Angels and Insects (1995) is such a fascinating, visually striking movie, featuring excellent actors, and I’m extremely annoyed that it seems to never be available on streaming. The DVD is expensive and rare (so out of print, I guess), and it took me forever to find a version to watch. There’s sometimes sketchy versions on YouTube, and you might even find one with good picture quality. This is all a real shame because this movie is unique and well worth watching. Critic Roger Ebert described it as “like the dark underside of a Merchant-Ivory film,” and I love that because on the surface, Angels and Insects is a very proper period drama, but it slowly reveals the rot at the heart of this Victorian family. If you’ve read the novella Morpho Eugenia (1992) by A.S. Byatt, upon which this film is based, then you know what happens. If not, just wait for it!
Costume designer Paul Brown was nominated for an Academy Award for this movie, and this was one of the few films he worked on. Most of his designs were for opera and theater, including both costumes and stage sets. E. Jane Dickson, who wrote Brown’s obituary for the Guardian in 2017, said of the costumer:
“His period costumes were exquisite and always authentic; he could tell you, to the month, when a stock or a stomacher was first worn, but ducked the dead hand of historicism with forensic attention to character.”
Character is definitely the focus of the costumes in Angels and Insects. No year is stated, but several characters talk a lot about Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, first published in late 1859 and receiving lots of public debate in 1860. So I think it’s safe to say the film takes place in the 1860s, though accuracy to the precise year sometimes gives way to the overarching theme of insect life reflecting family life and how each character fits into the “hive.”
The movie opens with a ball at the home of Sir Harold Alabaster, where his wife holds court and his two daughters Eugenia and Rowena dance along with their elder brother Edgar. A naturalist, William Adamson, is the family’s guest, and he’s recently returned from the Amazon, where he researched insects, but barely survived a shipwreck on the way back.
The camera zooms in on various ladies’ gowns, including one woman who wears butterfly decorations…
All of the women wear brightly colored gowns, like so many fluttering, swirling exotic insects…
The mid-1850s were also when aniline dyes became available for clothing in Britain and the U.S. These synthetic dyes could create brighter, more intense colors than the natural dyes that had been used for millennia. Bright purples, blues, reds, pinks, yellows, and greens were all fashionable, sometimes in eye-popping combinations that seem gaudy today.
Eugenia wears a brilliant blue gown with red trim, and her younger sister Rowena wears a bright green gown with yellow trim. While the style is different, the color combos are similar to this period print:
With the stage set, let’s dive in to each character’s costumes!
Eugenia’s Costumes in Angels and Insects (1995)
Blue is the most frequently worn color by Eugenia (Patsy Kensit), but this isn’t one of those color-coded costume movies. Blue just looks good on a blonde, and the brightness fits the era. The thematic part of this film’s costumes are the insects, florals, and fruits that are all reminders of the natural world.
The bodice of her gown is trimmed with flowers, leaves, and berries.
You could even read the red latticework trim of her skirt as a spider’s web that slowly traps William Adamson (Mark Rylance). That’s probably a stretch, since the design was also done in the period.
Her hair is elaborately styled with braids and trimmed in more floral decorations.
After the ball, William shows Sir Harold and Eugenia the one specimen he saved from the shipwreck — a blue butterfly, the Morpho eugenia (which is a real butterfly, named after Empress Eugénie of France).
Eugenia is only shown from the neck up in this scene, as she peers over a desk at the pinned insect.
Yet that dress she’s wearing was used in several promo pix, and wow, it’s really elaborate! I wonder if there were other scenes filmed where she wore it that ended up on the cutting room floor?
Later, at the family’s dinner, Eugenia is decked with a fruit garland like she’s a mantlepiece (her sister is dripping with flowers too). Nature is bursting out of this family! They’re fecundity incarnate! But, like an easily startled butterfly, Eugenia gets spooked and spills wine all over herself.
This kind of fruity, floral decoration was done in the period, just maybe not so big and chunky.
The most iconic costume from this movie is undoubtedly the “bee” dress Eugenia wears during a brief scene outside where her younger sisters are taking their lessons from their new science tutor, William.
