5 of Rose’s Best Costumes From Titanic
Without a doubt all the costumes in Titanic are all lovely. From millions of extras to all the leads.
Every single one of young Rose’s costumes are beautiful and memorable but which ones stand out above the rest in terms of how memorable they are? How beautiful? And how well do they reflect Rose as character?
This page looks at the Top Five Best Costumes that Rose wears in Titanic. Why Top Five?
Well Rose is only shown wearing thirteen costumes in the movie so a top ten list would only knock off few, not much a of challenge but also these costumes include costumes she is only seen in very briefly. A Top Seven was considered but the two of her costumes that would have been on that list were quite similar and again she wore one very briefly. So it’s a Top Five list.
About the Designer
The costumes were designed by Deborah Lynn Scott. She won an Academy Award for her designs on Titanic. She also designed costumes for Transformers, Avatar (as well as the sequels), The Amazing Spider-man and Legends of the Fall.
For Titanic, Scott did a lot of research about the period from historical documents and photographs. She went to museums. She interviewed members of the Titanic Historical Society. She even heavily reached the White Star and other ship companies.
For Rose’s costumes, Scott said in the Titanic movie companion book that since Rose just had her grand tour of Europe all her costumes had to be at the height of Edwardian fashion and glamour.
Scott said that dressing the third class actors of more fun as the first class costumes has so many components.
5. The Swim Dress
There is no question that Rose wears this dress for the longest period in the movie as she wears for the whole of the sinking.
The dress itself is soft, feminine and very ethereal. It’s layers of light lavender chiffon. It has an empire waist and has short sleeves with a touch of lace at the neckline. This type of dress would have been worn for summer social events. In the movie Rose pretty much throws it after the drawing scene.
In addition to being merely pretty this dress represents a lot of character development for Rose. It showcases her liberation from being a society girl to being an independent woman both psychically and mentally. This psychical liberation is indicated by the fact that she isn’t wearing a corset with this dress.
This dress also had another very important mission in addition to applaud Rose, it had to look good wet, not an easy feat.
It’s a shame that this dress was eclipsed by the sinking of Titanic and it was mostly covered by two different coats, her pink one and the one Cal gave her which has the Heat of the Ocean in the pocket. As well as a blanket and a life belt. So the Swim dress disappears after a while.
4. The Boarding Suit
The first time we see young Rose is when she steps out of a car and looks up at Titanic. Rose is blasé about the grandness of the ship. Her attitude is just hiding her disdain for returning to America to marry.
The strips go in different directions pending on the panel. The front panel on the jacket has them aligned on the horizontal while the side panels and sleeve have the strips on the vertical angle. The skirt has a warp-like overlay which has the going vertical but if you are under the jacket, the skirt has a panel that goes horizontal. There is also a panel that this is under the overlay at the bottom that has the stripes positioned horizontally. There are black fabric buttons on the jacket and skirt with two strips buttons on the waist.
The contrasting strips add a lot of visual interest and it is slimming but with the strips and the pops of purple it also speaks to Rose’s bright and almost spirited personality that she must hide from people in her social class.
3. The Flying Dress
This costume is worn during the famous bow kiss scene and in a few scenes prior, like when Rose learns about the number of life boats. It is affectionately called the “Flying Dress,” as Rose remarks that she is flying while she is standing on the bow with Jack.
The costume consists of a white lace bodice, a satin and velvet jacket and a matching satin satin skirt. On the jacket there are panels which have floral print. The combination of blue satin against the dark
