Madame de Sevigné (2023) Preview

One film I’m dying to see is the French film Madame de Sevigné (2023), released last year in France (and on a limited basis in Canada), but not yet available elsewhere. The film tells the story of Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, a 17th-century French aristocrat who is now famous for her letter writing. Set in the very late 1660s and early 1670s, the film tells the story of her relationship with her adult daughter, particularly as her daughter married and pulled away from her.

What’s interesting to me (beyond the costumes, which look good and we’ll get to in a moment) is the tension between mother and daughter. Madame de Sevigné’s letters were publicly circulated (and later published), so I’m wondering if that tension is real or fictionalized?

The film’s costumes were designed by Anaïs Romand (Children of the Century, Les Destinées, The Last Mistress, House of Tolerance, The Nun, Diary of a Chambermaid, One Nation One King, Paris Police 1900), and I’m overall quite impressed — which makes sense, as her work is always great! Let’s look at early 1670s French upper-class women’s costumes first:

The real Marquise de Sevigné shows the style going out of fashion, with full sleeves:

Ditto one of Charles II’s mistresses, but here you can see clearly the boned, cone-shape bodice, wide/low neckline, and full skirts that’s very typical of 1660s fashion:

This is just the transition where women are going from those structured gowns to wearing dressing gowns (“robes de chambre”), which were modeled on Middle and East Asian long, loose garments:

These were initially only worn at home, in private, but soon women began wearing them over separate boned stays, with a sash and then draped towards the back — what will become the manteau or mantua gown:

Skirts start narrowing, and even the non-dressing-gown-based styles still start incorporating that pulled-way-back overskirt:

Want to know more about this critical transition in women’s fashion? Check out my book, Dressing à la Turque!

Both mother and daughter are shown wearing dressing gowns at home, which makes perfect sense — people had always worn more comfortable clothing at home, but now they had specific, highly fashionable garments to do so:

I like daughter Françoise’s dressing gown best, given it’s clearly made in the classic T-shape that was inspired by Ottoman outer garments — wide and boxy panels make up the body and sleeves, and it’s open down the front:

Madame’s (Marie) robe is interesting, in that it has the kind of decorative-opening sleeves you see a lot in portraiture and is open down the front:

And in back, it’s got stitched down pleats — this was part of the process of taking these style and turning them into what we’d call “streetwear” or clothes suitable for leaving the house:

But I question that gathered neckline. I’m not saying it’s implausible, just, I haven’t ever seen anything like it in the period:

In terms of “streetwear”/fashionable wear/whatever you want to call it — clothes for going out in public — there are some great dresses.

Françoise is dressed super formally here with her boned, fitted gown. In particular I’m excited about those short sleeves with puffed undersleeves, and all the ribbons in the hair:

Because that short oversleeve is right out of 1670s-80s dress:

The fabric works, although looking close-up it seems very Celtic or something? I do like the dark gold embroidery on the stomacher:

And those hair ribbons are one of my FAVORITE elements of late 17th century fashion and something I am dying to do myself:

Then you’ve got these two dresses — you can see the front of mom/Marie’s dress above, and we’ll come back to that in a moment. For now, I love that Françoise’s dress skirts are pulled up and back in that very typical 1670s-90s style seen above:

It is a closed-front, presumably boned bodice:

But I also like the full sleeve with rolled-up cuff, again very typical of this era:

Back to mom’s stripey dress. I’m not too sure about that fichu (neckerchief) color, as those were usually white and this here makes it look a little off:

And something about the stripe layout pings my “modernized” antenna:

They did love stripes in this period, particularly after a delegation from the Kingdom of Siam brought many striped fabrics, after which they called striped fabrics “siamoise” aka Siamese). But that happened in 1686, so you usually see striped fabrics used more vertically in the bodice because they’re being used for mantuas:

Both have some less interesting, fabric-wise, dresses, but again in the standard “boned bodice, full-ish sleeve, full skirt” style. Most appear to be missing overskirts, however.

This behind-the-scenes image shows us a bit more of the construction of these gowns. YES, back-lacing IS period for these boned-bodice styles, and I very much appreciate they did the period-correct technique of hiding the lacing holes in a stitched-in placket hidden UNDER the gown:

And we catch a brief glimpse of Françoise in an Indian printed cotton jacket (?) — these fabrics were super popular in this era, enough so that their import was banned because it competed with the French silk industry:

A couple final thoughts, until I’m able to watch the film:

Let’s hope Madame de Sevigné gets released in the US sooner than later!

 

What’s your take on this preview from the upcoming Madame de Sevigné?