"Little Women Style" Will Take Over 2020, Trust Me
I’ll say this once and never again: Amy was right and Jo was wrong. That’s when it comes to the power of books anyway and that ‘Perhaps writing will make [things] more important.’ Amy’s hypothesis will be proven, I believe, by the effect Greta Gerwig’s film and the resurgence of the novel it has encouraged will have on the way we dress over the next year and perhaps longer. And I promise there’s reason to this other than the fact I’m trying to make my acronym WMJBOAWI (would Meg, Jo, Beth or Amy wear it?) happen.
Jacqueline Durran won the Academy Award for best costume for Little Women and wow, did she deserve it! The costumes in the film are intricately designed and constructed. For example, each daughter has an individual colour or two that they wear throughout the film, with Marmee wearing a combination of them all (this is the same with their hair styles). Also, Jo doesn’t wear a corset which ‘lends a freedom to how she can move’, which, for me, added a lot to Jo’s characterisation in the film, especially in the dance scene and hill scene with Laurie, when the way in which she moves is so distinctive. Speaking of this scene, notice that the waistcoat Jo is wearing is the one Laurie wore when Jo jokily got down on one knee to him earlier on in the film.
The costuming of the film fascinates me because I think it is so fundamental to why it worked so well and how, despite the many film adaptations of Little Women, this one captured the essence of the novel in such an evocative and imaginative way. For me, the colours of the film was a significant part of this and much of this is down to the costuming. Period film costuming is often grey and dull and hardly inspiring. But Durran opted for colourful costume, which is actually factually accurate in terms of what people were wearing contemporarily. As Gerwig explains in this video, fabric dye was new and exciting in the late 19th century and so it was trend-forward to wear brightly coloured clothes.
This attention to detail in the costuming in Gerwig’s Little Women is undoubtedly a significant reason as to why the film’s dress has been so inspiring for many. But this has only spurred on the “Little Women style” obsession that has been growing within the fashion industry for some time. This mostly takes the form of prairie dresses, championed by brands like Batsheva and The Vampire’s Wife, but anything billowy, floral and/or made up of pastel checks resembles “Little women style” enough for me to deem it so.
So why has this style of dressing gained so much momentum? Like many trends, I think it stems from a sartorial nostalgia of sorts, when wearing your third best dress to lounge around the house in was the norm. Don’t get me wrong, I won’t be trading in my pyjamas any time soon, but sometimes I get bored of casual dress codes, especially given the fact that my life provides very little opportunity for formality, sothe idea of wearing a beautiful, extravagant dress for no reason excites me.
Further, it’s comfortable! Long billowy dresses mean lots of room for food babies (the one I’m wearing in these photos even has an elastic waistband: swoon!) and they’re practical all year long. In winter, with tights and in summer, without (they’re especially great if you don’t want to get your legs out, for whatever reason).
The dress I’m wearing here is from Nobody’s Child and I adore it. I’ve been loving wearing it in winter (with tights and thermals underneath) and I am looking forward to taking it into spring with, I get excited just thinking about it, bare legs! I love wearing this dress with more masculine pieces like these ankle boots to channel my inner Jo and I think the myriad types of styles this trend can work for is one reason why it will take over. Nobody’s Child is great for “Little Women style”, especially if you’re looking to find it from a brand with ethics at its heart, and I’m currently trying to avoid the website in order to protect my bank balance.
“Little Women Style” is a romantic, nostalgic and fun way of dressing and one that, when the situation allows, I’ve rarely been straying from. Anything to be more like Jo March and, luckily, it’s not quite as difficult as writing a book about your family or turning down Timothee Chalamet’s marriage offer.