--- title: Gone With the Wind Fashions: Another View of Scarlett O'Hara description: A display of historic fashions from the 1860s shines a light on the creativity of Gone With the Wind's costume designer canonical: https://time.com/4154085/gone-with-the-wind-costumes/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-17T22:00:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T13:28:35.565Z article:section: History og:title: How Gone With the Wind's Costumes Combined the 1860s and the 1930s og:description: A display of historic fashions from the 1860s shines a light on the creativity of Gone With the Wind's costume designer og:url: https://time.com/4154085/gone-with-the-wind-costumes/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb23f1412e5e5868d/698875ff8e060139f4463d44/timthumb.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: ball gown from Gone With the Wind, og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Gone With the Wind's Costumes Combined the 1860s and the 1930s twitter:description: A display of historic fashions from the 1860s shines a light on the creativity of Gone With the Wind's costume designer twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb23f1412e5e5868d/698875ff8e060139f4463d44/timthumb.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How _Gone With the Wind_’s Costumes Combined the 1860s and the 1930s by [Jill Morena / Harry Ransom Center](https://time.com/author/harry-ransom-center/) ## Jill Morena / Harry Ransom Center Dec 17, 2015 10:00 PM UTC  The ball gown from Gone With the Wind, designed by Walter Plunkett, 1939\. David O. Selznick Collection. The ball gown from Gone With the Wind, designed by Walter Plunkett, 1939\. David O. Selznick Collection.Harry Ransom Center by [Jill Morena / Harry Ransom Center](https://time.com/author/harry-ransom-center/) ## Jill Morena / Harry Ransom Center Dec 17, 2015 10:00 PM UTC _This post is in partnership with the_ [_Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin_](http://www.hrc.utexas.edu)_. A version of the article below was originally published on the_ [_Ransom Center’s Cultural Compass blog._ ](http://budurl.com/c2ua) Ten years after the release of _Gone With the Wind_, actress Vivien Leigh modeled real-life, historic nineteenth-century clothes for pioneer fashion historian and Byron scholar Doris Langley Moore for the publication _The Woman in Fashion_ (1949). Moore would go on to found the Fashion Museum at Bath, England (originally named The Museum of Costume) in 1963, with her extraordinary personal collection as the foundation. A portion of this collection of women’s clothing and accessories from 1800–1927 was seen throughout the pages of _The Woman in Fashion_. Although Moore felt that historic fashion could be experienced best through presentation on a live model, she would eventually contend that display on an inanimate mannequin was safer for the long-term preservation of historic garments. The 1877 gown worn by Vivien Leigh in the [photograph here](http://budurl.com/c2ua) post-dates the costumes she wore in _Gone With the Wind_ by four years (the storyline in _Gone With the Wind_ ends in 1873). And yet this and other 1860s and 1870s gowns pictured in _The Woman in Fashion_—as well as contemporary nineteenth-century illustrations in _Godey’s Lady’s Book_ (the character of Scarlett O’Hara was a reader)—attest to the skill and creativity of _Gone With the Wind_ costume designer Walter Plunkett in paring down their lavish embellishment and extreme volume to exude a more contemporary, streamlined 1930s screen glamor. This is especially apparent in the ball gown. Though lush with ostrich feathers and sparkling jewels—two favorite trimmings of Hollywood evening gowns of the 1930s—an abundance of ruffles, lace, bows, or rosettes as seen in early 1870s counterparts are conspicuously absent. The 1877 gown worn by Leigh now resides in the [Helen Larson Collection](http://fidmmuseum.org/support/donate-online/faq/) at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) Museum in Los Angeles, California. Doris Langley Moore was a mentor to Helen Larson, who amassed an impressive fashion collection of her own, including some of the garments owned by Moore. In addition to her personal collection, Larson also assembled an alternate collection of historic clothing that she rented to Hollywood studios for period films, including _My Fair Lady_ (1960) and _The Great Gatsby_ (1970). Many of these costumes now reside at Western Costume in Los Angeles, the same company that rented or created costumes for _Gone With the Wind_. Historic fashions of the 1860s from the Larson Collection, of the same silhouette as the _Gone With the Wind_ curtain dress, are currently on view at FIDM’s galleries in Orange County for the exhibition _Hooped: Dress of the 1860s_. As part of the exhibition programming, conservator Cara Varnell talked about her experiences conserving the _Gone With the Wind_ costumes in the Ransom Center’s David O. Selznick collection. The [exhibition](http://fidmmuseum.org/exhibitions/current/#hooped-dress-of-the-1860s) is on view in Los Angeles through February 20, 2016. **_Read more about_** **Gone With the Wind** **_and see more from the archives_**[ **_here,_**](http://budurl.com/c2ua) **_at the Harry Ransom Center Cultural Compass blog._** ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4154085/gone-with-the-wind-costumes/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4154085/gone-with-the-wind-costumes/"},"headline":"How Gone With the Wind’s Costumes Combined the 1860s and the 1930s","datePublished":"2015-12-17T22:00:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:28:35.565Z","description":"A display of historic fashions from the 1860s shines a light on the creativity of Gone With the Wind's costume designer","url":"https://time.com/4154085/gone-with-the-wind-costumes/","keywords":["movies"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb23f1412e5e5868d/698875ff8e060139f4463d44/timthumb.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jill Morena / Harry Ransom Center"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb23f1412e5e5868d/698875ff8e060139f4463d44/timthumb.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"ball gown from Gone With the Wind,","caption":"ball gown from Gone With the Wind,","creditText":"Harry Ransom Center","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4154085/gone-with-the-wind-costumes/","name":"How Gone With the Wind’s Costumes Combined the 1860s and the 1930s"}}]}] ```