Miss Havisham Styling: Wedding Dress, Necklace and Stick

Wedding Dress

When I was deciding what dress to choose for my model, I tried to keep in mind that the camera would only see the top part of the dress and possibly the arms, depending on how I got the model to be positioned. I looked into Victorian dresses and found that many of the styles had a square shaped neck line, a cinched in waisted and then a flared out skirt. I typed 'victorian dresses' in google and found that there were many costumes made that had the same quire neck line. The shoulders were made to look wider with this style of neckline to accentuate their tiny waists; this is because the contrast of the wide shoulders and big skirts would make their waists look smaller. The arms were kept looking slim all the way down in the early Victorian era, but later the style was for the lower part of the arm to be flared.

Sketch of examples of Victorian dresses.
http://trulyvictorian.com/history/1840.html

Victorian wedding dress, costume.
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/187/0/7/victo
rian_wedding_gown_by_ravennacat-d3l8f4h.jpg

Example of a Victorian dress with a square neckline.
http://www.lolitauk.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df
78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/G/V/GVD-0030.jpg

Another example of a Victorian dress with a square neckline.
http://mccallpattern.mccall.com/filebin/images/product_images/First_Full/M6097.jpg

I noticed that in the 2012 film version of Great Expectation, Helena Bonham Carter, who played Miss Havisham, wore a dress with a square neckline, as shown below.

Miss Havisham in Great Expectations 2012 film.
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload
/s--XHl7W6Gy--/18ivzfkkv3xm1jpg.jpg

I found my grandmother's wedding dress in the attic, and although it wasn't worn in the Victorian era, I still think it could work really well for my Miss Havisham look! The neckline is square and the arms are slim fit, which is what some of the Victorian dresses looked like that I have seen. This is also the veil that my grandmother wore, however I want to make some changes to it to make it suit my character better. I will add some of my own flowers and change how it is attached to the hair. I will also need to make the dress and the veil look more worn out and dirty to make it look like she has worn it for many years. 

Necklace

Many of the victorian inspired necklaces I found were very big and bold and I don't think they would have suited my Miss Havisham character as I see her to be more dainty and fragile. I found some images of some more understated victorian inspired necklaces that I thought would be more suitable and I have shown some of them below.

Antique Victorian Rose Cut Diamond Necklacehttp://indulgy.com/post/1UFEGdqQk1/anti
que-victorian-rose-cut-diamond-necklace

Blue Victorian Style Antique Silver Filigree Swarovski Crystal Teardrop Necklacehttp://indulgy.com/post/LL74Qo2iq2/peacock-bermuda-blue-victorian-style-antique

After looking into these victorian inspired necklaces, I looked around in my mum and grandma's jewellery collections and I found one that I thought would work. I have posted images of my chosen necklace below. It has a teardrop shape with blue jewels as decoration, which is almost a mixture of the two necklaces above! I am excited to use this necklace in my final image as I think it looks very victorian and suitable for my Miss Havisham character.

'Crutch-headed stick'

Pip says that 'she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place'. In my look I am adding subtle witch references, for example the wart on her nose, so I also wanted to give her a 'crutch-headed stick' to lean on to, again, add a witch-like feel to my final Miss Havisham look. I was inspired by this image of Martita Hunt playing Miss Havisham in the 1946 film version, with her leaning over a dark wooded stick. I looked up Victorian crutch-headed sticks and many sticks came up with gold or silver embroidered heads with animals and patterns on them, however I didn't think it was necessary to spend a lot of money on a stick like that because her hands are going to be covering most of the head of the stick anyway. However, I did also notice that all the wood was either black or a dark brown so I wanted to make sure I got the colouring accurate. 

Martita Hunt playing Miss Havisham in 1946.
https://31.media.tumblr.com/9f0275578b3150267bee41d6
37633453/tumblr_inline_n30p463wt51spj3em.jpg

I decided to use the walking sick shown below because it looked very old and had some holes in it, making it look eroded and moth-eaten. I was also the correct shape as Pip described her walking stick as 'crutch-headed'. However I decided that the wood needed to look a lot darker to be more historically correct. I therefore experimented with dying the stick using different products, however I found I got the best results when using the Ronseal All in One Wood Finish.

'Before' image of the stick.

Products I experimented with.

Most effective and therefore chosen product.

Close-up of how the wood looked after the colour was added.

Final result of the stick.

I am really happy with the results! The wood looks a lot darker and more dirty which I like and it looked quite uneven which I think also adds to the old feel. I will be incorporating this into my look as I think it will add a different aspect to the look; I will therefore need to put make-up on my model's hands as they will now be in the frame.


Resources:
http://trulyvictorian.com/history/1840.html