Might stop to holla and pop my collar

I had this plan.  Having, at one point, changed dramatically in my look and style to the point where people who had known me well did not recognize me when I passed them on the street, I developed some interest in the makeover genre of films.  I was going to make myself a project, looking at the styling of all these movies and trying to duplicate the stages the actresses travel through, but in reverse. That is to say, refiguring the films as though they had been about women blossoming from trembling Hollywod beauties into self-possessed awkward-looking freaks. 

Let's be honest, though.  Every Hollywood film is populated with Afters.  It's the Befores that really hold my interest, the films' ideas of what is unacceptable for a woman to look like while still being good enough to look at that people won't flee the theatre.  Among other things, I suppose, it's about making sure the typically perfectly serviceable selves from Before pictures don't remain uninhabited cast-offs, but are thrifted and refurbished as cherished vintage identities.  Also, apparently, I would most like to shoot these costumes as though they were American Apparel ads.  

This image pinched from
the Self-Styled Siren's
excellent post on costuming
she's enjoyed in films. I
do hope she'll forgive me.

Let's start with the granddaddy of 'em all, Now, Voyager.  It is the story of a carved ivory box-maker (Bette Davis) driven to being upset and mildly snippy to a teenager by her vicious and controlling mother, who keeps her locked away to prevent her from doing the things she enjoys (fucking in a car on a boat, like in Titanic).  She's rescued when her sister-in-law hires Dr. Claude Rains, who packs her off on a cruise to reignite her love of  tweezing her brows.  There, she meets some kind of European guy called Jerry (though he is not a Jerry) with a bitch wife and a hysterical, socially awkward daughter, Tina.  Tina is, incidentally, the spitting image of myself at her age. 

After returning home, Charlotte stands up to her mother, who thoughtfully kicks it mid-sentence once Davis has established that the tension of their relationship has run its course.   Charlotte then re-establishes ties with her European cruisemate, who elects to not leave his hateful wife but instead to gift Charlotte with their less popular daughter.  Charlotte promises to love and keep Tina with her always, which is not at all similar to the actions of her controlling mother because Charlotte is, I guess, prettier.

Besides the unusual ending, in which Davis' married love object's wife does not usefully die or depart and she forms a familial bond instead with his similarly distressed daughter, the most interesting thing about Now, Voyager is how it further develops Hollywood's love affair with psychiatry.  Rains is sort of a fairy godmother here, giving Charlotte not only her clothes but a bunch of pseudopsychiatric tips and tricks perfectly worthy of Carson Kressley or Gok Wan. 

Davis' costume when she is introduced seems to have been assembled from a checklist of fashion don'ts of the 1940s, and I've managed to tack on a couple more in my own take on the thing.  Her hair is flat, worn low on her head and parted in the center--later it will be up in a big pompadour.  She's wearing a lot of powder but no eyeliner or mascara, and, unforgivably, glasses, which the movie seems to believe are something that you might eventually grow out of wearing, perhaps if you lose some weight.

Her dress is just a train wreck.  Her mother refers to it as "the black and white foulard", if I'm hearing it correctly, but mine is just cotton.  The skirt length in particular hits at the widest part of her calf, which is said to make your leg look wide.  Mine is cut to my knee.  Davis is also wearing a fat suit, which I don't really have access to, but I can replicate the effect by generally being about thirty pounds heavier than she was in 1942.  I can't really muster anything as well-constructed as her foulard from my wardrobe, fast fashion having taken its toll on the garment industry, but I do have an incredible collection of polka-dots based on an offhand comment my mother made at some point about how dots are good because they attract men's eyes, like men were mynah birds or something.

"What man would ever look at me
and say 'I want you'?!  I'm fat!  My mother
doesn't approve of dieting!  Look at my shoes! 
My mother approves of sensible shoes!"

Unlike films of the 1940s, I am able to muster even an ounce of sympathy for women who don't want a kid but are made to have one anyway, so I can't really get on board with the fire-breathing demon portrayal of either of the two bad mothers Charlotte is set at odds with.  Even the teen who relentlessly trolls Aunt Charlotte seems to my eye to be acting out of a not-uncommon fear that she could become Aunt Charlotte if she doesn't do everything in her power to stave off spinsterity.  Even in films where fucking isn't a big thing, it is extremely important that women be thoroughly fuckable.  That's the main thing in Now Voyager, as in life.  Having myself been convinced already of my fuckability, I am free, free!  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

"I am my mother's well loved daughter. 
I am her companion.  I am my mother's servant. 
My mother says.  My mother!  MY MOTHER, MY MOTHER!"

Here's a special closeup on my makeup, which I love, I don't care what you say.  I think I just about doubled the width of my eyebrows, but I still can't quite match Davis', which appear to be tiny false mustaches. For authenticity, I shouldn't have used mascara, but I did.