This costume is such a great example of how to tweak a historical costume and express a theme without going modern. It doesn’t have to be “sexy” or in weird fabrics to be understandable to the contemporary audience. You can see this and think “she’s dressed like a bee, there’s an insect theme, the movie’s called ‘Angels and Insects,’ William is a naturalist who collects butterflies, hey maybe they’re all connected.” And her dress is still rather historically accurate, at least in shape, style, and materials.
Even the yellow and black “bee” stripe is found in the period, though not in the exact same type of dress.
Eugenia’s very into riding, often with her brother. Early on, she’s shown in this lovely burgundy riding habit.
Note the military-style braid decoration on the jacket, as found in the period.
She’s back to blue in a bright blue dress with red trim for a lovely scene in the conservatory. William shows Eugenia the butterflies, and they land all over her, with him likening her to the sky.
The style of trim is reminiscent of period designs, just a bit simplified.
And her hair is similar to period styles too, like this:
William follows up the butterflies in the conservatory with moths the next night, when Eugenia is wearing this silver/white evening gown. He compares her to the moon, and appropriately enough, her gown and accessories have moon and stars symbols.
The moth scene becomes a proposal, and William and Eugenia are engaged. This follows her sister’s engagement to a local gentleman, so the household prepares for a double wedding. There’s a brief wedding prep montage where everybody’s measured and fitted for new clothes.
Then a short montage of the two couples in their wedding finery.
Along with all five of the younger Alabaster siblings as attendants in ruffly pink gowns like so many flowers along with the flower petals they scatter.
For their wedding night, Eugenia scatters herself with flowers (including boob daisies!) before she and William do the deed.
Almost immediately after the wedding, Eugenia tells William she’s pregnant. When announcing this, she wears a blue and white jacket that I totally thought was a shawl at first.
But it has sleeves and a collar. I wonder if it was made out of a shawl though?
Her hairstyles sometimes veer more towards the 1850s and even 1840s with more braids and fullness at the sides, over the ears, like this:
Once she’s pregnant, Eugenia mimics her mother and becomes a lazy queen bee, laying in the sun, wrapped in linen and lace, filling her face with strawberries and cream.
Rowena is the only woman of the family with touches of black — is she infertile? Maybe she’s had a miscarriage? This isn’t explained, but she’s definitely not the center of the hive like her older sister is becoming.
Eugenia’s hair fascinates me! It’s so lush and droopy, falling in loops and puffs and buns — she’s abundance personified. At this point, she’s had twin babies and is pregnant again.
At a family party, they play charades, and Eugenia’s lilac dress with asymmetrical accents looks odd to me.
During the game, her brother suggestively ties a snake belt around her waist. Scroll back up and notice how she wore a snake brooch with the “bee” outfit. Snake eating it’s own tail? Is the snake tempting Adam and Eve? Serpents as fertility symbol? So many meanings.
I guess asymmetrical stuff like that dress was done in the period, but I don’t have to like it.
When Lady Alabaster dies, Eugenia is distraught, but she quickly takes over her mother’s role (complete with neuroses) and becomes the new queen bee of the hive.
This movie doesn’t have any detailed “dressing” scenes, but there’s one glimpse of Eugenia’s corset, so we know that’s going on underneath her gowns.
And her final costume is all mourning, fully draped in black.
I couldn’t find an exact period example for her cinnamon-bun hairstyle (Princess Leia doesn’t work), but in a larger fashion plate of evening hairstyles, I did see something somewhat akin. Sorry for the poor quality image, I tried to clean it up; hopefully the two rows of circular curls are visible.
There’s also a few photos floating around the internet like this, doing a similar style with braids:
Rowena’s Costumes in Angels and Insects (1995)
As the younger sister and a minor character, Rowena (Saskia Wickham) doesn’t get a big wardrobe. But she’s the next woman introduced in the story, and her first couple costumes continue the same themes as Eugenia’s. For the ball, Rowena wears striped green and yellow.
Check out the ball fringe on her sleeves! A perfectly period touch. And her hair is loaded with floral decorations, even more so than her sister.
At the family’s first dinner in the film, Rowena is loaded down with flowers, though she’s just in the background here.
