The other
day I read a series of posts on the Hogwarts uniform and how book!uniform
differs from movie!uniform, which is more canonical and whether there’s
been/there should be some retconning to unify the books, films and
illustrations from different sources. Since wizarding fashion is one of my
favourite subjects (particularly since the word “corsets” was mentioned in
HBP), I thought I had to write a post about it. So here it goes.
On tradition
and unmuggleness
As much as
I like the movie uniforms, the way I see it, they’re irreconcilable with those
described in the books, which, both because they’re from the book and because
that’s how I see them in my head, I consider canonical. Most people point out
as proof of this that in a couple of occasions we are told more or less directly
that the basic (I’ll talk more about this later) uniform does not bear any
house indicator (see the Penelope Clearwater and Crabbe-and-Goyle’d
Ron-and-Harry Cases, both in CoS). This is true. However, what I see as a
bigger issue is the fact that the movie!uniform is basically a muggle school
uniform with robes instead of a blazer, which, considering how often we see
wizards struggling with muggle clothing, doesn’t really add up. And given that
school uniforms tend to be on the conservative side of fashion, it would make
much more sense to have the Hogwarts uniform resemble traditional wizarding
attire.
On openings
and trouserslessness
The movie
robes are completely open at the front save for one (PoA-onwards) or two
(PS-CoS) little clasps, which would take next to no time to do up and undo, so
the movie robes would be put on and off like a bathrobe or a coat. However,
most (if not all) of the times we see Harry changing into his school robes he’s
described as pulling them over his head. To me that implies that the front is
not open all the way down, that maybe there’s just a small opening with a few
buttons, like a polo shirt. Either that or the robes are open all the way down
but fastening and unfastening them is so tedious that students simply never do
them up or undo them all the way. In a pre-zipper world, a front opening like
that would most probably mean a metric tonne of little buttons, at least (look
up some old-timey portraits, particularly of women’s fashion. They took their
buttons seriously). No one has time to fiddle with that many buttons, so it
would be easier to undo a few of the top ones and pull the robes over your
head.
Personally,
I think the left-hand version fits the description of “plain black work
robes” better. And yes, there’s no indication anywhere in the books that the sleeves
are flared or gathered at the top, but they look more wizardy this way, so.
For an even
more undeniable piece of evidence that supports the idea of having a closed
front, look no further than Snape’s worst memory in OotP. When he gets
levicorpused by James, we see his underwear. He’s not wearing trousers. Wh. Why
is he not wearing trousers??? Because there’s no risk of accidental exposure of
one’s undergarments when there isn’t a massive opening on the front of one’s
robes, that’s why. Also, if for some sinister reason he had not been wearing trousers under open-fronted
robes, everybody would’ve been able to see his pants already and it wouldn’t
have been “funny” when James revealed them.
Moreover, it
seems that trousers, even though they are
worn in the wizarding world, are neither required nor part of traditional
wizarding attire. See the old man in the Quidditch World Cup. Trousers have
been adopted to some extent, but they are not considered wizarding
clothing per se, but rather a garment borrowed from muggles. So if we go back to the idea that uniforms tend to be conservative,
the Hogwarts uniform would have probably been designed to be worn with no
clothes underneath other than underwear.
On hats gone
with the wind and cloaks
Hats. “One
plain pointed hat (black) for day wear.” Day
wear. In the films (PS, basically), hats seem to only be worn on special
occasions. And I can understand that; On set they’re probably a huge
inconvenience as they like to fall off and have to be touched up constantly and
may cover something/someone important. Still, canonically, a pointed black hat
for day wear is part of the Hogwarts uniform.
Now, do not
quote me on this, but I am positive that in one of the books there is a
description of a windy day where students grab the brims of their hats so that
they don’t get blown off. That’s the one and only time in the whole series
(that I can remember) where the uniform hats are said to be brimmed. It makes
sense, though, as traditional witch hats do have a brim. Modest brims seem
adequate for uniforms. (I do think it is strange to make students wear hats
indoors, but oh well.)
Then there’s
the winter cloaks. Again, plain and black, this time with silver clasps. No
crest, no house colours. And there’s also the protective dragonskin gloves,
which seem to be used both as protective gloves for Potions/Care of Magical
Creatures/Herbology and as regular winter gloves.
On house
pride (or the lack thereof)
So far we
have established that the uniform consists basically of plain black garments: a
set of black robes (closed front), a black cloak, a black hat. Hence, by
default, there is no way to tell what house a student belongs to just by their
attire. Or is there? Here’s where the “basic uniform” I mentioned before comes
into play.
It is true
that the robes, hats and cloaks are plain black when bought. And yet, there are
many points in the story when Harry seems to simply know what house some students belong to, even when he
clearly doesn’t know them. We get constant references to “a gorup of first year
Ravenclaws” or “a Hufflepuff girl”, and since the story is told from Harry’s
point of view rather than an omniscient narrator’s, there must be a way for Harry
to tell apart people from different houses without knowing them personally. So
how can we reconcile the ideas that some people’s house is recognisable at
first sight while other people’s isn’t? It’s quite simple: CUSTOMISATION.
