[H]e loved to talk. He was a known talker. There were some, even among his admirers, who wished he talked less. [He] was a lawyer and a farmer, a graduate of Harvard College…the father of four children. [A]nd he was a revolutionary. He was a man who cared deeply for his friends who, with few exceptions, were to be his friends for life… And to no one was he more devoted than to his wife, Abigail.
John Adams was, as many could attest, a great-hearted, persevering man of uncommon ability and force. He had a brilliant mind. He was honest and everyone knew it. Emphatically independent by nature, hardworking, frugal–all traits in the New England tradition–he was anything but cold or laconic as supposedly New Englanders were. He could be high-spirited and affectionate, vain, cranky, impetuous, self-absorbed, and fiercely stubborn; passionate, quick to anger, and all-forgiving; generous and entertaining. He was blessed with great courage and good humor, yet subject to spells of despair… [David McCullough, John Adams]
William Daniels originated the role of John Adams in the musical 1776 when it debuted on Broadway in 1969 and also starred in the film version of the stage show. Four years afterwards, PBS produced a thirteen-part miniseries titled The Adams Chronicles in which Daniels played John Quincy Adams, the eldest son of John and Abigail Adams. Daniels then went on to play Samuel Adams, John Adams’ second cousin and fellow revolutionary, in a 1978 made-for-television film called The Bastard.
“At that point,” Daniels says, “I felt I had achieved a lock on the Adams family. I had played every one of them except Abigail.”
I couldn’t find any pictures of him as Sam Adams (tragically), but the fact that William Daniels dedicated three years of his life to playing John Adams and then played his son in an Emmy-winning miniseries just a few years later is pretty incredible imo!
i would never work as a gothic heroine which is a shame because i’ve got the looks for it but the firm presence of mind to gtfo from anything unpleasant
ruined aristocrat who has a dark reputation spoken about only in whispers: May we speak alone for a moment?
me, Aware of things: No thank you, we’ve only just met. My aunt is my chaperone and a lovely conversationalist. Please do come and discuss her seventeen dogs
The whole shop seemed a palace to her: the doll was not a doll; it was a vision. It was joy, splendor, riches, happiness, which appeared in a sort of chimerical halo to that unhappy little being so profoundly engulfed in gloomy and chilly misery. With sad and innocent sagacity of childhood, Cosette measured the abyss that separated her from that doll. She said to herself that one must be a queen, or at least a princess, to have a “thing” like that. She gazed at that beautiful pink dress, that beautiful smooth hair, and she thought, “How happy that doll must be!”
#it’s a shame this costume is barely visible when she wears it in the movie #bc I love the idea of adult Cosette dressing like her beloved doll #symbolic of how far she’s come: she’s crossed that ‘abyss’ and has realized the ‘vision’ #beautiful dress; smooth hair; loving father - how happy that doll must be! #cries about it (via)
Fate abruptly brought together, and wedded with its resistless power, these two shattered lives, dissimilar in years, but similar in sorrow. The one, indeed, completed the other. Cosette’s instinct sought a father, as Jean Valjean’s instinct sought a child. To meet was to find one another. She loved her father...with all her heart, with a frank filial passion which made the goodman a welcome and very pleasant companion for her. Cosette adored him. She was always at his heels. Where Jean Valjean was, was happiness. When Cosette went out with him, she leaned upon his arm, proud, happy, in the fullness of her heart. Jean Valjean felt his heart melt within him with delight. The poor man shuddered, overflowed with an angelic joy...and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being.
Droopy Sleeves and Tiny Bonnets: Watering Down the Romantic Aesthetic in BBC’s Les Mis
I wasn’t exactly blown away by the costumes in the BBC production of Les Mis, and Cosette’s in particular, cute as Ellie Bamber is, were thoroughly “just okay.” But I didn’t put much more thought into it…
Well, not until Gentleman Jack–set in the exact same time period–blew BBC’s Les Mis out of the water with its costume design. Then more recently, when I started researching the fashion of the early 1830s, all the ways in which poor Cosette’s costumes fell short became glaringly obvious.
In this publicity still, you can see what appears to be a genuinely accurate 1830s dress (red, on the left)! Complete with properly giant sleeves AND a bonnet. (The blue and navy dresses also appear, though it’s more difficult to tell, to have much more accurate silhouettes than anything Cosette wears--and bonnets!)
So why the heck did the costume designer decide to screw over just Cosette, the would-be best dressed woman in Paris???
