Charlotte Brontë’s Life Through Clothes

Illustrator Houghton’s scrupulous debut investigates the life of Charlotte Brontë through the lens of her wardrobe. Drawing from the collection of nearly 150 garments and accessories housed at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in England, the author spotlights a governess dress from Brontë’s stint in her mid-20s as a minder to two young children, an ”elegant, unobtrusive” garment that aimed to walk the “sartorial tightrope” between respectability and showing up her employer; her corsets, which Brontë wore during her time in Brussels with her sister Emily, and were laced so tightly the fabric beneath the iron structure has degraded, suggesting the self-consciously “plain” Brontë may have practiced an extreme form of lacing to meet the era’s strict beauty standards; and a brown silk “going-away dress gown” she changed into after her wedding ceremony—a smart, practical piece of clothing that “had been designed with her writerly life very much in mind,” the author posits. (Brontë got little use out of it, however, as she died less than a year after her wedding.) Houghton’s volume is enhanced with copious illustrations, a glossary of fashion terms, and detailed explanations of the research conducted to learn about the garments Brontë wore, including laboratory analyses to determine the original dyes and the mills in which the fabric was spun. Armchair fashion historians will be delighted. Illus. (Feb.)