Yesterday, a holiday fantasy! Today, a yuletide nightmare. Don’t be mad at us! It can’t all be pretty fantasy frocks! Sometimes it’s good to acknowledge that the holidays can be equally as dark and depressing as they can be joyous and uplifting. And as holiday movies go, none of them manage to depict the horror of being locked in for the duration with your in-laws quite so effectively as Pablo Larrain’s Spencer. In it, Kristen Stewart plays Diana, an obscure princess from an unknown European country tragically forced to wear a drop-dead stunning Chanel gown against her will. Joking aside, it’s always notable when a character is presented with a costume or shown putting it on. It’s a way of signaling to the audience that this outfit, possibly more than any of the others worn in the story, has special significance.
In this case, Diana’s ladies maid makes a point of noting that she took the dress in because “you have lost weight.” Spencer as a film deals entirely with Princess Diana’s darkest period, when she was unraveling from the strain of her marriage and public life, engaging in self-harm and purging everything she ate. It’s also worth noting when a costume travels through different scenes and settings and how it changes along the way. This dress tells a story quite clearly.
Unable to face Christmas dinner with her stone-faced in-laws, Diana escapes the castle and breaks into her old childhood home, where she visits old ghosts in her bedroom. Going from the embarrassment of her ladies maid commenting on her illness to moments of self-harm and purging, to an attempt to put a brave face on, to an escape, and finally to the realization that she’s trapped and her memories can’t save her. As soon as she puts this dress on, she cuts herself, then she throws a coat over it, then she snaps her pearl strands. She rages against the confines of what this dress represents from the second it’s presented to her.
The dress is a recreation of a Chanel gown from the spring 1988 collection, which makes it correct for the period if not necessarily historically correct. Diana rather famously avoided Chanel because she was reported to have said that the iconic CC logo reminder her too much of Charles and Camilla. It’s probably an apocryphal tale, but it’s true that costume designer Jaqueline Durran didn’t try to recreate Diana’s actual wardrobe, which is one of the most well-documented in history, preferring instead to interpret Diana’s story through costume. This is not a style that evokes Diana’s own during this period, but as a statement about the character or a way of illuminating her inner thoughts, it can’t be beat. It’s fluffy and gilded and frivolous to a fault and she’s absolutely choking in it. Happy Christmas!
Tomorrow: The ultimate fierce mama.
[Photo/Still Credit: Courtesy of Neon]
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