Amanda Weaver | Costume Design and Romance Novels

One of the first historical romance novels I ever read was LOVESONG by Valerie Sherwood, when I was about fifteen. There’s an early scene featuring the heroine sneaking out of her London boarding school to meet up with her elusive beau at an 18^th century gaming hell (spoiler alert: he’s not the hero and this doesn’t end well for her). Her friends help her dress in disguise as a young man, so she can prowl the streets of London at night alone. One provides a pale green satin men’s suit with silver metallic embroidery, made for her brother. She wears her own clocked stockings and garters. Another friend styles the heroine’s platinum blonde hair into something resembling a powdered wig.

It’s been thirty years and I can still remember that dress up scene and still
recall small details of her outfit. I couldn’t recall the heroine’s name, or the
shady beau’s, or the eventual hero’s. But that green satin suit? It stayed with
me forever! That was probably my first indication that my future lay in costume
design. I ended up getting a master’s degree in costume design, and I’ve spent
twenty years in New York working in the industry.

Costume design is about more than designing clothes. It requires, first and foremost, a thorough understanding of the character, their socio-economic standing, their education and job, their emotional makeup, and their relationships to others and the world around them. Sounds a little like writing, huh? Designing something in another era requires detailed research, and not just the big moments in history. Costume designers are forever looking for the obscure, the personal. What did knitting patterns in 19^th century Sweden look like? What did medieval knights wear under that chain mail? What would a lower class woman in the 19^th century wear in the snow? When I started writing historical romance, I felt right at home. Researching the introduction of electricity in English country homes wasn’t all that different than researching the manufacture of Victorian corsets, or how the substructure of an 1880’s skirt would work. And just like in costume design, it’s very easy to fall down the rabbit hole of research. That above tidbit about electricity in English country houses? I researched it for A DUCHESS IN NAME. It took me two full days to find the answer.

My costume design background means I don’t necessarily have to research the
clothes when I’m writing. The real challenge for me is not getting bogged down
in details. Fashion is certainly one of the fun parts of reading historical
romance, but I suspect even the most avid historical fashionista would be bored
by my page-long descriptions of a ball gown. I try to keep it to a minimum in
writing, just enough to give the flavor of the clothes, but never doubt—in my
mind, I know what that dress looks like, down to the 5/8” covered buttons down
the front and the 1” box pleated taffeta trim on the skirt. Hazard of the day
job, I guess!