The wardrobe of Charlotte Brontë

The figure of Charlotte Brontë continues to excite the imagination of the novelists of our time. One new novel published this month "My mother's wedding dress" by Justine Picardie features a curious approach to her figure through... her wardrobe.

Frances Wilson in her review of the book in The Guardian tell us something more about it:

"Beginning with the story of her mother's mohair wedding dress, Picardie follows a chain of thought which moves between the significance of her own childhood outfits, her grandmother's past as a political campaigner (or "Black Sash") in South Africa, her journalistic encounters with fashion designers while writing for Vogue and the Daily Telegraph, her love of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and admiration for the heroine of Cold Comfort Farm, the wardrobe of Charlotte Brontë, and the poems of Emily Dickinson. The relation between chapters is what each story has to say about the fabric of our lives, but My Mother's Wedding Dress is also a book about one's own, familial, relations, how to cope with their presence and deal with their loss. The thread which runs through the text is the death from cancer seven years ago of the author's only sister, Ruth, and in this sense Picardie is concerned to explore the relation between the material world and the ghostly one. (...)

Lost relations are everywhere; Brontë watching as one after another her siblings expired, Picardie's mother telling her about her own missing sibling, the twin brother of whom she never normally spoke, the wayward uncle Picardie suspected of being in prison."

The Independent also reviews this book. There's a whole chapter devoted to women in white where the Brontës feature among Dickens (his female characters, it is to be expected!), Wilkie Collins (his famous novel) and Emily Dickinson. Ms Picardie was lucky enough to be

allowed into the Haworth museum storeroom to see Brontë dresses.

We wonder if Emily Brontë's (in)famous white dress patterned with lilac lightning and thunder got a mention. Perhaps we'll be seeing that pattern in Vogue next.

Categories: Books, Charlotte_Brontë