Historical Seamstress Reviews the Costumes in "A Portrait of a Lady on Fire:" How Accurate Are They? 

I think that portrait gallery scene is set in the 1780s because of the chemise a la reine, which is confusing because Heloise and Marianne don't look 20 years older. I think it's set in 1760 because I've read that date in descriptions of the movie, but I agree that the timeline is a little weird.

Indeed! The film is definitely not a casualty in the Great Bobby Pin Shortage

At 9.30 min the woman in green had her hair parted to one side. THAT is bugging, too.

@@saymyname2417 hahaha I'll take that "artistic license" over beach waves any day, but good observation

@@GraciePattenSewing - Aaargh, YES! 18th century beach waves would even be worse than this... 😱😱😱 . But well, we have seen stuff far more gross 😁 !

should they have had their hair powdered?

thank you! 2020 and 2021 have really changed how I think when I see facial coverings in films and TV - my first thought is always "oh no, is their nose covered!?"

It is!

They are! The movie is available for about $3 on youtube, which is where I watched it.

It didn't strike me as particularly odd at the time, because she could have dressed up the gown with millinery, but that's a good point.

yeah it's sad that it didn't get as much hype (at least in the English language media/internet) as I think it deserved

That's a good point about making the two main characters stand out from the "ensemble"! It's definitely sad how this film isn't really discussed by American audiences (with which I'm most familiar - I don't know how the film was received in the rest of the world). I imagine that it's also in part due to the language barrier - Americans don't regularly watch foreign films, especially if they aren't in English :(. Hopefully my little review might prompt a few more people to watch it, as it really is wonderful.

stays are fun! good luck if you decide to make or buy them!

I'm glad it was helpful! good luck with your project!

@@GraciePattenSewing Thanks !

glad to hear it wasn't just me! I'll check that interview out; thanks!

thank you! all children wore simple, loose stays from a very young age (toddlers) because it was believed to help develop their posture. I think boys aged out of the stays around age 5, while girls continued to wear them and the children's stays morphed into adult stays as the child grew older. I imagine that the lack of fichus is a stylistic detail on the part of the designers.

And, ofcouse, the setting comes with a lot of problems with the hairsyles

glad you liked it! in her portrait with her daughter, if I recall, she is wearing a robe en chemise, which became popular in Europe by the mid 1780s. I've always interpreted her wedding dress as a hallucination by Marianne, rather than an actual representation of what the dress looked like, but from photos, the white dress Heloise is wearing looks more like a dressing gown than a gown for formal wear to me.

Come to think of it, it might be due to my very poor searching skills😅 But please make me wiser!

This is a great question! I wrote somewhat of an essay in response lol so I'm going to try to post it in two parts. here's the first bit: The terms used to refer to dresses in the 18th century can be pretty confusing. Personally, I haven’t seen any front closing gowns of English/Anglo-American or French provenance from before the 1770s, and as far as I am aware front-closing dresses did not come into fashion in these places until the mid-1770s. The terms robe à la française and à l’anglaise are somewhat imprecise as they literally translate to “dress in the French style” and “dress in the English style,” referencing the fashion in either of those places, which changed over time. As far as I can tell though, these terms refer more so to the cut of the back of the dress than its front closure. Robes aux françaises have what we call Watteau pleats in the back and were sometimes referred to as sacques, and there are extant examples of sacques with stomacher and closed fronts (the closed-front sacques are generally later than the stomacher-front sacques).

Here is the second part: Robes aux anglaises are a little bit more complicated, as the term seems to refer to what we see as multiple kinds of dresses. This dress (1778), with the pleated back cut in one with the skirts but the front of the bodice being a separate piece of fabric, is described à l’anglaise: pin.it/19Ps7EN. This is fairly similar to what is called an English gown or a “nightgown” in the period. This dress (1784), is also described à l’anglaise and has the back cut separately from the skirts, similar to what is called an Italian gown: collections.mfa.org/objects/352895. In my quick search for images, I have not been able to find any plates with stomacher-front gowns described à l’anglaise, but gowns referred to as English gowns often had a stomacher and a pleated back cut in one with the skirts. I hope this makes sense, and your question has made me realize it may be useful to make a video describing the different types of 18th century gowns, as there’s a lot of different words and ambiguities that can be pretty confusing!

Also, I am not an expert so if your research has different or contradictory conclusions, that's awesome! It's all in the name of better understanding.

@@GraciePattenSewing Thank you so much! I find this area quite difficult to research, but you have made me wiser. Yes, please make a video about the different 18th century gowns - there is so much information I cannot find when I search for it. But it is as you say, the different terminology and words makes everything very confusing! Again, loved the video:))

I think that arsenic green dye was a later invention, but the green probably has other symbolism!