clothing in the Potterverse

quigonginger quigonginger at yahoo.com
Tue Feb 3 02:32:37 UTC 2004


No: HPFGUIDX 90135

Potioncat: 
> > My first post here.  I've had a hard time picturing the clothes 
as 
> > discribed in the book.  It certainly sounds like they wear robes, 
> > with no street clothes underneath, but it's hard to imagine how 
> > they'd ride brooms and really get around.

> Carol replied:
> It's always seemed off to me that Ron's mother sends her kids 
sweaters
> (jumpers) at Christmastime, yet she seems to have no idea what 
Muggle
> clothes look like. I also get the idea from the Pensieve scene in
> which Snape is wearing nothing but underwear under his robe and from
> the old wizard at the World Cup who likes "a nice breeze around his
> privates" that wizards and witches don't wear anything except socks,
> shoes, and underwear under their robes. That would mean that the
> movies and the illustrator of the books got it wrong: these are 
close,
> not open, robes--like a judge's gown or a graduation gown. As for
> pajamas, which the boys do seem to wear (though Percy, IIRC, wears a
> nightshirt, as does Snape), maybe Harry started out with an old pair
> of Dudley's but was allowed to keep the ones that Madam Pomfrey gave
> him on the various occasions when he was injured.
> 
> At any rate, the movie version of PoA is way off base in making the
> kids indistinguishable from Muggles when they're not in class.
> 
> Carol, who thinks that riding a broom would be extremely 
uncomfortable
> no matter what the witch or wizard was wearing.

Now Ginger:
I just figure that the adults have trouble more as a matter of 
fashion.  I'm sure they know about shirts and pants etc.  It's just 
which ones to wear!  Imagine you had only the clothes you wore in 
high school.  (Leg warmers, anyone?)  Given the wizard life span, 
styles would change even more.  Poor Archie has probably been out of 
the Muggle fashion loop for so long, he doesn't even remember.  Hence 
the random shopping.  I get a giggle out of thinking of him going 
into the Muggle shop in the first place!

Jumpers don't really go out of style.  Maybe the design, but what do 
I know?  I hate shopping.  Molly could have learned to make them at 
Hogwarts from a Muggle friend who knitted, and hasn't changed the 
pattern.  Maybe that's why the kids groan at them.  

As to the broom-riding, in QA there's a nice illustration in chapter 
9 showing the cushioning charm.  I bet that helps a lot.  Oddly 
enough, in chapter 10, there's an illustration of the Starfish and 
Stick in which the wizard seems to have a slit up the side of the 
robe.  Talk about a healty breeze!

Ginger, shuddering at the thought of Arthur in bell bottoms and a 
Nehru jacket.  It could have happened.





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