Princesses of Sweet Rhyme and Pure Reason’s White Gown and Crown from The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

Click for larger version; click for the list of dolls.

I reread one of my favorite books,The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, the other day. I love it because I always notice something new every time I read it. This time around it was the bells on the Soundkeeper’s dress — I should like to paperdoll her outfit now, but I’m not really in the mood to draw a million little bells tonight. As you see, I was in the mood for something much easier, which is the dress that Rhyme and Reason wear. Since they wear about the same thing, the dress can be for either of them. Make Sylvia Rhyme and Iris Reason, or the other way around, as you please.

Don’t forget, I’m liveblogging (or as Eleanor has it, live-dolling) the Oscars this Sunday. I figure that will consist of drawing red carpet dresses until my fingers drop off. To get everyone in an Oscar mood, let’s have an Oscar poll. Check out the oscar.com Costume Design nomination information if you need a refresher.

Halloween Costume Series Day 14: Christine Daae’s Star Princess Masquerade Costume In Black, Blue and White with Black Domino Mask

Click for larger version; click for the list of dolls.

Kathleen asked, earlier this month, that I do one of Christine Daae’s outfits from the Phantom of the Opera, which was a timely request because I recently got the musical soundtrack from the library. (One of the sad things about the times when I am not drawing is that I must mourn the Outfits which Could Have Been. I listened to the original text many months ago, and then I forced Brian to sit with the recent movie version with me. That he endured as a proof of his love, but he was much more enthusastiac about the next Phantom spinoff we watched, The Phantom of the Paradise. Tagline: “He sold his soul for rock’n'roll.” Anyways, I do regret that I didn’t do a paperdoll series of these Phantoms and Christines. But I digress.) So since I got the soundtrack, I’ve been singing along — portions of my brain which went on strike during geometry class apparently devoted themselves thoroughly to memorizing the whole musical, it seems — even getting Brian in on the fun, singing Phantom duets along with him to which we make up the words. He’s joined in with me a couple times as I trilled “Music of the Night” in the shower, scaring the living daylights out of me each time (”didn’t you ever see Psycho?” I asked) and gamely followed along with Raoul’s part to “All I Ask Of You.” (”How can anyone LISTEN to this? No one will FIND you? Your fears are far BEHIND you?” he asks. “Just be quiet and sing it,” I reply perfectly logically and reasonably.)

Of course, for Halloween I must do a Masquerade dress, the first step of which was blithely breaking the “no research” rule once again. The movie dress was a pink concoction; I read somewhere it was supposed to represent the influence of the scarlet-garbed Phantom, but I personally didn’t think it quite worked that way — I thought it just looked too conventional, kind of like “Totally Ingenue Barbie!” although certainly it was very beautiful. The stage outfit was rather more what I would prefer, for a masquerade ball — a blue and pink silver-starred ballet outfit, referred to as her “Star Princess” dress. Here you can see a picture of the costume design sketch, some images from the stage and a fan’s reproduction of the dress, and this forum post includes a discussion of the dress and links to pictures of it from different productions. I liked the shape, but didn’t want to just copy one of them, and so looked to the original text for further inspiration. Now, the thing I should have quite liked to paperdoll from the original text was the Phantom’s “immense red-velvet cloak, which trailed along the floor like a king’s train; and on this cloak was embroidered, in gold letters, which every one read and repeated aloud, ‘Don’t touch me! I am Red Death stalking abroad!’” But as for Christine, the only thing described is her black domino mask, and re-reading that scene, it is such a very dark time for her… So here she is, as my Star Princess for the masquerade, but not the stars giving way to dawn as on the stage; the night has laid claim to this Christine.

We are coming to the end of the zombie slaughter poll, so vote…

Lily Bart’s White Edwardian Tea Gown with Pink Rose Sash from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Click for larger version; click for the list of dolls.

