this is Anna and this is Elsa you know
them from frozen
you know this outfit and this one but
are they accurate we got this fashion
historian
hi I'm Raisa Britannia and I'm a fashion
historian she's going to walk us through
what Disney got right and what they got
wrong about these dresses first let's
establish a time period frozen a set in
1840s in Norway that's specific
we know it's Norway because there are
few words anything else
the town of arendelle is named after the
Norwegian town arendelle
so why the 1840s the short frozen fever
we see a map on the top left corner you
see Roman numerals that say 1840 frozen
is based on the story The Snow Queen
which was written in 1844 let's start
with Elsa's iconic Ice Queen look so
this dress is total fantasies so could
we just rewind a bit okay here's her
coronation gown for most of the 19th
century Norway and Sweden were united
and we actually know who the Queen was
and that was Josephine of Lockton Park
and her coronation ceremony was 1844 so
what's inaccurate about Elsa's
coronation look right off the bat I
noticed that the silhouette is way too
narrow because at this time period
skirts were pretty full and I'm not
really sure what's happening with those
sleeves but long sleeves wouldn't be
worn at night so this is not accurate
let's draw Elsa's coronation gown from
the undergarments up
first up the underwear so the first
thing she'd be wearing would be a
chemise and underneath she would also be
wearing drawers the 1840s saw the
popularization of split crotch drawers
these are two separate pieces of fabric
these reached below the knee and were
secured by a ribbon this is the
beginning of what we think of as modern
underwear the next layer a woman would
wear stockings called strumpet Norway
what we have here is an original design
for a stocking and you can really see
that there are these floral motifs
crawling up the leg
next up the corset corsets were
essential 400
of years but in the 19th century they
were distinctly hourglass-shaped
the 1840s saw the beginning of a
practice called tight lacing which
involved tying your corset really tight
the goal was meant to have the smallest
waistline possible even if it meant not
breathing
here's where the silhouette starts to
diverge from the disney elsa and then
come the petticoats see this don't shape
here it's created by layers and layers
and layers of petticoats these
petticoats were very heavy upwards of 20
pounds the bottom petticoat would likely
be made of something called horsehair
which was really stiff and helped to
really stick out the silhouette quilted
petticoats would be worn on top of that
to help really smooth out that
silhouette the outermost petticoat was
typically white made of a cotton or
linen and this would be your nicest
petticoat on top of all of that the
ceremonial gown because we're talking
about Elsa's coronation day we're gonna
look at a very specific type of dress
called a court gown this here is the
actual court gown that Josephine wore
for her coronation in 1844 you can see
quite a few differences first of all the
color in most depictions of European
monarchs you see them wearing white
coronation garb and that's really
because this is a religious ceremony and
so the white and the gold really creates
this symbolism of purity and divinity
these dresses were in three parts the
bodice the skirt and the Train which was
often detachable you can see that else
is wearing long sleeves and that is
definitely wrong for this kind of dress
here you see an example of an 1840s day
dress it really should be a short
flouncy sleeve and adding on to the
Train would be the Cape so this is
actually Josephine's coronation cape
they actually did a pretty good job with
Elsa's coronation cape because as you
can see it is pretty long also that
magenta color is pretty wrong but I'll
get into that later and now her shoes so
these shoes would have been called
straights which meant there was no right
and left and we wouldn't see specific
right and left shoes until the later
half of the night
century evening shoes were typically
made of silk and mostly worn indoors
moving on to the hair and crown European
hairstyles were greatly influenced by
Queen Victoria the Queen of Britain
so this hairstyle was often featured in
fashion plates alongside other
fashionable hairstyles from the period
one of which was this style called
spaniel curls and they were these curls
that kind of came and framed the face it
appears the Queen Josephine is wearing
her hair in this style here the only
thing really accurate about Elsa's hair
is that she is wearing an updo which is
appropriate for evening so I'm trying to
figure out what kind of crown Queen
Josephine would have worn if we look at
this 1858 portrait we see that she's
wearing a diamond tiara and this is the
one that became more closely associated
with her so here's what Elsa would have
looked like compared to the original
Disney look let's move on to anna anna
purchases this outfit from wandering
oaken's trading post this is on the way
