UPDATING ANNE'S PUFF SLEEVES

One of the most satisfying moments in Anne of Green Gables is when Anne finally gets her own dress with puff sleeves. She voices her desire for them after Marilla makes her several 'good, sensible, serviceable dresses' without any adornment at all. But Marilla considers 'puffed' sleeves a waste of material and dismisses Anne.

However, a good ten chapters later, Matthew takes it upon himself to satisfy Anne's wishes and asks their neighbour, Mrs. Rachel Lynde, to have a dress made up with puff sleeves as a Christmas present for Anne (he is too shy to do this himself, though the 1965 long-running musical makes a production number of him going to the General Store and buying a variety of farm supplies before asserting himself and marching out with the dress, still on the store display form).


Image: the making of Anne's puff sleeved dress. Image Courtesy of Anne Dixon.

The dress in the novel, 'a lovely soft brown gloria with all the gloss of silk', delights Anne, especially its 'long elbow cuffs, and above them two beautiful puffs divided by rows of shirring and bows of brown-silk ribbon'.

Although L. M. Montgomery depicted this dress as brown, adaptations fashion it as blue: the 1965 musical, the 1985 Kevin Sullivan miniseries, the 2017 Anne with an E, season 1. Anne Dixon's dress for the latter production was particularly intricate, incorporating antique lace, hand-painted flowers, and yet more flowers made from sea pearls surrounding an amethyst bead center.

If Anne were to be updated again, perhaps setting it in the current era, what might she wear? In the 1985 series, she selected another puff-sleeve dress to recite 'The Highwayman'; perhaps she might bring that poem to TikTok and wear this cropped poplin top with enormous puffs and skirt by Cinq à Sept?

Image: puffed sleeve dress by Cinq à Sept.

Or if she wanted to thank Mrs. Josephine Barry, who lives all the way in Charlottetown, and who gave her for Christmas 'the daintiest little kid slippers, with beaded toes and satin bows and glistening buckles', perhaps she might add to them this Simone Rocha coat, with extravagant, beaded tulle panniers and dramatic, dropped puff sleeves, and post her look on Instagram. I'm sure she'd get a lot of 'likes'.


Image: puffed coat by Simone Rocha.

Visit our blog again tomorrow for more text and textiles by Kate Cavendish.