How to Think Like a Costume Designer When Writing Historical Fiction

My mother trained as a costume designer and is a self-made cinephile, so the background noise of my childhood and adolescence was the classic films channel. My sister and I grew up to the scratchy deadpan of Bette Davis; the swell of strings under Fred Astaire’s feet; the rapid-fire sniping of Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Layered over all of that was our mother periodically calling out something to the effect of, “Look at that hat! ” We’d look up in time to see Bette Davis in Now Voyager , looking out at us from under a hat that perfectly frames her newly steady gaze, and get a quick breakdown of how now that her clothes fit right and her headgear locks our eyes on her best feature, we know that she’s come into her own and is ready to change her life. As we learned to follow plots that turned on dialogue, we also learned to follow costumes: when done right, a costume design will tell us everything we need to know about everyone’s means, motives and trajectory. So when it came time to dress the characters in my debut novel, Lucky Red—that is, to add more detail to a montage of nineteenth-century brothel life—I texted my mom: Me: Quick historical question: is “duck canvas” an accurate material for cowboy pants? I’m looking for the inexpensive, hard-wearing opposite of wool suiting. Mom: That would be perfect. …Denim wasn’t a big thing yet—it’s a true San Francisco fabric. [heart emoji][clap emoji][sunglasses emoji] Me: Thanks! [many heart emojis] Mom: And they’d wear clothes to death. Remember, “Deets don’t quit on a garment just ‘cause it’s got a little age to it.” While I could have just written something about stiff new pants, or plain “canvas,” I like the rhythm of “duck canvas.” I’m also pleased that it’s historically accurate costume design. As writers, we don’t really think of the clothes our characters wear as “costumes,” but it’s hard to think of a better term for what they put on (or take off) throughout the story. Good costume design isn’t about […]

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