out to the countryside so was this
accurate for the 19th century Norwegian
countryside the animators really took
care to include elements from
traditional Norwegian folk clothing
there's a specific Norwegian folk
costume called the boo nod you may have
seen pictures like this or this and
that's really what you think of when you
think of Norwegian costume and that is
what the animators were going for with
Ana's costume of course
Ana's costume isn't totally historical
because again made-up Kingdom the main
inaccuracy is I see are really four
boots and the color of that cape so
that's not totally accurate either now
we're going to draw every layer of this
dress the first layer is the underwear
if anna is wearing her own drawers from
the coronation we actually see a peek of
them and they do have a little ruffled
edge at the end so that's pretty
accurate
next up the stockings for all the
seasons women wore stockings so
especially during the winter but you see
her climbing a mountain and it appears
she's not
stockings at all when I saw that peak of
leg I was like come on you guys
and then the corset I really doubt that
oaken had corsets in his shop so I think
we can assume that Anna was wearing her
corset from earlier next the petticoats
petticoats were a product of modesty
because they hid the woman's natural
shape even seeing an ankle would be very
scandalous in this time period the next
layer was the shirts shorta is Norwegian
for shirt these very region by region
but for the most part they were white
and made of linen this shirt is an
actual short tuff from the mid 19th
century and you can see that it has very
full sleeves unlike on us and then we
have the next layer the bodice to the
traditional Norwegian costume is called
the leave the bodice was decorated with
what is known as Russa m'ling embroidery
Ana's costume absolutely incorporates
this type of embroidery but the bodice
is varied from region to region and they
came in many different colors in this
Norwegian genre painting from 1867 we do
see a young girl wearing this type of
bodice and then a skirt and this bodice
would be worn with a skirt or shirt ah
in Norwegian in this early 19th century
costume study we see how full these
skirts could have gotten so Russa
mouling embroidery came from the art of
wood painting that was very popular in
the 18th century and continued into the
19th century you can see a variety of
different skirts here that have this
really elaborate floral embroidery Ana's
embroidery is really graphic and
streamlined and I'll give them credit
they put the right embroidery in the
right place it just isn't as elaborate
as it would have been probably because
of the medium we're working in here
next up the apron
most women in the countryside would wear
an apron to complete the costume in some
regions a special kind of bag was worn
at the waist and that was called the
vesica it would be fastened at the
waistband and hang in the front and it
was a really visible part of the costume
so visible that often it was also
embroidered the next layer this cape is
a very bright magenta which absolutely
would not have happened in the 1840s the
discovery of this first synthetic dye in
1856 really created this color called mo
Veen which is purplish fuchsia this
exact color even though the color is all
wrong
this one detail that I'm really
impressed by is the clasp at the neck
you can see it is super accurate this
class was a direct reference to the
tradition of Norwegian silver making
called Solia this specific example shows
dangling spoons which were once thought
to reflect evil away from the wearer
including various forms of danger and
trolls and now the shoes so let's take a
close look at the shoes that she buys a
tokens the boots that onna buys look to
be a very shiny leather but winter boots
worn in Norway were typically made out
of reindeer skin
sorry spun this type of shoe was worn by
the sami people for century is the
issues feature this curled toe and they
were originally designed that way so
that you could hook your shoes into skis
I think with the addition of the heel on
his boots kind of look like western
cowboy boots
finally her hair and hat unawares long
braids which you can see in many
pictures of young Norwegian women so it
really is part of the culture
each boo nod had some form of head wear
that completed the costume and anna has
kind of a very small cap so the shape of
Anna's cap is really similar to this
example from the 19th century which
really comes around the top of the head
and has a point right down by the face
so here's what Anna would have looked
like compared to the original Disney
look
overall the animators of this film did a
really great job incorporating these
elements of traditional Norwegian
clothing the departures from historical
accuracy are really to suit our modern
sensibilities because this was a movie
made for 21st century audiences and what
we want to see is characters that are
accessible and attractive to the modern
eye and that's what Elsa in honor of
would have worn if they lived in history