Now that I’m done with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, I do think it’s time for another depressing period piece. This time I’m listening to The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, read for Librivox by Elizabeth Klett. I’ve read it before, but I’m actually preferring audiobooks lately because I don’t skim so much and get more of the details, and I’ve been thinking of this book since I read this New York Times article about Lily’s fate…

So far there hasn’t been much description of individual dresses, but there’s so much about the culture that those dresses form such a part of. Here’s Lily Bart talking about marriage with Lawrence Selden: “Your coat’s a little shabby–but who cares? It doesn’t keep people from asking you to dine. If I were shabby no one would have me: a woman is asked out as much for her clothes as for herself. The clothes are the background, the frame, if you like: they don’t make success, but they are a part of it. Who wants a dingy woman? We are expected to be pretty and well-dressed till we drop–and if we can’t keep it up alone, we have to go into partnership.”

Well, even if the book does promise to be melancholy, there is a silver lining: the dresses from the Belle Époque are beautiful, even if Sylvia isn’t quite the desired S-shape. I remember later on she wears some form of white dress, but there’s not a lot of physical description in the book so it’s based more on vintage gowns from 1904 and 1905 I’ve been looking at, particularly this one.

Margaret Hale’s White Gown from Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South

Click for larger version; click for the list of dolls.

This gown is based on one that Margaret Hale, main character of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, wore to a dinner party. I listened to a Librivox recording of it this month.

All we know about the gown from the book is that it is white silk and adorned with coral (two pins in her hair, her sleeves looped up with coral strings, and a coral necklace.) There’s no firm date given for the events of the book, but I’m dating this gown to 1852, based on this page, which makes it sound as if the strike in the book was based on the historical strike at Preston in 1853, a year before the book began to be serialized. Then, this was the gown that Margaret also wore for her cousin’s wedding, which was at the beginning of the book. It’s an inconvenient date — right there between the Regency gowns and the hoopskirt at its height. I used this page for reference, mostly.

It may sound like the book is some sort of Civil War drama, but it refers instead to the differences between the slow-paced farming communities of the south of England and the upstart industrial cities of the north. For this reason I found it a rather odd book somehow; it starts off with a wedding, a silly mother, a pastor father, a suitor for Margaret and a good bit of walking, gardening and drawing, and we Jane Austen fans think “Oh, I know where this is going.”

(Unrelated: while chatting with a woman working at the bookstore the other day, she told us she had been talking to someone who lamented, in all seriousness, that Jane Austen hadn’t written anything lately.)

But just as the reader is getting acquainted with Helstone and its inhabitants and charms, there’s a crisis: Margaret’s father loses his faith in some way, enough that he feels that he must renounce his living and find other employment. This revelation is never truly explored in the book, as Margaret seems rather afraid to ask for any more details, and instead throws herself into the mundane details needed to keep the family together. So they move to Milton, a factory town, and her father becomes a private tutor. And all of a sudden, this book which had seemed to promise a lightly romantic comedy of manners, brings in questions of religious faith, chapters upon chapters of class conflict, lingering illness, murder, deception, lies, grave misunderstandings and lots and lots of death. (And why the one character I would have liked to see die never quite made it there, I have no idea.) This is all separate from the story of Margaret’s love interest, which is its own little torment; they must spend thirty chapters thinking of each other, misunderstanding each other, and being miserable, before it is all finally resolved in the last page of the book.

I enjoyed it thoroughly, even with the heaps of melodrama, as Margaret herself is a fascinating and admirable heroine, and the depiction of the class conflict is easily more important than the romance. The strike, the union and the millowners are all treated evenly and sympathetically, and the inclusion of such themes makes the novel so unique.

Rheya’s white beach dress from Solaris (book)

Click for larger version; click for the list of dolls.

I read Solaris carefully, but all we know is that when Rheya returns, she wears a white beach dress. No visible fastenings — the buttons are ornamental — and short sleeves that hide the evidence of her suicide. I drew this days ago and went back and forth about posting it; I’m influenced in my image of Rheya by the 1972 movie, and this seems too cheerful for Rheya somehow, but it creeped Brian out, so that’s in its favor. The only other thing she wore that was described was the orange-and-brown striped bathrobe… In the movie, she has a lovely brownish dress, but I can’t do that from memory and I can’t find pictures of it. (decent ones, at least. it’s partially visible here and here.)

And you, my dear, what would you see of me? What would be missing, what would I not recognize?