Bagdes,
scarves, appliques, ribbons, hat ornaments, buttons, socks, belts, and a long
etc, to show your house pride. Just as we can get jumpers and hoodies and caps
and whatnot with the name and colours of our uni or specific college, kids in
the wizarding world are probably able to buy (and make) house merchandise. These
items would be available at Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, and parents would send
them to their children once they’ve been sorted or the kids themselves would be able
to get them via owl order.
Some students
may only wear a small badge on their chest. Others a scarf+turtleneck undershirt+bandana+animal-shaped
hat bauble combo. I love to imagine some kids wearing ridiculously tacky
things, like red-and-gold neck ruffles or bee-striped boots. And those kids who
are not as inclined to show off their house? They can just wear their basic
black uniform.
Watch out when you give bread to a pigeon, the others are not so far away x)
I’m happy to post another video of animation on Tumblr !
This time I tried something classical so I used the “Can Can” of Offenbach and was inspired to animate the French Can Can as well =D (not only because I’m french bien sûr àUà ! )
Hope you will like this, took looot of hours to make but it was really fun as always !
What if, when Petunia Dursley found a little boy on her front doorstep, she took him in? Not into the cupboard under the stairs, not into a twisted childhood of tarnished worth and neglect—what if she took him in?
Petunia was jealous, selfish and vicious. We will not pretend she wasn’t. She looked at that boy on her doorstep and thought about her Dudders, barely a month older than this boy. She looked at his eyes and her stomach turned over and over. (Severus Snape saved Harry’s life for his eyes. Let’s have Petunia save it despite them).
Let’s tell a story where Petunia Dursley found a baby boy on her doorstep and hated his eyes—she hated them. She took him in and fed him and changed him and got him his shots, and she hated his eyes up until the day she looked at the boy and saw her nephew, not her sister’s shadow. When Harry was two and Vernon Dursley bought Dudley a toy car and Harry a fast food meal with a toy with parts he could choke on Petunia packed her things and got a divorce.
Harry grew up small and skinny, with knobbly knees and the unruly hair he got from his father. He got cornered behind the dumpsters and in the restrooms, got blood on the jumpers Petunia had found, half-price, at the hand-me-down store. He was still chosen last for sports. But Dudley got blood on his sweaters, too, the ones Petunia had found at the hand-me-down store, half price, because that was all a single mother working two secretary jobs could afford for her two boys, even with Vernon’s grudging child support.
They beat Harry for being small and they laughed at Dudley for being big, and slow, and dumb. Students jeered at him and teachers called Dudley out in class, smirked over his backwards letters.
Harry helped him with his homework, snapped out razored wit in classrooms when bullies decided to make Dudley the butt of anything; Harry cornered Dudley in their tiny cramped kitchen and called him smart, and clever, and ‘better ‘n all those jerks anyway’ on the days Dudley believed it least.
Dudley walked Harry to school and back, to his advanced classes and past the dumpsters, and grinned, big and slow and not dumb at all, at anyone who tried to mess with them.
But was that how Petunia got the news? Her husband complained about owls and staring cats all day long and in the morning Petunia found a little tyke on her doorsep. This was how the wizarding world chose to give the awful news to Lily Potter’s big sister: a letter, tucked in beside a baby boy with her sister’s eyes.
There were no Potters left. Petunia was the one who had to arrange the funeral. She had them both buried in Godric’s Hollow. Lily had chosen her world and Petunia wouldn’t steal her from it, not even in death. The wizarding world had gotten her sister killed; they could stand in that cold little wizard town and mourn by the old stone.
(Petunia would curl up with a big mug of hot tea and a little bit of vodka, when her boys were safely asleep, and toast her sister’s vanished ghost. Her nephew called her ‘Tune’ not ‘Tuney,’ and it only broke her heart some days.
Before Harry was even three, she would look at his green eyes tracking a flight of geese or blinking mischieviously back at her and she would not think ‘you have your mother’s eyes.’
A wise old man had left a little boy on her doorstep with her sister’s eyes. Petunia raised a young man who had eyes of his very own).
Petunia snapped and burnt the eggs at breakfast. She worked too hard and knew all the neighbors’ worst secrets. Her bedtime stories didn’t quite teach the morals growing boys ought to learn: be suspicious, be wary; someone is probably out to get you. You owe no one your kindness. Knowledge is power and let no one know you have it. If you get can get away with it, then the rule is probably meant for breaking.
Harry grew up loved. Petunia still ran when the letters came. This was her nephew, and this world, this letter, these eyes, had killed her sister. When Hagrid came and knocked down the door of some poor roadside motel, Petunia stood in front of both her boys, shaking. When Hagrid offered Harry a squashed birthday cake with big, kind, clumsy hands, he reminded Harry more than anything of his cousin.
His aunt was still shaking but Harry, eleven years and eight minutes old, decided that any world that had people like his big cousin in it couldn’t be all bad. “I want to go,” Harry told his aunt and he promised to come home.
