Dressing Mr Rochester

FilmCritics' Thelma Adams on Reel Women looks at this year's overlooked leading actresses at the Oscars, such as Mia Wasikowska:

Mia Wasikowska in Jane Eyre
The pale actress grounds her Jane Eyre in a plain, no-nonsense intelligence. One of the least flashy young artists, Wasikowska can play anything from a glistening Alice chasing 3D rabbits in Wonderland to the very modern daughter of middle-aged lesbians. In this performance, she displays a disarming honesty. Perhaps her Jane is that young lady we were when we went off to college, eyes wide and emotions porous. Her Brontë governess knows little of the world at large but has a mind like a vast untried universe -- and we see it all in Wasikowska's face, and the way she holds her shoulders. She is also a woman of reserved expectations who nonetheless refuses to compromise. She is above all practical, so that when she meets her Rochester, played by Michael Fassbender, we know that she is not naturally prone to romantic delusions and hysteria -- and we are transfixed by a performance that is simplicity and candor itself, as practical as a lace-up Oxford and beautiful as Italian leather. She achieves a quiet no Paltrow, nor Mulligan, nor Hathaway ever has.

Entertainment Weekly's Inside Movies has the following article: ' 'Jane Eyre' costume designer Michael O'Connor on keeping Michael Fassbender clothed'.

In a year all about getting Michael Fassbender naked (thank you, Shame, and numerous magazine photo shoots), he couldn’t have been more buttoned up in Cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre. Oscar-nominated costume designer Michael O’Connor, who already has an Academy Award for 2008’s The Duchess, spoke to EW about Mr. Rochester’s signature day look and smoldering sleepwear — and the myth that clothing a man in a period film is easier than dressing a woman.
It’s a pivotal, intimate moment in the film when Jane (Mia Wasikowska) wakes a sleeping Rochester to save him from the flames in his bedroom. “I think there was talk of Michael doing the scene in the nude. But we didn’t know about Shame, at the time,” O’Connor laughs. “I imagine he could have been persuaded.”
Though it looks like Rochester is wearing a male nightgown, it’s actually one of his handmade linen day shirts, which was based on an original Victorian design. “Sometimes gentlemen did sleep in their shirts. The shirts were quite long in those times for specific purposes, to fill out the shapes of their trousers and because they didn’t have underwear,”  O’Connor says. Prepare for the best history lesson ever! “It starts coming in. There are linen shorts that some men wore. But most didn’t. The shirt is down nearly to the knee. So before they put their trousers on, they’d tuck their shirt in the front between their legs and in the back between their legs, and fold it in, rather like a diaper or a nappy, and then pull the trousers on top,” he explains. “It helps when you’re looking at old paintings and photographs [to understand why] the men are depicted quite smooth, because they have the length in the shirt that fills out the top and the bottom, so it’s almost like a slight padding, if you like, or another layer of material between the trousers and the skin.”
This is part of the conversation that takes place in an actor’s wardrobe fitting, O’Connor says. “You say, ‘The trousers are high like that because it reveals more of the body, and the shirt fits long because the trousers are bigger, and you’ll see why when you put the shirt on and tuck the shirt in like this, and pull the trousers on like that. Now you see, that’s the shape. And then the coat’s waisted this way to give that flair. They are clever people, those Victorians.’”
But not gratuitous: Was there talk of Fassbender showing more heavage? “The shirts don’t open all the way down. They only open to just under the chest. That’s as low as it could have ever gone,”  O’Connor says. “I think those shirts are quite sexy anyway.” (read more) (Mandi Bierly)

Movie Awards Examiner thinks that,

Best Art Direction, Costume, and Cinematography will most likely go to "Hugo," though Best Costume often goes to left field choices like "Jane Eyre" or even Madonna's "W.E."  These are categories that many voters (read: secretaries and assistants) probably skip or just plain guess on. (Ward Porrill)

The Casper Journal uses Jane Eyre to defend marriage and is supposedly a fan of the novel but we wonder at the following statement:

I love "Jane Eyre." Her story is the perfect mixture of love, tragedy, self-victory, passion and, eventually, "happily ever after" ... the ideal Valentine romance. Last year, a new film of Jane Eyre was released, and my girlfriends flocked to the theater to see this latest chick-flick. (Nettie H. Francis)

The controversial Haworth housing plans will be decided on tomorrow. The Telegraph and Argus continues discussing the matter:

Plans to build 38 homes on a green field in Haworth will harm the character of the area and damage tourism, opponents say.
Keighley Area Planning Panel will decide tomorrow whether developer Skipton Properties can build on land South of Lees Mill, Shuttle Fold.
The proposals, which are recommended for approval, include nine social rented properties.
Hebden Road resident David Thompson said: “The development would change the character of the area. There used to be a lot of fields around here but they are being built on and Haworth and Cross Roads are joining up in to one big suburb of Keighley.”
Brontë Parsonage Museum director Andrew McCarthy said he had concerns about the level of development in the village.
“We do have concerns regarding the erosion of the heritage character of the village,” he said. “As we know it is that character which brings a lot of people here, which obviously has an input in to the local economy.”
Haworth Parish Council chairman John Huxley said members recognised the need for housing but had some concern. He added: “The key economic driver in this area is the tourist trade.
“Every time somebody builds on somewhere it changes the way we look. This particular development moves Cross Roads closer to Haworth and takes away some of that distinction.” (Kathryn Bradley)

The Brontë Sisters posts her opinion on the presumed photograph of the Brontës. Sharon's Garden of Book Reviews is reading Jane Eyre and posting about it. The Prissy Book Snob has already read it and Lay Off the Books posts about the 2011 adaptation.