I Want Candy: Accessories that reveal Status and Eroticism in Period Films across Four Decades
by Fiona Underhill, Contributor
This feature originally appeared in the Spring 2022 print issue of MovieJawn. available in our shop!
Accessories have always had huge importance in fashion throughout the centuries and reveal much about the social status of the wearer. Four period films from the last four decades demonstrate this, as well as exposing character traits that the individuals wearing them may not want to reveal. Accessories – or the removal of them - are also used in erotically-charged scenes that involve no nudity or sex. They can also be public displays of wealth and very much make a bold statement about the wearer.
Dangerous Liaisons (Stephen Frears, 1988) and Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006).
Both of these films are set amongst the aristocracy in a France that is on the cusp of revolution – in the 1770s and 1780s. Dangerous Liaisons opens with the two main characters – Merteuil (Glenn Close) and Valmont (John Malkovich) donning their garb like protective armor, with more and more accoutrements gradually being added by trusted servants. Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst), on the other hand, is literally stripped of her defensive shields in the opening scene of Coppola’s film, because she is not allowed to bring anything, including clothing from Austria, with her into France. Even her beloved accessories, such as ladies-in-waiting and her favorite lapdog, are barred entry.
We then see Marie subjected to the “morning dressing ceremony” once she gets to Versailles. She must stand naked and freezing to death, while various ladies come in and supplant others within the complicated and intricate hierarchy of the court, meaning that they are then the one who get to dress Marie in a particular garment. At this time, being amongst those chosen for the intimacy of dressing a Duchess, Marquise, a Vicomte (like the characters in Dangerous Liaisons) or if you’d reached the top – a King or Queen – was a highly favored and privileged position to be in, it would be considered one of the top honors that could be bestowed.
The ostentatious and frivolous nature of the accessories that aristocratic or Royal women and men wore was one of the things that made them a target, once the guillotines came a-chopping. The wigs, hats, fans, gloves, shoes and decorations such as flowers, ribbons, feathers and jewels were all demonstrations of extreme wealth and decadence. This is nowhere more apparent than in the “I Want Candy” sequence in Marie Antoinette, in which we see Marie and Polignac (Rose Byrne) shopping for fabrics and shoes – which were custom designed for the film by Manolo Blahnik. The montage is intercut with an endless parade of pink and white cakes and sweets, towers of overflowing champagne glasses and piles of plaques (similar to chips) used in lansquenet (a card game that Marie gambles huge sums of money on). It’s no coincidence that Coppola made this film in the mid-2000s, a decade obsessed with celebrity “It Girls” such as Paris Hilton (which Coppola further examined in the brilliant The Bling Ring). Marie is an 18th century version of Legally Blonde’s Elle Woods, with her pink outfits and dog in a handbag.
In Dangerous Liaisons, the most prominent display of gorgeous accessories is Merteuil’s yellow-gold riding habit with black accoutrements – hat, buttons, gloves and purse. She wears this fantastic outfit to reassure Volanges (Swoosie Kurtz) that she is in control and to assert her authority in a scene when advising the naïve Cecile (Uma Thurman), after she’s been deflowered by Valmont (without her mother’s knowledge, of course). She removes the wide-brimmed black hat and swoops it across her face, while looking into the mirror, speaking to Cecile but also to herself; “You’ll find the shame is like the pain. You’ll only feel it once.” Merteuil then sits next to Cecile on a settee and the contrast between the bold, confident colors of her tightly-controlled and coordinated ensemble with the girlish and fussy pink flowers of Cecile’s dress could not be more obvious. When Cecile asks her if she really means that she is to be married but to still sleep with other men on the side, Merteuil replies; “Our sex has few enough advantages; you may as well make the best of those you have.” She is as clear and direct as her perfectly put-together outfit.
