Dressing Characters
Fashion can be a big deal -- how your people dress tells you what they do in life. Can they afford haute coutier? Would they want it? How do they dress when they most want to be comfortable (I think telling you what I have on now would be TMI).
Do they dress the way they do because they have ulterior motives (a vice cop going undercover as a street walker). Or because they were ingrained by thier family or expected to dress the same way by their friends.
Fashion is the ultimate peer pressure.
In fantasy, we might not spend a lot of time on fashion -- he wore the baggy, rough garments of a farmer. But I've been thinking a lot about it.
The world of Celta has a Regency undertone, probably because I read a lot of them. I have been accused of not being able to write a contemporary book because my tone is too historical. Maybe. We'll see if I can pull off that Urban Fantasy.
In any case, Dufleur Thyme is facing The Social Season (you don't say "no" to GreatLady Holly, and SHE has an agenda (and it wasn't a surprise when I wrote the pages to see that she did. It was something I didn't know about, but not a surprise).
So I've been thinking about what the elegant and fashionable wear during the Social Season on Celta a couple of hundred years after colonization. I've always emphasized the difference between commoner and noble clothing, the fabric, the wideness of legs and sleeves. I'm thinking that this year, the men are wearing turkish trousers, those that bag and are gathered at the ankle. Robes are IN.
So it's a topic that you should consider in your writing. Having bad hair days happen to many people and it's an irritation that can set your characters' nerves on end from the moment they wake up.
May your costuming be interesing today.
Robin
Do they dress the way they do because they have ulterior motives (a vice cop going undercover as a street walker). Or because they were ingrained by thier family or expected to dress the same way by their friends.
Fashion is the ultimate peer pressure.
In fantasy, we might not spend a lot of time on fashion -- he wore the baggy, rough garments of a farmer. But I've been thinking a lot about it.
The world of Celta has a Regency undertone, probably because I read a lot of them. I have been accused of not being able to write a contemporary book because my tone is too historical. Maybe. We'll see if I can pull off that Urban Fantasy.
In any case, Dufleur Thyme is facing The Social Season (you don't say "no" to GreatLady Holly, and SHE has an agenda (and it wasn't a surprise when I wrote the pages to see that she did. It was something I didn't know about, but not a surprise).
So I've been thinking about what the elegant and fashionable wear during the Social Season on Celta a couple of hundred years after colonization. I've always emphasized the difference between commoner and noble clothing, the fabric, the wideness of legs and sleeves. I'm thinking that this year, the men are wearing turkish trousers, those that bag and are gathered at the ankle. Robes are IN.
So it's a topic that you should consider in your writing. Having bad hair days happen to many people and it's an irritation that can set your characters' nerves on end from the moment they wake up.
May your costuming be interesing today.
Robin
posted by FantasyAuthor RobinDOwens | 6:29 AM
2 Comments:
And you can use costuming to reveal your characters. In my story the hero is Fae. All the other male Fae wear tunics/leggings and boots of some sort. But my Fae lead wears modern clothes and lives in a modern (by Fae standards) house.
He wears what he likes because he spent years trying to overcome his people's distrust and prejudice. And he knows damn well that their rejection has nothing to do with his clothes and everything to do with *him.*
The rejection still hurts him so he purposely choses things mortal because in our realm he can become anonymous.
Great post Robin.
moon
Excellent, Moonhart. This DOES occur to writers.
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