AUSTIN, Texas: It turns out there will be another day for Scarlett O’Hara’s green curtain dress. Many of them.
The iconic dress and Scarlett’s burgundy ball gown from the 1939 film “Gone With the Wind” have been saved from deterioration by a $30,000 conservation effort by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas.
The dresses worn by actress Vivien Leigh are now on display for the first time in nearly 30 years at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum as part of a Hollywood costume exhibit.
Ransom Center officials announced the project in 2010, noting the dresses were in danger of falling apart from age.
The dresses were made of heavy fabric and were not built to last. Weakened stitching and sagging waistlines had to be repaired and conservators also had to remove some previous alternation work and additions, such as feathers placed on the burgundy gown.
“All of those areas would have gotten worse. All the vulnerable parts have been stabilized,” said Jill Morena, the Ransom Center’s assistant curator for costumes and personal effects. “It has been a success. We would not be able to display them without this effort.”
Morena stressed the project was not intended to restore the dresses to looking brand new, but to save them so they could again be viewed by the public. For example, the green dress has long faded streaks and conservators did not try to restore its original color.
The Ransom Center acquired the dresses with the collection of film producer David O. Selznick in the 1980s. Conservators wanted them ready in time for a 2014 Ransom Center exhibit to mark the film’s 75th anniversary.
The costumes are among the most famous in Hollywood history and played a key role in one of the most popular films ever. The green curtain dress and the burgundy ball gown were completed in time to join the London exhibit which began Oct. 20 and runs through Jan. 27.
Other pieces, including a blue velvet night gown and Scarlett’s wedding dress and veil, were too fragile to handle and will go back into storage. The Ransom Center plans no additional work on those pieces.
“The wedding veil, once you touched the tulle you realized how brittle and fragile it is,” Morena said.
Iconic Scarlett O’Hara dresses displayed
Iconic Scarlett O’Hara dresses displayed
Mona Tougaard wears bridal look at Dior’s Paris show
- Rihanna and Brigitte Macron among attendees at show
- Design part of new director Jonathan Anderson’s vision
DUBAI/ PARIS: Model Mona Tougaard reportedly turned heads in a bridal-inspired look on the Christian Dior runway during the recent Paris Haute Couture Week.
The runway star, who has Danish, Turkish, Somali and Ethiopian ancestry, wore a sculptural white gown with a one-shoulder silhouette and layered petal-like appliques cascading from the bodice to the full skirt.
The asymmetrical bodice featured draped detailing across the torso, while the skirt flared into a voluminous, floor-length shape.
The look was finished with oversized floral statement earrings that echoed the dress’s petal motif.
The floral elements echoed the wider vision of Dior’s new creative director Jonathan Anderson, who drew inspiration from nature and his love of ceramics for his first Haute Couture collection since being appointed to the role.
The 41-year-old faces the rare challenge of overseeing all three fashion lines at the house — women’s and men’s ready-to-wear and Haute Couture — becoming the first designer to do so since Christian Dior himself.
Just days after presenting his latest men’s collection during Paris Men’s Fashion Week, the Northern Irish designer returned with his first couture offering.
The collection featured floral motifs on fabrics or as accessories, while sculptural bulbous dresses were inspired by the work of Kenya-born ceramicist Magdelene Odundo.
“When you copy nature, you always learn something,” Anderson declared in his show notes, which compared Haute Couture to a living ecosystem that is “evolving, adapting, enduring.”
Other noteworthy pieces included dresses with spherical birdcage-inspired silhouettes, while other models wore vest tops with their dresses gathered around their waists.
The front row at the Rodin Museum reflected the scale of anticipation surrounding Anderson’s couture debut. France’s first lady Brigitte Macron arrived early, while Lauren Sanchez Bezos swept in shortly after.
Actor Parker Posey twirled briefly in a trench-style dress, playing to the room before settling in.
Then the space fell into a collective pause as celebrities and editors alike waited for Rihanna. When the pop star finally took her seat, the lights dropped and the show began.
Before the show, Anderson admitted in an interview with the Business of Fashion website that he previously thought couture was “irrelevant,” adding that he never really “understood the glamour behind it.”
“Now, I feel like I’m doing a Ph.D. in couture,” he explained.
