Dressing Mildred Pierce: costume and identity across the ages

Abstract

This essay looks at the differing strategies used in costuming the protagonists of two versions of James M. Cain's 1941 novel Mildred Pierce. Michael Curtiz's 1945 wartime Hollywood film and Todd Haynes's 2011 five-part HBO miniseries are both very distinctly costumed, not only in the sense that you notice what characters are wearing – the detail, the fabric, the authenticity – but in the way that costume becomes an interpretational tool, a means by which character, identity and narrative can be accessed or understood. However, whereas in Curtiz's film the costumes dress the star, in Haynes's version they dress the character. Costume generally is a crucial element in a film's mise-en-scene, a purveyor of meaning or an analytical tool; though when it comes to femininity in particular, display, ostentation or an interest in fashion have too often been undervalued or deemed frivolous. Milo Anderson's costuming of Mildred Pierce in Curtiz's version is characterized by instability: the selfconscious femininity of Mildred the home-baking housewife; the functionality of the working single mother; the masculinization of Mildred's attire as she becomes a successful businesswoman; her glamorization as she achieves financial stability. Yet a consistency runs through these otherwise diverse images. Before she achieves financial success, for instance, Mildred is seen in a series of ostensibly – and rather selfconsciously – ordinary clothes: the pale gingham dress with splayed collar for baking a pie, the white-collared checked dress for waitressing, and, most obtrusively, the white blouse, gathered under the neck with thick black straps, that she wears when searching for a job. Even early on in her story, when at her most drab, Mildred's costumes display a subtly spectacular quality that always makes her the focus of the frame and draws the spectator to her, especially to her face. When she is fixing up ‘Mildred's’ restaurant, up a ladder and cleaning the candelabra dressed in a check shirt and plain skirt, it is apparent that Crawford does not really do ‘ordinary’. There is more conviction in the later, glamorous Mildred when, on the opening night of her restaurant, for example, she dons a classic, softly tailored black dress with an integral white scarf feature that drops down from her neck nearly to her waist. This is an eloquently ambivalent costume: part high design, part waitress made good, as the scarf detail resembles a pristine napkin.