MovieChat Forums > Gone with the Wind (1940) Discussion > Scarlets bbq Dress

Scarlets bbq Dress

posted 8 years ago by lrdcharlton
14 replies | jump to latest

When Scarlet was preparing for the bbq, Mammy asked her what she intended to wear. Scarlet pointed out the dress and Mammy immediately rejected the choice. Shortly before that Prissy brought in Scarlets breakfast in which she refused to eat. Jumping ahead, when Scarlet insisted, Mammy turned to leave and tell Scarlet's mother about the choice of dress and Scarlet then said if she tells then she would not eat any of her breakfast if she told. What exactly was wrong with the dress? Ms Ellen was very aware that Scarlet intended to wear it as Sue-Ellen complained to her that she wanted to wear it.Why would the mother change her mind?

[–] snsurone 8 years ago

Fashion protocol of the day dictated just what clothing was suitable for different times of the day.
Scarlett's dress had very short sleeves and a low neckline, which was considered unfit for a morning party, where women were supposed to be completely covered.
As Mammy said, ""you cain't show your buzzum before three o'clock in the afternoon."

BTW, that was not the dress Suellen coveted; she wanted Scarlett's green silk ball gown that Scarlett was to wear that night.
It's more clear in the book than in the movie.

[–] lrdcharlton 8 years ago

Well, I am not sure the movie intended to make that distinction. When she asked her mother about wearing Scarlet's green dress, Ellen told her that her pink gown was lovely. Sueellen wore a pink dress to the bbq.

[–] snsurone 8 years ago

Yes, and IMO, Suellen's BBQ dress was ugly.
I like her yellow organdy with its brown velvet edging (from the earlier scene at Tara) much better.

[–] lrdcharlton 8 years ago

Yeah, a good amount of them at the BBQ were very ugly. They looked like bed printed bed sheets. As much as they tried to downplay Melanie as dressing plain,I thought she and scarlett were the better dressed of the all the young women. Even at Scarlett's wedding she was very beautiful and after that everything she wore was very drab.

[–] SweaterCannons 8 years ago

In a boxed set I have, there's a really wonderful extra, a documentary of Olivia de Havilland just sitting in a chair telling anecdotes about making the movie.

In it, she says about the dress that she wore to Scarlett and Charles' wedding that it was this gorgeous dress with a hoop skirt, the prettiest she got to wear in the movie and she was so excited to wear it because she knew that after that scene, it was going to be downhill, costume-wise, from there on out.

And then the hoop skirt blocked Scarlett in the frame, so they took the hoops out, so that "the dress just hung there, all limp," and her one beautiful dress wasn't so beautiful after all.

[–] lrdcharlton 8 years ago

I heard about that.I recall seeing a still of her in this distinctive blue gown and thought it was either a deleted scene of something they intended to do but never made it to film.I notice the top portion looked familiar from the wedding scene. It really looked different when in full view, I would even say she looked better than Scarlett if they had shown the whole thing. But after that she is in mourning then working as a nurse then bed ridden. I guess we never got another chance to dress nicelh except for Ashley's party and it looked like she barely even tried to dress up. In the beginning she looks like she cared about her looks.

[–] snsurone 8 years ago

Don't forget, after the war the Wilkes' were penniless.
Through Scarlett's efforts, they managed to rise to middle-class status.

Melanie certainly couldn't afford the type of dress that Scarlett wore to the birthday party (not that she would wear something like that; she was too much a lady).

I found Melanie's silk dress quite attractive, and in keeping with the financial status of her friends.
Besides, the party was just a small reception, not a grand ball!

[–] lrdcharlton 8 years ago

I always figured that they were affluent again but obviously not the level they were before the war.Melanie was undeerdresses compared to everyone else at the party. With Scarlett I was actually surprised that Scarlett actually had a dress like that. Wasn't red considered to be a scandalous color only worn by women like ke Belle and were in the world would be an appropriate setting to wear it. I never understood the impact of the dress until I really observed the scene. Not only was it red it was overly extravagant for the little party. The people were dressed up but not like that. It wonder if Melanie was being sincere about liking the dress and why Scarlett would wear such an outfit considering the rumors. It almost at seemed like she was she forced to wear the dress and to make her feel welcome complimented the inappropriate dress.

[–] snsurone 8 years ago

She wore that red dress because Rhett made her wear it.
Yes, it was indeed the type of garment that a prostitute would wear, but remember, Scarlett has "execrable taste", so such a dress might have appealed to her.

BTW, the dress in the movie was FAR different than the one in the book.
That was described as jade green watered silk, cut low in the bosom, with the skirt draped over a huge bustle adorned with pink velvet roses.

[–] lrdcharlton 8 years ago

I know who and why she wore it, I was saying what did Melanie think when she saw her. The first thing said to Scarlett was that she loved her dress. When know full we that Melanie would never wear or like something like that. Melanie didn't know that Rhett made her wear it, so in mind Shem would have to think Scarlett was crazy to wear such a provocative outfit to the party in which all the guests thought Scarlett was having an affair with her brother in law.

[–] otter 8 years ago

This is the sort of dress that a young Southern lady would have been expected to wear to a daytime garden party. It was very modest and protected 99% of her skin from the sun, because getting a tan was social death in those days, it would have been worn with a great big straw hat.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/5c/cd/96/5ccd96d0a27df308cb01fa8ab047e516.jpg

Can you imagine how stifling and uncomfortable that would have been? Even though some of the fabric is very light, imagine wearing a corset and six layers of underwear and long sleeves and a high collar, in the humid Southern summer heat with no air conditioning! Scarlett would have been a little more comfortable than the other girls, in her sleeveless frock.

“Seventy-seven courses and a regicide, never a wedding like it!

[–] jomccallister 8 years ago

It just wasn't acceptable to show any skin, even arms, early in the day. If you look at all the other girls at the bbq, they all have long sleeves.
Scarlett went against the norm. This is just a small example of her spirit being different (more daring) than the other girls. And that same spirit is why she survived so well after the
war.
Also, I believe in the book she wears the same dress to the bbq that she wears the day before on the porch with Brent and Stuart. But I can't remember if it is green? I believe so.

[–] starseed062 8 years ago

They called it a green-sprigged muslin, which I took to be a green dress for a long time. Until I realized (after many re-reads) that way later in the book, when Ashley is talking about that day, he says it was a white dress with green flowers. So the green sprigs were the flowers but the dress itself was white, just like in the movie.

[–] SweaterCannons 8 years ago

As a big GWTW fan who's read everything I could about the making of the movie, I no longer remember where I read this. But someone said that if they had filmed Scarlett in the costumes as Margaret Mitchell described them in the book, she would never have anything but green, green being Mitchell's favorite color.

Even the famous burgundy "hussy" dress that Rhett makes her wear to Melanie's party for Ashley was green in the book. It was described in the book as a jade green watered silk dress with a large bustle adorned with pink velvet roses.

(My memory isn't that good, and I don't have the book at hand. A google search turned it up in this incredible find, an interview with Mitchell from July 3, 1936, which I can't wait to read now)

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/margaret-mitchell-american-rebel-interview-with-margaret-mitchell-from-1936/2011/