ShopStyle is my new hobby. One of the groups I joined has a weekly challenged to create a look based on a book. Last week’s book was Wide Sargasso Sea, which imagines the story of Mr. Rochester’s doomed wife, Bertha. Her name is Antoinette, and she is a Creole in Jamaica, inhabiting an interstitial place — between white and black, between wildness and “civilization.” When Rochester meets her, he becomes obsessed. He takes her identity, gives her a new name, then takes her away from her home to a cold, foreign place where madness overtakes her. It’s one of my favorite books, and once I started musing on what Antoinette’s clothing might look like, I didn’t want to stop. So I created two looks, since there are two dresses that play a key role in the novel — one white, and one red. (Click on the looks to read my descriptions of them.)
Alas, I do not have a red or white dress, or else I would have reproduced something inspired by Antoinette with my own clothes.
