Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2006-08-12 06:25 am
tenlittlebullets) wrote2006-08-12 06:25 am
I love the smell of irrelevant ranting in the morning.
At some point last night I was poking through my closet and I found something I thought I'd lost months ago--my Eponine hat. I saw it on the shelf of some big-box store during a completely unrelated shopping trip sometime in January and couldn't resist. And now I've found it again. So, with way too much caffeine in me and a night to kill, I dug up my steampunky tatterskirt, sliced a white t-shirt to ribbons, rummaged around in my closet some more and stumbled upon a belt and a likely-looking wig... and before I knew it I had an Eponine costume assembled. Gee, that wasn't too hard. Camwhoring almost ensued, but I have an awful and cheap digital camera that does not do well in non-natural lighting. And so here I sit waiting for morning to dawn so I can pose in the overgrown garden out back, taking pretentious photographs and generally looking like a twit in a costume I don't even like the design of that much.
Now, I am not a costumer. I don't design them, I don't make them, I don't even do reproductions. Just clumsy attempts at evoking the general look of the costumes. But you know what? I may not be a costumer or a fashion designer, but I am a history nerd. And the costumes in the musical piss me the fuck off.
No, it's not the ridiculous vest that makes Enjolras a moving rifle target. It's not even the exaggerated, stylized whores. I can deal with that. I might not approve too much, but I can put up with it for dramatic effect. But you know what? Anachronistic hoop skirts at the wedding are not dramatic effect. Girls walking around in vaguely old-fashioned-looking skirts and white blouses are not dramatic effect. Cosette's ass-ugly dress might be dramatic effect, but its ridiculously un-1830s cut sure ain't. Things like that aren't stylized inaccuracy. They're just plain laziness on the part of the costume designers. There was absolutely no need to stick those hoop skirts in there thirty years before they were due to appear--they serve no purpose other than to irk historical fashion nerds.
Needless to say, if I ever directed an amateur production of Les Mis the female ensemble would all want to murder me for stuffing them into ugly puffy-sleeved Romantic Era dresses. Of course, if I ever directed an amateur production, the whores would sing Turning, the Bishop would come out at the end instead of Eponine, and I'd probably end up cutting On My Own and reinstating L'un vers l'autre. But shh, that's a post for another day.
Now, I am not a costumer. I don't design them, I don't make them, I don't even do reproductions. Just clumsy attempts at evoking the general look of the costumes. But you know what? I may not be a costumer or a fashion designer, but I am a history nerd. And the costumes in the musical piss me the fuck off.
No, it's not the ridiculous vest that makes Enjolras a moving rifle target. It's not even the exaggerated, stylized whores. I can deal with that. I might not approve too much, but I can put up with it for dramatic effect. But you know what? Anachronistic hoop skirts at the wedding are not dramatic effect. Girls walking around in vaguely old-fashioned-looking skirts and white blouses are not dramatic effect. Cosette's ass-ugly dress might be dramatic effect, but its ridiculously un-1830s cut sure ain't. Things like that aren't stylized inaccuracy. They're just plain laziness on the part of the costume designers. There was absolutely no need to stick those hoop skirts in there thirty years before they were due to appear--they serve no purpose other than to irk historical fashion nerds.
Needless to say, if I ever directed an amateur production of Les Mis the female ensemble would all want to murder me for stuffing them into ugly puffy-sleeved Romantic Era dresses. Of course, if I ever directed an amateur production, the whores would sing Turning, the Bishop would come out at the end instead of Eponine, and I'd probably end up cutting On My Own and reinstating L'un vers l'autre. But shh, that's a post for another day.
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Clothing anachronisms in Les Miz should not be allowed. Unless it's Jehan. :)
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And Victor wasn't exactly on target with his descriptions, so there's the issue of "should we be as accurate as canon or better?" I think one ought to be better than canon, but I'm a costume nazi who was annoyed at the Robert Redford Great Gatsby because a) the house was all wrong and b) they costumed the novel by when it was published, not by when it was set, so all the characters were several years older than they should have been and OUGHT TO HAVE KNOWN BETTER! (well, they ought to have known better anyway, but that's a rant about Fitzgerald, not costume designers.)
It is weird how Andy was very good up to 1823 and then fucked it all up in Paris. I'm still confused by the need for a rope to be part of Brujon's costuming, why our Brujons get an actual shirt while in London they wear only a leather vest (I'm serious, and while I adore Phil Snowden, I *really* didn't need to see that much of him every night), and what the hell is up with Combeferre's outfit.
(I think the hoops are to avoid having crinolines, but they're too wide. And Rebecca Caine had a better wig than any subsequent Cosette - at least she actually *gasp* had her hair up! Wonder if she had a better dress? Hard to tell with the production pics a person can find these days.)
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