Fashion with Mrs. Grafton

Mrs. Grafton of Sedgwick's Hope Leslie seems by far the most fashion savvy of the women characters. In fact, it appears that her relationship with clothing and fashion borders upon obsession. When it comes to fashion, she is either condemning plain, puritan clothing, chattering away about certain clothing articles, or trying to convince her niece, to wear clothes that she picked out for her, as though in an attempt to make Hope as stylish as she. From looking at passages where Mrs. Grafton is talking about certain fashions, I have found an interesting connection between clothing and the human body, which I have interpreted as a representation of how fashion is physically a part of her life.

“My gown was a trifle too dark—but do not mention that to Lady Amy, for I make no doubt that she took due pains, and only wanted a right understanding of the real hue, called feuille morte, which, between you and I—sub rose, mind—my gown would not be called, by any person skilled in the colours of silk. . . . Now Everell, I do not wish to be an old woman before my time, therefore I will have another silk of a brighter cast. Brown it must be, but lively—lively. I will enclose a lock of Hope’s hair, which is precisely the hue I mean. You will observe that it has a golden tinge, that makes it appear in all lights as if there were sunshine on it, and yet it is a decided brown" (120-121).

Seeing how particular Mrs. Grafton is about her dress, I attempted to find a (somewhat) period appropriate dress that suited her color needs. I think the specimen I found met all the requirements, seeing that it is brown and as a golden tinge in the light:

Personally, I think I would have made an amazing fashion consultant for Mrs. Grafton.

In this instance, we can see how meticulous she is about colors. On one hand, it shows how obsessive the woman is about dressing in the right color, but also hints at her relationship with fashion. It is as though to Mrs. Grafton that fashion is a symbol of life, as we may see from her rejection of the gown whose color is based on a dead leaf, and the insistence of using Hope's lovely, "lively" hair as the basis for the color she desires. Also, the fact that she must have a gown of a different color because she is "does not wish to be an old woman before her time" suggests to me that fashion is a way for her to retain youth, and therefore must use the hair color of a young woman as inspiration of the color of her gown. With this idea, I cannot help but think of the Disney version of The Little Mermaid, as it seems similar to Ursula taking Ariel's youthful voice, which allows her to take the appearance of a younger woman.



Grafton also seems to find fashion as a sort of medicine, as seen in the lines, "Alice always went as plain as a pike staff, after you left England; and a great pity it was, I always thought; . . . we had such a world of beautiful new fashions, it would have cured Alice of her moping" (281). To Mrs. Grafton, to emerse oneself in the beauty of fashion not only would have improved Alice's style, but would also raised her from the depression she faced after losing her beloved. It seems what Grafton is proposing is an early form of "retail therapy." Again, I find this an example of how fashion is related to life, as in Mrs. Grafton's mind fashion is a cure for depression, and a method to improve the quality of one's life. As my mother would say, "Living in depression is no way to live."

When conversing with the fellow author of the blog, Julia, we imagined that if Mrs. Grafton had her own fashion blog, (because of all the characters in the novel, she probably would be the only one to keep a fashion blog) she would definitely use it to babble on about what she loves and hates about fashion, and perhaps post pictures of her fabulous outfits that she painstakingly planned out, from the colors to the matching accessories. Once in a while, I'm sure she would complain about how plain some people dress in comparison to her, and wonder why her niece refuses to dress as exquisitely as her.