The Huge Anna Strong Costume Appreciation Post:
As the @turnnetwork has started an excellent meme on showing your appreciation for the show - well, costumes was on the list… *shifty smile.* Costumes are MY wheelhouse.
Costume does a lot of the heavy lifting with characters in tv and film, before they even open their mouths onscreen. How someone looks, what they wear - it’s a big piece of how they’re presented, in addition to the actor’s performance and with period pieces it can help influence a character’s performance. A lot of actors often bring their own ideas of the character to the costume designer, and they work together to bring the character to life.
I’d normally refer to the excellent Frock Flicks blog for this sort of commentary , but they were kinda underwhelmed by the costumes:
http://www.frockflicks.com/turn-washingtons-spies-2014/
So, its a daft fluffy British nerd to the rescue! A long post on the lovely Anna Strong, and her costumes through the show.
All credit for these amazing pieces goes to costume designers Donna Zakowska (seasons1-2) and Lahly Poore (seasons 3-4)
Post 1: Anna’s Finer Gowns!
I love this gown. It’s the first thing we see Anna in coming down the stairs at the tavern - she’s a speck of blue in a tavern full of aggressive redcoats, and we can immediately tell - this is someone different. Someone worth keeping an eye on. (I could also get into the simple onscreen logic of Rev War identifiers: Good Guys wear blue, Bad Guys wear red) Anna wears blue, and is a patriot and a “Good Guy”. We as an audience can trust her.
(credit for this lovely hd screencap goes to @rapid-apathy)
And, what’s even nicer to see, she re-wears it in Season 3, during the proposal scene! She’s taken her apron off now, and the white sleeve cuffs are a trifle longer. I like to think we’re seeing Anna through the camera lens as Hewlett sees her - an elegant, intelligent and attractive woman, hence the little touches that turn this from ‘merchants wife about her duties’ to ‘lady of leisure’. It’s also a great touch showing how you can restyle and wear things in the 18th century.
10/10! Absolutely spot-on for the period. One of the things I love about the show is how much inspiration they take from actual extant gowns. It’s great, shiows they’ve really done their homework.
We only see this bright red gown in Season 1, and then it vanishes offscreen, . Which is a shame, as Heather Lind looks stunning in bright colours. I think perhaps they felt the red was too smiliar to the other people in red marching across the screen…
But, all that changes with Season 3! We get another, telling little glimpse of it in one of the heartbreakingly tender moments between Anna and Hewlett, right before everything goes south:
I couldn’t find anything that looked like a direct copy of this one - mustly because your average plainer styles don’t tend to be the ones that survive in museums. But I found some fancier versions in red silk damask that look like a more ‘runway’ look for 1776. Anna probably made up something that was a nod to the fashion of the time from a lady’s magazine, adapting the extreme fashion to suit her own taste and budget. Much like high street style copying and adapting things from Paris and Milan today.
C)AKA My Favourite: The Striped Black Jacket Ensemble
This is unashamedly my favourite costume she wears in the series. This is Anna down to a tee - deadly serious about the dangerous business she’s engaged in. And nothing says businesswear quite like stripes, 1770s style! There’s still a nod to fashion conventions with that beautiful pleated and pinked trim around the bodice opening - but only a nod.
(And while we’re here, about a little fashion comparison with Mary? Ask someone with no idea about the show which woman in this picture is the wife of a Congressman and which one is married to a poor cabbage farmer.)
Mary wants the middle-class lifestyle Anna has, with her aspirations towards living in Whitehall. Anna feels trapped by her position and the ostentation expected from her, and dresses more simply in a kind of style “rebellion”. Which is awesome.
Anna also dresses this jacket up and down throughout the series - whether its with black silk whilst she’s staying at Whitehall, or a simpler black linen petticoat when she’s working the sutler cart in Washington’s camp in Season 4.
One of the things I love about this is that this is a DIRECT copy of a wonderful cotton print half-mourning gown in the Swiss National Museum. Check out that pleated trim layout! EXACTLY THE SAME. Long sleeves? SAME. That wonderful little peplum back? SAME. Stripes? SAME. The print isn’t exactly the same, but it’s so clearly a reference point that it gave me a little SQUEE of delight when i noticed how similar they were!
Probably my least favourite of Anna’s wardrobe. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely, frothy, beautiful gown in beautiful fabrics, and I love the cut and the trim. But it feels… wrong, for Anna. Anna is queen of bright, dark simplicity. This would look cute on Mary, or even Peggy - but for Anna? No. This froofy ‘Colonial Barbie’ she puts on to please Selah on his release from prison is just so uncharacteristic of everything we’ve seen her in before, it’s almost jarring.
This is an excellent example of costume doing some of the backstory for us - the only time we ever see Anna in this sort of affected 18th century fashion is when she’s going to meet Selah. She puts this on for him, as something he’d want, or expect. There’s nothing of the real Anna here - just a false front. And that, visually, tells you everything about their marriage up to this point. Brilliant, and on-point .
Another nearly spot on recreation! This gown is from Colonial Williamsburg’s historic collection. They’ve altered a few things on this one - Anna’s has more trimming as well as buttons up the front. But the colours in the flowered petticoat? Definitely very close to this original quilted petticoat. Brilliant.
Oh man, don’t even get me started on this one. SUCH a contrast to the pink fluff up above. Anna’s wearing a gorgeous teal and gold brocade gown. The fabric and lace are rich, but the trimmings are simple, and very Anna - a sunday best version of her everyday style. This is something she had choice in - and it shows, I think, how well suited Anna and Hewlett were for each other. This was her getting to be her better self, at least for a while (THANKS a bunch, WOODHULLS)
I couldn’t find anything that was an exactly match - but the trim, overall colour scheme and buttons on this gave me a definite ‘feel’ for Anna’s dress.
F) Anna’s “Return to Setauket” Gown
I think actually this, if nothing else, redeemed me to an Anna/Selah reunion at the end of Season 4 - because once again, the costumes are doing half the talking about how their relationship works. It’s nice to see Anna dressed up again after her ‘camp follower grunge’ throughout Season 4 - but, more importantly, this style, again, is something she had a choice in. Stripes are very much Anna’s signature style throughout the show. The deep brown colouring looks lovely, and that striking combination - strong colour, stripes, simple, not overstated, shows us Anna has really come into her own - and Selah respects and admires that now. And Anna is SUPER fashionable in her zone front! That is cutting edge 1780s fashion.
I’m pretty sure the designers may have got the stripe idea from this lovely striped jacket in the Kyoto Copstume Institute Collection, combined with another of their dresses. Take away the buttons and trim, and that overlapping front is super similar to Anna’s look:
And, there you have it. A super long rambling post on costume, character arc and historic inspiration. I hope you enjoyed!