Her costume is an exuberant take on historical fashions like this:
When she’s married and returns home to visit, Rowena is emotional and pleads to hold Eugenia’s babies. Rowena’s husband tries to comfort her over their not having children yet. The difference between the sisters is stark.
Like her sister, Rowena has hairstyles that lean back a decade or so, featuring the soft side puffs over the ears, like this:
At the charades party, Rowena lingers in the back, wearing black lace and heavy black jewelry. This is before her mother dies, so it’s like she’s mourning her own life, perhaps in mourning for her fertility?
Lady Alabaster’s Costumes in Angels and Insects (1995)
The mother of the family (played by Annette Badland) is only in a few scenes and wears much of the same thing, but she’s worth a mention. At the ball, she wears this pale lavender and white ruffled gown, and her hair is in 1840s-ish ringlets.
She wears the dress again at dinner with the family. The style of her dress is similar to this fashion plate, only hers is all lightness instead of dark.
For tea time, which she invites William and Matty to, Lady Alabaster wears a weird lavender/pink thing covered with rosettes and bows. It’s all very frilly, feminine, silly, and a bit overwhelming.
Her maid is wearing a 1830s headdress, just to be peculiar, I guess!
At the charades party, it looks like Lady Alabaster is wearing some kind of jacket (with those wide purple sleeves) over the gown she wore at the ball and to dinner, plus a wacky headdress and extra bows.
Matty’s Costumes in Angels and Insects (1995)
One of the other main characters, with Eugenia and William, is the Alabaster children’s tutor Matty Crompton (Kristin Scott Thomas). She’s briefly glimpsed at the ball, and she sits silently at the first family dinner, both times wearing her one “nice” dress.
The only time this dress’ hem is visible is at the charades party.
At the end of the film, she wears the same gown again, but without the sheer dickie at the neckline.
Mostly, Matty wears practical outfits, like this blue day dress with fringe.
Her hair is slicked down with that oh-so-19th-century center part, and sometimes the sides of her hair are looped up in little buns or knots like this:
Or sometimes the braids hang in long loops. She also has small jewelry appropriate to the period like these knotted hairwork earrings and a tiny brooch.
This style of dress is pretty common, especially with the trimmed front yoke.
And here with deep fringe.
Matty’s other dress is also blue, but with pleated details.
Her most casual outfit is a striped blouse worn with a dark skirt.
And of course, she wears a mourning gown when Lady Alabaster dies.
At the very last scene in the movie, there’s a brief glimpse of Matty in red.
But there’s a slightly better view of that outfit in this promo pic:
Miss Mead & the Children’s Costumes in Angels and Insects (1995)
I wasn’t going to mention Miss Mead (Anna Massey), the governess for the younger Alabaster children, until I found her main dress on auction.
You can just barely see all that detail on screen, but the auction site confirms everything, from the alternating button motif to the beading. The site describes this gown as “dark green,” but it reads as black on film.
That motif was popular in the period:
The five younger Alabaster children are dressed identically and usually in stripes or plaids.
Their hair is properly done because, as we’ve said before, girls did NOT wear their hair unstyled!
Much like Eugenia, the children’s hairstyle leans back a bit to the 1840s more than the 1860s. At least it’s styled and up!
The kids even wear smocks outside so they don’t get their dresses dirty when they muck about with bugs with William and Matty.
The short-with-full-petticoat style for the children is standard for the time:
The Men’s Costumes in Angels and Insects (1995)
As usual, the men’s costumes aren’t all that exciting, but I’ll mention a few items. Edgar Alabaster (Douglas Henshall) wears this unusual black-and-white houndstooth riding jacket in an early scene.
And his evening wear is livened up with an embroidered waistcoat at a family dinner when he argues with his father about Darwin and science.
William starts out having lost everything in a shipwreck and has to borrow an evening outfit for the ball:
Then, as he works for the Alabasters and eventually marries into the family, he gets his own wardrobe of waistcoats:
Finishing out with a mourning coat, black waistcoat, and purple stripe tie.
Have you managed to find and watch Angels and Insects (1995)?
Baby Mark Rylance!!!