Anastasia Romanov was the youngest daughter of Emperor Nicolas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia and the sister to Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Alexei. She was born 18 June 1901, and was murdered on 17 July 1918. About ninety years later, the last of the four grand duchesses’ bodies was found, and through DNA testing and rigorous scientific research, the myths that persisted that one of the sisters escaped was finally and conclusively proven false.
With the new musical Anastasia now out, it is important to remember the real young woman be hind the mythology and legend, who died a brutal death at only seventeen.
“ Once upon a time runs the fairy tale. For Anastasia..she was born into a lavish world of palaces and liveried servants, gold braided courtiers and sleek yachts, loving parents and a devoted family-everything necessary to the traditional, heartwarming conclusion. For Anastasia, though, there would be no happy ending; her fairy tale went horribly awry, its peaceful promise shattered by war and revolution. In its place arose a new tale that gave resonance to the meaning of her name, in which hope triumphed over despair and desire transcended brutal reality.” - The Ressurection of the Romanovs by Penny Wilson and Greg King
“Anastasia, the youngest daughter, destined to become the most famous of the children of Nicholas II, was a short, dumpy, blue-eyed child renowned in her family chiefly as a wag. When the saluting cannon on the Imperial yacht fired at sunset, Anastasia liked to retreat into a corner, stick her fingers into her ears, widen her eyes and loll her tongue in mock terror. Witty and vivacious, Anastasia also had a streak of stubbornness, mischief and impertinence. The same gift of ear and tongue that made her quickest to pick up a perfect accent in foreign languages also equipped her admirably as a mimic. Comically, sometimes cuttingly, the little girl aped precisely the speech and mannerisms of those about her. Anastasia, the L’Enfant terrible, was also a tomboy. She climbed trees to dizzying heights, refusing to come down until specifically commanded by her father.” - Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie
From the first moment she saw him, the mermaid was keenly aware of having violated some sacred and ancient law among her people. She was supposed to lure him from the great ship; instead, a single smile had been enough to lure her from the water. She sought magic long since forbidden if only it meant claiming him for herself.
Droopy Sleeves and Tiny Bonnets: Watering Down the Romantic Aesthetic in BBC’s Les Mis
I wasn’t exactly blown away by the costumes in the BBC production of Les Mis, and Cosette’s in particular, cute as Ellie Bamber is, were thoroughly “just okay.” But I didn’t put much more thought into it...
Well, not until Gentleman Jack--set in the exact same time period--blew BBC’s Les Mis out of the water with its costume design. Then more recently, when I started researching the fashion of the early 1830s, all the ways in which poor Cosette’s costumes fell short became glaringly obvious.
Disclaimer: I am not as much of a stickler for historical accuracy in period drama costumes as this little essay is going to make me out as being. I’m not a Frock Flicks kind of gal; I just want to be entertained and look at pretty clothes. So as far as I’m concerned, as long as the basic silhouettes are there and the costumes are nice to look at, I’m there. (I find the wildly inaccurate costumes of The Tudors a lot more visually appealing than the ones in Wolf Hall. And everyone knows Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette was highly stylized, but those costumes are to die for and still embody the rococo aesthetic very well.)
That said, Cosette is a character who’s very invested in fashion, and the general look of the 1830s isn’t unknown to English productions, being the setting of Queen Victoria’s adolescence, Jane Eyre, Wives and Daughters, and many a Dickens adaptation among others.
So where did they go wrong?
Being honest, most of the Les Mis productions from the past two decades or so failed to put Cosette in high-fashion or even noteworthy costumes. Only the 2012 film for all the ways it failed her as a character hit it out of the park. Cosette gowns were damn near perfect--and they were actually pretty to boot! Unfortunately in the actual film you can’t even see the floral gown and you can barely see the blue one...thanks Tom Hooper.
The belts/buckles, the enormous sleeves, the delicate floral prints and embroidery, the lace collars...pat the costume designer on the back! (Her wedding dress was also on-point, but we’ll get to that.)
Claire Danes and Virginie Ledoyen had passable-and-sometimes-good costumes, too. Though Claire Danes’ were generally not very pretty, their overall silhouette was correct. Virginie Ledoyen gets a couple of knock-out, very period-appropriate gowns; the rest sort of fall into the nebulous “well, I guess you tried” category without being unattractive.
But the BBC production just...dropped the ball for reasons unknown.
