WandaVision: sitcom fashion throughout the decades

hello my beautiful dubs welcome back so today we're going to be talking about disney's marvel's one division which i'm assuming you know of if you clicked on this video but if you don't it's a tv series airing on disney plus it just finished on march 5th and it centers two superheroes one to maximoff and vision hence the title name now as a disclaimer i'm not a huge marvel person i've watched a couple marvel movies here and there um like black panther and the spider-man movies homecoming and into the spider-verse i know that the old spider-man movies were not owned by marvel don't come for me for that please the only reason i decided to watch wandavision in the first place was because i heard that it was structured off of american sitcoms in the 20th century and if you've been following this channel or if you just know me in general i love vintage fashion but i honestly really love vintage everything i like the entire concept of media in the 20th century in america so i was really interested to tune in i also just got a ton of requests over instagram to cover the fashion in the show so you know i'm listening and with all that said because i don't know what's happening in the mcu i don't want to comment or give a review of the show itself i'm just going to be talking about the fashion history costume history of american sitcoms for one division i'm going to focus on the episodes from the 1950s to the 1990s we're gonna skip episode four because that takes place in the real world episode six technically takes place in the 90s as well but they're wearing halloween costumes it's like their little cute halloween episode so i'm not going to cover that let's get to it the first episode of one division takes place in the 1950s sitcom format and i love this episode i thought it was so cool how they styled it um they shot the episode in black and white using older camera filters and they actually shot in front of a live studio audience as well for extra authenticity so let's talk a little bit about styling for black and white screens the colors that we have to do for black and white how it's different it's just wild that you're thinking of those things black and white film stock reproduces colors as different shades of gray you probably already know that but there's a lot of different factors to take in for example we humans see certain colors like the color green as lighter than other colors like the color blue and so you would think that in black and white the color green would show up as a lighter shade of gray than the color blue right black and white film stock has different color sensitivities so the color blue will show up as a lighter shade of gray and then the color green so to costume a black and white film or black and white tv is a very meticulous process as you can see the clothes that wanda actually wore for one division were bluish greens because these colors pop more in grayscale mayas rubeo the costume designer also took pictures of potential outfits using black and white filters on her phone to get a better sense of how they would look on screen and even though vision is a red robot paul bettany was actually painted blue during the black and white tv episodes because they found that shade in color to look the best in grayscale trisha sawyer who was head of the makeup department said this we really had to play with the colors even the foundation shades had to be a bit more pink because of the cameras and the harsh light elizabeth olsen's eyeshadow was a robin's egg blue but it looks like a natural shade on camera her lips were light red but they looked more like a natural pink i was also reading up on edith head for this portion of the video and if you don't know who edith head is um i mentioned her a little bit in my audrey hepburn video but she is just the queen of costume design when it comes to early hollywood movies she said that when working with black and white film you have to really think of the colors for all the complications i just mentioned but there's also a stronger need for accessories and patterns and embroidery and etc because otherwise without color it's very difficult to make a costume stand out or to differentiate two costumes with the same silhouette for instance and it's clear rebelo is on the same wavelength when she designed the first couple episodes for one division the first costume wanda wears is actually a wedding dress and the only reason i'm mentioning this dress is because it's one of rubella's favorite designs in the show so i want to give it the press that it's worth rubeau based the design on the wedding dress that audrey hepburn wore in funny face wanda also wears a shirt dress and on top of that she wears a floral pattern apron and a pearl necklace the apron is pretty decorative but that's because by the end of the 50s aprons transform to become a fashion statement wanda is the sparkling image of the 50s ideal housewife and we've seen many 1950s sitcom screen stars wear similar looks like lucille ball and i love lucy and donna reed from the donna reed show her neighbor agnes comes in to visit wearing a similar fit and flare silhouette with a belt cinching the waist but the dress is in this bold plaid pattern agnes is probably my favorite character on the show she's hilarious and well i think the plaid actually has some kind of stronger symbolism with her character i also think that incorporating a plaid pattern to differentiate her dress in black and white film is well calculated for wanda's last dress in the episode she wears an evening t-length dress of the same silhouette complete with a bow at the bodice this kind of bow detail was popular in the 50s and can be seen on screen worn by donna reed something that's interesting though is that the housewife was a huge part of american media propaganda because of the economic boom of the 1950s we see a rise of the middle class and more and more families could afford tv sets some scholars say that tv during the golden era created a mainstream culture that revolved around proper notions of behavior and a desirable lifestyle and naturally because all these sitcoms were portraying an idealistic version of middle class lifestyle