The Muse: Lady Chatterley

 I recently saw the 1993 BBC adaptation of Lady Chatterley's Lover, which was just called 'Lady Chatterly' and starred Joely Richardson as Constance Chatterley and Sean Bean as Oliver Mellors. The film certainly has the old school Masterpiece Theater look about it, a little low budget, slightly faded looking, and not perfect in terms of production details, but still it is really very beautiful to watch. The gaiety of post WWI England comes through, though Wragby, the Chatterley estate is somewhat gloomy... except for the woods of course where frequent, exuberant shagging is going on in the gamekeeper's hut. The costuming in particular hi-lights the newer, much freer women's fashions and I fell in love with the long, loose outfits that Lady Chatterley wears. They all seem to be made of expensive very fine fabrics, satins, silks, velvets, brocades, but they all seem to translate to nature very well. Despite the heat (when I was going through Brookline the thermometer in my car hit 107, but dropped about a mile later to 102 where it stayed all the way to the South End) I wanted to experience a bit of the joy of frolicking in the woods myself so I pulled off the road to a park that looks very much like the ornamental lake in the film, I did try to keep my eyes averted from the bushes though lest anyone be fornicating there. In truth my main companions were joggers (with mental problems presumably at 102 degrees).

The beading on this skirt (and the top that forms the other half of the suit) is very intricate and beautiful, I would imaging it was a fairly expensive item when it was first made, there is no fraying or fading on it and all the beadwork is intact which is rare in a piece like this.

There aren't a lot of great images from the film,
the most common is the one at the end of the two 
main characters enmeshed, but I found a few that give an 
idea of the costuming choices.

Blouse: Violet and Claire via Marshall's
Skirt(part of a suit): vintage, Scala of Milan, thrifted via Salvation Army Family Store
Necklace: via Anthropologie
Shoes: Nine West

I can see why she agreed to always be his in the woods, can't you?