light brown, almost taupe color made my eyes look greener and smoothed out my complexion. I still remember how pretty I felt.

    I think some clothes are just spot magnets. I don't hurry to dispose of them, because I'm afraid something I like better will step up to assume the role of spot collector. In more formal times, Himself used to think of his ties as gastronomical memoirs. Now that guys eat out in their shirtsleeves, he's shocked - shocked! - to look in a mirror after a meal.

    Ina, I love "Mermaids"!

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    1. Funny - I always wanted a brown silk dress, too! Isn't that neat that it worked for you? And Heathers is classics!

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    2. Whoops, meant to say Mermaids, but I also think Heather is classic!

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    3. WWF,i totally forgot about her mermaids role!
      Have you seen Reality Bits?

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  4. MY first favorite book was called "Ann likes Red" and it was about a little girl with red clothing. I guess I was always hooked on fashion. I loved Little House books,Mary and Laura doing needlework, and their blue and pink dresses, Little Women, with Amy dressed bandbox perfectly, and Anne of Green Gables remembering that Anne had to change her closet so it faced away from the sun. I also remeber a series called the All of A kind Family, and the middle sister had to tea dye the older sisters dress because she borrowed it, and spilled something on it. Yes- I was hooked at a young age.

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    1. SO grammatically incorrect. Sorry.

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    2. Loved all these books and especially was taken with the All of a Kind Family!

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    3. Forgot one...I know I have mentioned it before on your blog, but Betsy , Tacy and Tib-and TIb's clothes will always have a place in my heart.

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    4. You and I have to go to the Betsy Tacy convention together!

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    5. I wouldn't toy with you! It is every 3 or 4 years in Mankato! Google Betsy Tacy Society!

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  5. Probably Isak Dinesen in "Out of Africa". Interesting question W.

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  6. Love this post! Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde.

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  7. I can't say I have ever thought about this, but I do find myself all "grabby handed" with TV and film wardrobes. I'm all about Zooey Deschanel's style with 4 or 5 more inches added to the hems. For all I know, she may be copying MY outfits :-)

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  8. PICK ONE WMM, you got me again, I am rotten at picking a single fave. I think the most enduring part of my attempt at style that comes from lit did have an iconic moment around 1970. But am too young to actually remember it Love Story's Jennifer Cavalleri (well more Ali MacGraw now), the camel coat, the perfect white tee, the just-so black turtleneck. It actually wasn't very working class or college student. But in both book and movie, she always managed to look good without being a clothes horse. If Annie Hall came from a book, that would be it.

    Were I was 10 years younger I think I would have been very inspired by Lisbeth Salander's black/ leather/ mod meets grunge looks in both the Girl With...novels and the Rooney Mara movie version, more than Noomi Rapace's hoodies. Proof I think, at least, that well done wardrobe can be powerful, really reinvent what we think someone looks like.

    When it comes to outwear (wellies, coat, satchel) Paddington Bear is my enduring literary stylist, no question. The first book I remember making a massive style impression, Gone With the Wind. My mum used to actually tell me to stop dressing like Jane Eyre (dull, repetitive black interspersed with a bit of grey or brown) - known in the family back then as "the black habit."

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    1. OH those are great picks! I am especially partial to Paddington! Imagine and if Paddington and Lisbeth had been on some adventure together, both of them looking for a home and all....

      "The Black Habit" - your mother was too witty!

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Kindness is a virtue...