the housewives in these sitcoms were also dressed to the nines just doing housework in the book a 1950s housewife by sheila hardy she writes that in reality it's doubtful that most women would have even had the time to run a comb through their hair let alone wash their face and apply makeup after a day of juggling household chores and children i also want to add that for certain shows the notion of dressing up sometimes actually has to do with technical problems i came across this interview with barbara billingsley who was the lead actress in the 50s sitcom leave it to beaver and she said that the reason that she wore pearls all the time was to hide the hollow in her neck at first it didn't it wasn't pearls always then it evolved into pearls because cameras and films were not the same as they are today it showed this big hollow and so this put a shadow went across it that is the gospel true not because i was cleaning the house and vacuuming in pearls and while i was wearing high and oprah winfrey asked me this and i thought god i love you and i think your program's great couldn't you think of another question besides high heels and pearls but anyway um high heels were because the boys grew i had to be taller i wore flat to the beginning in the second episode we are transported to the 1960s the atmosphere of the 60s in the real world was pretty strained to put it simply kennedy was just assassinated boys were being drafted to go fight in the vietnam war and the fear of communism and nuclear attacks was still on the minds of many americans i too have some top secret gossip to share norm is a communist in one division wanda wears a printed shirt with a boat neckline an open front cropped cardigan a pair of cigarette pants and ballet flats this ensemble is revealed to be completely red at the end of the show when color takes over mary tyler moore of the dick van dyke show which aired from 1961 to 1966 was actually the first actress to get the attention of show sponsors for wearing pants she wasn't the first to wear pants on screen but she wore them often enough to cause problems i'm gonna play a segment from an interview she did with npr in 1995. i've seen all the other actresses and they're always running the vacuum in these little flowered frocks with high heels on and i don't do that and i don't know any of my friends who do that so why don't we try to make this real and i'll dress on the show the way i do in real life but it wasn't that easy the sponsors were afraid you'd look brazen right they they pointed specifically to uh they used a term cupping under and i can only assume that that meant my you know my my seat that um there was a little too much definition and so they allowed me to continue to wear them in one episode uh one scene per episode and only um after we checked to make sure that there was as little cupping under as possible but um cupping under referring to the fit of your pants the fit of the pants on your behind on my behind right but um within a few weeks we were we were sneaking them into a few other uh scenes in every uh episode and and they were definitely cupping under and everyone thought it was great wanda also wears her hair in a very popular flip style for the era this style was largely made popular by mary tyler moore and jackie kennedy and then for the magic show wanda wears a leotard that may seem a little bit risque for television at the time but in the 60s particularly in the late 60s we start to see more sexual innuendos on mainstream tv as well as uh more relaxed views on women's dress i'll make a little clearer for you you see i've been stuck on this island for a long long time understand i understand and uh i want you to get me off i am not programmed for that task we can even see that change within one division itself in the opening scene of the one separate beds are now fused together one sitcom that wanda takes a lot of references from is i dream of genie the whole concept of idrimajini was very new age at the time it was about a single woman technically a genie moving in with a single man before marriage shocker jeannie also wears a risque and dare i say orientalist costume barbara eden the actress who plays jeannie said that even though there was this relaxation in censorship rules there were also still restrictions her costume was allowed to reveal her midriff but not allowed to reveal her navel early on in the show's run executives at nbc would not let you show your navel in the now famous outfit how long did that last till you pushed it well actually at the beginning there was no problem no problem at all no one thought anything about it i you know i'd raise my arms and my belly button would come out but then george slaughter who was producing laughing decided he wanted to premiere my navel and then executives at nbc got very frightened george said he'd never seen so many suits sitting around a table in his life disgusting someone's anatomy similarly in 1964 tina louise and don wells played two stranded women in gilligan's island and often wore two-piece swimwear however if you notice they either wore a bottom piece that went up high enough to hide the belly button or they would drape their arms across their midriffs the third episode is based on 1970 sitcoms with major inspirations from the brady bunch and the partridge family in the intro we see wando rocking a handful of different very spot-on 70s outfits she wears a plaid dress a striped house dress with a bright turquoise robe a patchwork jacket with a green turtleneck pink pants and brown boots i can't really see what this full outfit is but it's a red turtleneck with a geometric printed blazer a pastel pink printed button-down blouse with a more vibrant pink vest and bell-bottom jeans and brown boots and a printed red shirt with a dagger collar underneath a light blue pinafore with red stockings if we look at other 70 sitcoms the clothes the actors wear greatly reflect trends of the time period this is most likely because starting in the 60s with the rise of ready to wear and early fast fashion it was a lot easier and budget friendly to purchase retail clothing for contemporary costumes studios would hire costumers to rent and purchase all the show's costumes