Fashion Roundtable Book Club - Eleanor Houghton, author of 'Charlotte Brontë's Life Through Clothes'

But in my PhD, I also looked at her physical appearance and the impact of that on her life, which I know we're going to talk about

later.

There's so much in it.

And I think

because clothes are so meaningful, once you start looking at them, they take you in some fascinating places that I would never have expected to go, you know, when I started this project.

It's opened so many, so many doors, but also it's changed my perspective of Charlotte completely.

And I hope other people's maybe, but other people will be the ones to say that.

Well definitely because I think there is this preconception of what Charlotte Bronte was and I think to quote you you sort of you know it's this fragile sexless sort of saint-like woman but you sort of see that in Bramwell's painting and her brother Bramwell you know that hangs in the National Portrait Gallery of the three Bronte sisters but I think that feeds into this overall sort of depiction of her as drab and I suppose the question is, how do her clothes jar with this stereotype? Because I know that you've sort of added bits and pieces of sort of eyewitness accounts as you go.

And, you know, a lot of what that says is she was constantly in print.

So, you know, that's completely different to what, you know, we thought.

Absolutely.

I mean,

the clothes themselves, because they are primary sources, give us a lot of actual evidence.

So you're right, her clothes are much more colourful than we first imagined.

And certainly I entered this, you know, I quickly looked at the database, but I had no idea.

She's totally, her clothing totally defies expectations or my expectations anyway.

So yeah, there are paisley dresses, there are brightly coloured bags, there are Burberry type cokes.

Actually, I've got some pictures of some things here.

We'll do it old school and I'll list some things up.

Yeah, I mean, I do love

that.

So this

is one of her paisley dresses, if you can see that.

And it's very beautiful.

And as you say, one of the ladies who lived in the village where Charlotte lived, she said she always saw the girl, rarely saw the girls in output print.