Copyright AriaAustin, 1999 - 2010, all rights reserved.
Gone With the Wind
The opening theme of Gone With the Wind gives me chills every time. In fact, I had a fox-red husky with white-blue eyes I named Katie-Scarlett O'Hara....
If you haven't read Margaret Mitchell's only novel, I highly encourage you to do so. It's even richer than the film.
The casting of a British actress in the role of an American southern belle was controversial at the time, thanks partly to a nationwide "hunt for Scarlett" that had captivated the country. 1,400 actresses were interviewed for the role, including Lucille Ball, Tallulah Bankhead, Bette Davis, Claudette Colbert, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, and Olivia de Havilland, who was later cast as Melanie Wilkes.
Costume designer Walter Plunkett was known as the supreme authority on historical costuming. However, for the character of Scarlett, director David O. Selznick wanted her costumes to be more glamorous, resulting in highly inaccurate costumes for the character. However, for most of the rest, the costumes are very accurate. All my Gone with the Wind gowns will be sewn on a Wilcox and Gibbs treadle machine from the 1860's to lend some air of authenticity to gowns that are otherwise fairly, and in some cases, highly inaccurate.
According to Kent State University:
Walter Plunkett designed 5,500 costume items for the movie at a cost of $153,818. The cost of laundering these costumes during the filming amounted to $10,000. Unfortunately, many of the costumes for Gone with the Wind were not preserved and disintegrated over time. Others were reused, or discarded, by the Western Costume Company without regard to their historic value. A few remaining costumes are in private collections, and five key costumes are in the vaults of The Selznick Archives at the University of Texas at Austin, and never put on public display.
The vast majority of Scarlett's costumes are made of dozens of yards of fabric and trimming, and therefore all prices listed are estimates only. Hoop skirts and corsets are available separately, and hoops are necessary for most gowns.
If you haven't read Margaret Mitchell's only novel, I highly encourage you to do so. It's even richer than the film.
The casting of a British actress in the role of an American southern belle was controversial at the time, thanks partly to a nationwide "hunt for Scarlett" that had captivated the country. 1,400 actresses were interviewed for the role, including Lucille Ball, Tallulah Bankhead, Bette Davis, Claudette Colbert, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, and Olivia de Havilland, who was later cast as Melanie Wilkes.
Costume designer Walter Plunkett was known as the supreme authority on historical costuming. However, for the character of Scarlett, director David O. Selznick wanted her costumes to be more glamorous, resulting in highly inaccurate costumes for the character. However, for most of the rest, the costumes are very accurate. All my Gone with the Wind gowns will be sewn on a Wilcox and Gibbs treadle machine from the 1860's to lend some air of authenticity to gowns that are otherwise fairly, and in some cases, highly inaccurate.
According to Kent State University:
Walter Plunkett designed 5,500 costume items for the movie at a cost of $153,818. The cost of laundering these costumes during the filming amounted to $10,000. Unfortunately, many of the costumes for Gone with the Wind were not preserved and disintegrated over time. Others were reused, or discarded, by the Western Costume Company without regard to their historic value. A few remaining costumes are in private collections, and five key costumes are in the vaults of The Selznick Archives at the University of Texas at Austin, and never put on public display.
The vast majority of Scarlett's costumes are made of dozens of yards of fabric and trimming, and therefore all prices listed are estimates only. Hoop skirts and corsets are available separately, and hoops are necessary for most gowns.