rather than to design and sew custom built wardrobes sometimes shows wouldn't even have costume designers pretty much all the tv shows i ever worked on there was no costume designer on these shows because they featured contemporary clothing studios thought they didn't need to have a designer that's why i don't really cover any old tv shows or movies on this channel because most the time the clothing in those shows and movies were picked because they made the actors look good and not because they have anything to do with the story or character development back to wandavision for the majority of the episode wanda wears a very fun striped printed red dress with brown riding boots i also love geraldine's outfit in this episode she wears fish print pants a floral white button-down shirt and a bright blue maxi vest her hair is also styled into an afro reflecting the natural hair movement of the 60s and 70s civil rights activists of the time criticized straightening treatments hot combs and irons as being oppressive tools i initially wanted to include this clip of kathleen cleaver speaking on the natural hair movement in 1968 in the documentary black panthers directed by agnes farda but youtube copyrighted the audio so i'll leave a link to this full clip in the description i highly recommend watching it for the purposes of this video though i'll include some of her words as on screen text [Music] also in this episode wanda hiding her rapidly growing pregnancy from geraldine pays tribute to how many famous leading actors had to hide their pregnancies while filming for an early example of this in the pilot episode of i love lucy we can see lucille ball hiding her pregnancy with an oversized coat similar to how wanda does the pilot episode never aired but when lucille got pregnant again for the show's second season the show writers decided to write it into the plot however because of censorship rules at the time lucille ball could not actually say the word pregnant she had to rely on euphemisms to convey what was happening [Music] honey no really why didn't you tell me well i you didn't give me a chance you can it's me one division does a similar stunt with the stork a symbol for delivering babies the cool thing about the pregnancy and i love lucy though is that while lucille ball was on maternity leave the network would run old episodes of i love lucy during the show's time slot which helps lead to this concept of showing reruns in the case of my dream of genie barbara eden was actually pregnant during the show's first season and the writers decided not to add that into the script because you know unmarried couple living together with a baby it was a little too scandalous instead for the entirety of the first season the costume department had to continuously alter her clothing to accommodate the baby bump as well as just have her wear all these like shawls and fabrics to hide her stomach but this is not an outdated tradition we see actors hiding their pregnancies all the time even today moving on to the last episode i'm going to talk about episode 5 which takes place in the late 80s early 90s wanda is shown in the first scene wearing a white turtleneck a pink and blue floral tapestry vest pink pleated pants and loafers her hair is curlier and bigger worn half up half down agnes look is based on the aerobic trend going on in the 80s her hair is equally big and she wears a cropped tie front sweater a striped lycra dress pink tights purple leg warmers white sneakers and a headband in the 80s there was a huge fitness boom which led to the crossover of sportswear and fashion leotards were no longer just for exercising you could actually just wear them with jeans and it would be a fashion statement we can see characters in 80 sitcoms embracing the trend in the intro sequence of the episode we see wanda wearing a chunky pastel turtleneck sweater and a long denim skirt with buttons up the front the outfit reminds me a lot of tina yother's character on the edie sitcom family ties who wears a ton of different sweaters wanda's third outfit in the show is a red and blue plaid button-down short sleeve shirt blue high-waisted mom jeans suspenders and red heads mom jeans are once again considered pretty cool today because of the renewed popularity of high-waisted pants but the reason the style of jeans are called mom jeans in the first place is largely thanks to this snl skit in 2003 mom jeans fit mom just the way she likes it she'll love the nine inch zipper and casual front pleats the term mom genes was negative to mean the antithesis of cool because in the late 90s and early 2000s the popular gene silhouette was unfortunately low rise and body hugging so consequently loosely fit high-waisted genes were viewed by younger people as being ugly and old jeans that their moms who grew up in the 80s still wore this outfit looks to be heavily inspired by the character darlene connor from roseanne a sitcom that started in the late 80s the added suspenders plays on the late 70s early 80s suspender trend that was adopted by characters like steve urkel from family matters mark from work and mindy's jackie from roseanne and kelly kapowski from saved by the bell the suspender look was all the rage especially for younger people the accessory could also be viewed as part of a larger trend of masculine attire in 1977 annie hall debuted and diane keaton's look in the movie became an immediate trend women were inspired to wear men's hats and ties and a chaplain-esque look according to the washington post okay that's all i have for today thank you so much for tuning in let me know in the comments what you think about one division the clothes and loan division the clothes and sitcoms in general um and i'll see you all next time bye

Channel: Mina Le

Views: 182,325

Rating: 4.9906158 out of 5

Keywords: wandavision, disney plus, mcu, wanda maximoff, vision, elisabeth olsen, mayes rubeo, paul bettany, disney, spiderman, i dream of jeannie, sitcom references, sitcoms, i love lucy, fashion history, costume analysis, all of wanda's outfits, mina le

Id: 0Ie_0CQAQ6A

Length: 19min 0sec (1140 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 15 2021

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