Now, in the book Cosette overhears some ladies calling her “pretty but badly dressed.” She’s shocked, because she thinks she’s ugly but well-dressed. She then goes on a charming quest to become the best-dressed woman in Paris, and the BBC adaptation even has a scene where she goes to the seamstress. It’s really cute. Too bad that the dresses are...really not.
Here are some fashion plates from 1830-32. Keep in mind that Cosette lives in Paris, of all places; she would be aware of what was and was not fashionable.
This is the height of Romantic fashion: giant (“gigot”) sleeves and bonnets, full skirts with hems at or just above the ankle, lace accents, silk stockings and slippers, elaborate hairdos. The 2012 costumes, again, capture this quite well.
And even if the BBC designer had taken liberties and had fun while preserving the overall aesthetic--think what Sandy Powell did in Cinderella, set in roughly the same period--I wouldn’t be making this post. But there’s curiously little 1830s to be found in Cosette’s wardrobe at all.
I guess we should start with the BBC’s Good/Accurate Stuff. This coat Cosette wears is, apart from the deep fur-lined V-neck, almost a carbon copy of the extant coat on the right. And she has a bonnet!
Cosette’s best/most accurate dress is, naturally, the most difficult to see and has the least screentime of all her costumes:
From what I can tell, the sleeves, though delicate and sheer, are very full, as is the skirt, and the whole thing seems both pretty and en vogue...despite the questionable neckline. It’s also detailed--embroidery on the sleeves and with pleats (?) to create visual interest at the shoulders and on the bodice!
Here are a selection of other short-sleeved gowns from the period for comparison (both extant garments and costumes/reconstructions).
Tbh Ellie’s costume should be as stunning as the blue gown (far left) that an extra wore in Cinderella, but...maybe someday, in some Les Mis production, that gorgeous Sandy Powell creation will reappear. *sigh* (Virginie Ledoyen’s best Cosette gown is on the far right, btw.)
Anyway, that’s...that’s about it for the “Good” category.
Next up: her teal/turquoise dress(es). (She also wears a red one that looks exactly like this.)
Someone didn’t tell the costume designer that Cosette was supposed to be a fashionista, I guess. During my research, I did find a couple of dresses that resembled these two...but they would both be several years out of date by the time Cosette was going on her fashion crusade:
Even the yellow dotted dress has more style and “oomph” than what poor Cosette got stuck in--her sleeves look comparatively small, deflated, and underwhelming, all the more so when compared to actual 1830s gigot sleeves.
In the interest of being fair, some extant gowns from the right dates also look somewhat like these two.
But they all look, well...better. They all make me wish Cosette’s gown had bigger sleeves, a more-defined neckline, less wrinkly fabric...anything that would take it up a notch. (Also of note: as plain as some of these dresses look, they would not have been worn alone--accessories like wide belts, shawls, bonnets, etc., would have been part of the outfit when they were actually worn.)
And when it comes down to it, Cosette--who wants, after all, to be wearing the most fashionable gowns, like those in the fashion plates--should be wearing gowns more like...
The detailing, the fabric choices, the tailoring, and (sorry) the size and position of the sleeves makes all the difference here. A little more effort, even just padding for Cosette’s poor limp sleeves and a belt, would be enough to bump her looks from “kind of sad” to “something I believe this character would really wear.”
My personal favorite gown in the production was very pretty, flowing and delicate--and look: I’m willing to accept that Cosette wouldn’t always be wearing a fashion plate while chasing butterflies (something no film Cosette has, tragically, ever done...) That said, it still wasn’t very 1830s.
This purplish gown is the closest extant I could find to something like what Cosette wears here, but once you look at the details of both--fabric, neckline, whatever is happening around waist--all you get is “???” A lovely dress, but one that doesn’t make much sense.
So finally we come to what ought to be the showiest of all Cosette’s costumes: her wedding gown.
This costume ought to be Stunning for a lot of reasons. The “Fauchelevents” have money! The Pontmercys have money, and they have society friends! Cosette is a fashionista, and she’s head-over-heels in sweet young love! And one an assume that Valjean wants to send off the light of his life, if send her off he must, in style--he’s heartbroken but also knows, from this moment, that he will never have to worry about her safety or well-being again.
With all that in mind, this is what Ellie’s Cosette wears...
Oh. Okay. Is it her freaking wedding day, or is she just going to a church picnic???
