Lately, I’ve strangely begun to pay more attention to costume designing in cinema. Raised concerns about the portrayal of silhouettes in period pieces introduced new arguments made about designing in film. In order to create a clear and sound argument, it is important to mention the costumes’ effects on the audience’s interpretation of the intention of the movie and to what degree films should achieve to stimulate enough historical material to convey an overall cohesive concept.
The challenge in adapting period pieces is how much of the history should be preserved and how much should be relinquished for the sake of appealing to audiences. If you have too much historical accuracy then it diverts the attention of viewers away from the purpose of the movie. But if you have little to none accuracy then important details in relation to the timeline become insignificant, thus having holes in the plot.
In the 2005 version for Pride and Prejudice, the attire was controversial in that it interfered with the portrayal of the characters and humanized them, which eliminated the satirical attempts mentioned in the book. However, we need to assume that the film producers’ priority wasn’t to mimic the book but to attract people. The cinematography and landscape were noteworthy throughout the movie and overall pleasing to look at. If the actors and actresses had more unfamiliar clothing, it would distract us from dialogue and the action. However, in movies like Emma, where the main character is surrounded by classiness and glamour, costumes may add a more holistic view of the story.
When historical fashion commentators point out the glaring mistakes in these films, the inaccuracy wasn’t clear to me and certainly not the first thing that came to mind. It should be noted that movie producers are going to target a general audience, meaning not everyone would have a background in historical fashion. This also leads to the costumes possibly not being as relevant to a regular viewer as they instead are focused on the plot of the movie. As we patiently wait for another period piece though, I would not suggest looking for the historical mistakes in the fashion of such characters.