Both Marie and Merteuil experience humiliating downfalls by the end of their stories and they end up stripped of their accessories and their dignity. While Dangerous Liaisons began with the donning, it ends with the shedding – earrings and makeup are removed and it is clear that only a haunted shell remains. And well, we know that Marie Antoinette loses both Versailles and her head, but Coppola does not show us the execution. Instead, the final image is of Marie’s ransacked bedroom, with the huge chandelier in pieces on the floor. Decadence destroyed.
The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993) and Emma. (Autumn de Wilde 2019)
Two films set at either end of the 19th century show that something as simple as removing one accessory – a glove – can be more erotically charged than any sex scene. The worlds of Edith Warton and Jane Austen were both extremely constrained. Women in particular could only say and do so much, the correct comportment was valued above all, everything must be tightly restrained. Therefore, on the few occasions when emotions bubble to the surface and true feelings burst out, it makes much more impact on the reader – or in this case, audience.
For Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) and Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer) in The Age of Innocence, their romance is illicit and they only have snatches of time when they can see each other and be alone together “each time, you happen to me all over again.” When they briefly share a carriage ride, Archer removes his glove and then unbuttons Olenska’s, exposing her wrist, which he kisses. The scene is shot and edited breathlessly by Scorsese’s collaborators, with crossfades and superimpositions, giving the scene a sense of urgency and passion – we can feel time running away from the couple. They cannot have sex, so the removal of the glove becomes a heightened and thrillingly erotic moment. Later, there is another snatched moment where they manage to have a brief conversation. Archer puts his naked hand on top of Olenska’s lace glove on the table in between them and Olenska’s places her naked hand, adorned with a ruby ring, on top of his. These moments of skin-to-skin contact will reverberate for them, when they go on to spend years apart. Their sense memories – of touch – will carry them through. In a world where people were constantly adorned – with hats, gloves and all of the accessories that formality and society dictated – the removal of even one of these items could become something charged with meaning.
This is also very much the case in Emma., a film positively bursting with accessories – to the point that a Haberdashery is one of the focal points of the film – a central meeting place for gossip and intrigue. As with Dangerous Liaisons, we see characters undressing and dressing in Emma. and we can see all of the complicated layers involved. Collars are one of the big ways that characters can express themselves, such as Mr Elton’s (Josh O’Connor) getting increasingly large and starched as he believes he is social climbing. And in a scene where Emma (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Knightley (Johnny Flynn) argue, Emma has a particularly spiky one.
As with The Age of Innocence, the removal of gloves leads to a thrillingly romantic scene. Even more so than in 1870s New York, in England of the 1810s, women were almost never seen in public without gloves, especially at a formal occasion like a ball. In the scene, Emma has removed her gloves – probably for eating – and when Knightley asks her to dance, she takes his hand with her bare hand – a bold move. As they begin to dance, all of the other women are still wearing their long gloves – it is just Emma’s hands and arms that are exposed. One part of the dance requires them to hold their arms up in front of their faces, with their arms and hands entwined, but not touching. And other parts do require their hands to touch, something that becomes so electrically charged and visceral, due to the performances and de Wilde’s slowed-down editing of these shots.
This is not the first time that hands have stood out as one of the most memorable components of a Jane Austen adaptation. The Mr. Darcy “hand flex” in Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice (2005) is another example of the hands expressing something which the characters are not allowed to articulate in words.
Gloves – and the removal of them – play a pivotal role in The Age of Innocence and Emma. These are worlds where two bare hands brushing against each other could be an expression of lust or passion, in societies where these were things not easily expressed, or forbidden altogether.
In Dangerous Liaisons and Marie Antoinette, the donning of accessories adds status and confidence, and are displays of luxury and decadence. In The Age of Innocence and Emma., the unbuttoning and removal of a simple layer of fabric from the hands (no other part of the body) leads to some of the most erotically-charged moments in cinema. While accessories now are seen as frivolous and fun, they have played a much more significant role in courtship and social hierarchies throughout much of history, as can be seen in four of the best period films ever made.