At least she IS wearing a bonnet in this scene, but it’s the same color as her hair (?!) and it’s tiny...just like her sad, deflated sleeves. The necklime and waistline both are at least accurate here, but like the sleeves, the skirt isn’t voluminous. Not a single thing about the dress makes a statement...unless it’s a shrug. The impression is, once again, “meh?”
At least a veil (which some women did wear on their wedding bonnets) would emphasize the “wedding day” vibe. How about, if they weren’t going to give it any volume, some detail on the gown...any detail...floral embroidery...a BELT...a contrasting color or fabric (lace, hello?!)...anything??? It’s just so plain and low-key. Just like everything Cosette wears in this miniseries.
Here are some period wedding gowns, two of which Cosette wears in other adaptations. They all have the wow factor this dress lacks.
Big sleeves! Lace! Belts! Veils! Lush fabric! Frills! Different colors/fabrics to create visual interest! Hairstyles that pop instead of blend together! These are the kind of gowns that say “I’m the bride and this is my day.” Not “I’m going to the church picnic.”
I want to reiterate that, after ALL that rambling...my big issues are that a) these dresses are not--by and large--attractive or interesting and b) that they fail to embody Cosette’s love of fashion. The fact that they’re so inaccurate for the time period is secondary. However, paying more attention to the fashions of 1830-32 would, I think, have helped make the costumes prettier and more suited to the character. How you dress a character is also a factor in how their character is perceived and can be a subtle means of character development. No chance of that here. (Post-marriage, Cosette wears such a blase dark blue coat that, sans fur trim, looks identical to her previous one. Yawn.)
I’m just a fan, yet it still took me only three days of basic research to put this post together. Expecting a costume designer to put in at least a few days of light research is not a huge leap. I’m going to venture a guess and say that this designer did not bother to do that. And it shows.
It’s a shame, because Cosette gets a lot more screentime here--for the first time since the 2000 production--and she deserves so much more than shapeless gowns and barely-styled hair.
And also more than Andrew Davies...but that’s a rant for another time.
I was semi-productive today regarding Project Best-Dressed Girl in Paris 1832
I’m using my American Girl doll, Elizabeth, as a test dummy.
Picked out the fabric for her dress...
This floral print is probably a little big for a doll-sized dress, but oh well! It was available, affordable, and not polyester--and the fact that florals were so common in 1830s fashion warms my heart!
And then I took her measurements (not something I ever imagined I’d be doing tbh)...
And finally I crunched some numbers and cut out the basic pattern for her chemise (not the one pictured above, obviously...I just realized it was going to be rude to take her picture naked, lol).
I practiced some stitches and will probably start cutting pieces out tomorrow or the next day.
The only thing I won’t be mocking up on her is the stays, but (gulp) I’m not there yet.
I should not have looked at the Frock Flicks page for the newest Les Mis
it’s full of a lot of Cosette hate
and lmfao halfway through the article they start calling her “Fantine” instead of Cosette, which is all kinds of “what the fuck are you guys even doing”
“Also Cosette is a milquetoast. And Gentlemen Jack is mullions of times better. Ann Walker has reasons for her timidity and mild milquetoast tendencies. Cosette doesn’t. Unless being pure/innocent is one. Eponine is so much more.”
Les Mis is not a competition between Cosette and Eponine, are we NOT over this yet? And yeah, why would Cosette have reasons for “timidity and mild milquetoast tendencies”? (Which she does not have in the book...she is literally described as “wild and brave at heart,” lmao.) Could it be the fact that she was beaten, starved, and terrorized from the ages of ~2 to 8?!?!?! Jesus. So many Les Mis adaptations go above and beyond to show the horrors both Fantine and Cosette endure in Cosette’s childhood, then everyone forgets that adult Cosette is the same little girl who was being abused and basically enslaved by the Thenardiers!!!
“As soon as that sniveling, senseless, selfish Cosette came on the screen, it was like…ugh.”
Cosette...the girl who makes sure her father eats good bread and sits in a warm house??? Not saying she comes off as selfless as she is in every adaptation, but holy shit do some people miss the point.
I should not have looked at the Frock Flicks page for the newest Les Mis
it’s full of a lot of Cosette hate
and lmfao halfway through the article they start calling her “Fantine” instead of Cosette, which is all kinds of “what the fuck are you guys even doing”
vaporwave
pixelskylines
blakekathryn
theartofmadeline
turnnoffyourmind
