Dear booklovers,
I hope you are ready for first steps on our literary catwalk. Even though I didn't get a lot of feedback from you, I still hope it is due to my lousy promotion of this literary corner, and not because you didn't like the idea. So now we have Facebook and Twitter sites for promotion, and I'm planning to create Pinterest as well, but if you have any other ideas or social services to recommend I'll be more then happy to include them as well. But first things first - let's do what we are here for...our first journey.
And that journey will take us to (back then not so much) United States of America, in the Civil war period. Some of you can probably guess that our first voyage will be provided by an excellent novel by Louisa May Alcott that never gets old - Little women - and our first tour guide will be the oldest of four March sisters, Margaret “Meg” March.
You may wonder why I chose this particular story among many others, which would be more in the spirit of our time. Beside the obvious, that it is probably one of my favorite novels of all time, the answer is that, when I first came to think about starting this blog, I've asked myself which story would be the best frame for presentation of nice and stylish but still affordable clothes and answer just popped out. Story of four sisters, four characters different enough that every one of us can find at least a piece of ourselves in each of them. Their snug lives were brutally interrupted by the Civil war in which their father fought and girls, together with their mother and one loyal servant, had to abandon the comfort of a big house and move to a smaller, ruinous house and struggle for their existence. But even in the given circumstances girls are managing to keep alive that which is the most important, love and fellowship inside the family.
As some of you probably know, woman fashion during the Civil war left a little, if any, space for personal influence. Monochrome dresses, head covers and gloves which, as our Meg once said to her younger sister Josephine, every dignified young lady should always wear, suited Meg perfectly and she decided to wear them without any question. Because of her fair complexion, big, brown eyes and densely brown hair she preferred pigeon gray tones, perfect companions to her beauty. Meg was the oldest sister but the role of a leader was often left to her younger sister Jo, whom filled the role much better. Along with her three younger sisters, Meg found company in children from the King family, for whom she worked as a governess and used that money to help supporting the family.
As an oldest child, her memories of comfortable and happier times were the strongest, as was the repulsion for poverty and the way of life her family was forced to live now. Despite all that, she was always the first one to help the family in the moments when her help was needed the most.
Meg grew up in time when women started coming out of their social frames, fight for their rights and stand side by side with men, especially due to wartime but she didn't manage to stand up for herself and at the end of a story we leave her as a married woman, mother of twins, dependent of her spouse. By getting married in a wealthy family, Meg thought all of her dreams fulfilled but, as story reaches the end, it becomes clear that it may not be exactly what she imagined her life to be.
Does it make her a tragic character? Perhaps a little bit because living in the past made her let the present pass her by and, therefore, she lost an opportunity to discover what her potentials are....All of that only for a dose of secured life.
So, who are the modern Megs March and what would they, due to their characteristics, wear today? Reading the book, I've always pictured Meg as a beautifl young woman, dressed as good as it gets due to the given circumstances but with no personal detail to discover something about her. My picture of her hasn't changed a bit since then. She is a girl aware of the situation and, as much as she'd want to, she'll never spend unreasonable amount of money on clothes, but she'll try to hide it by her overall outfit. Colors of her preference are unadventurous and even though her outfits look good and she know how to wear them, they are missing a final touch of some kind.
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This is how I see Meg March today. This may be her working outfit, or maybe something she'd wear for an afternoon window shopping. What do you think, do you like it or have you imagined it in a completey different way?
Would you like me to post more different combinations for every presented character, is this the way you imagined my stories or has this came as a disappointment? All of your comments are welcome, especially since this is only my first post and I'd like this blog to become our meeting point, a place where both you and me will meet and have a good time.
BookLover
