A COSTUMING CONSPIRACY
TANYA HUFF
The Halliwell women are all beautiful but their taste in clothes is, well, Ho Lite. With the exception of Piper, who often dresses like a depressed nun, the sisters could be picked up for public indecency any day of the week. And then, to make it worse, sometimes Phoebe runs. . . .
IF THIS PIECE were an electronic presentation rather than print—if you were watching this rather than reading it—I’d open with a montage of shots in which the Charmed Ones themselves ask each other variations of the title question, ending with Phoebe’s season three observation in “The Primrose Path”: “Look at me. I am a fashion blunder. A ‘Mademoiselle Don’t.’”
For the curious among you, she’s referring to a beige scarf top decorated in an almost frightening number of clip-on feathers. That’s right: clip-on feathers, the kind you can buy by the bag at most decently sized craft stores. It’s . . . well, unattractive is putting it mildly.
Given the way the costuming on Charmed headed during season three, Phoebe could easily have been making a prophetic statement. Perhaps she’d had a vision of wardrobe choices to come. Probably not the red and grey fleur-de-lis arm warmer ensemble of season six’s “Crimes and Witch-Demeanors,” or she’d have sounded more horrified than frustrated. Maybe her powers were kind and only allowed her a glimpse of that pink newsboy’s cap.
Yes, the Charmed Ones have clothed themselves in some interesting outfits over the years. Who can forget Paige’s green sleeveless mini dress from “Witch Wars”—not a time travel episode, however much this outfit may lead you to believe otherwise. Or the unfortunate incident in “The Bare Witch Project” when Phoebe’s head was attacked by a green burlap, blue denim, purple-ribboned thing masquerading as a hat. Or Prue’s stretch pants in “Bride and Gloom” that were the exact same shade as her skin tone and therefore essentially not present for much of the scene. Or Piper’s . . . actually, Piper comes off pretty well most of the time, being the responsible sister and all. Occasionally she’s crossed the line between practical and frumpy in what may be a valiant, if doomed, attempt at fashion balance.
We’ve had a variety of spaghetti-strapped, one-shoulder, no-shoulder tops—including a couple so low cut it must have taken very powerful magics indeed to maintain a PG rating. And while there’s clearly been a frequent application of spirit gum, there’s been a distressing absence of supportive undergarments. We’ve had cropped pants, flared pants, artfully distressed pants—where distressed is the operative word—and pants cut so low that the tattoo at the base of Phoebe’s spine gets full exposure. We’ve had miniskirts, translucent skirts, skirts over pants and dresses on all the sisters that were supposed to be alluring but, quite frankly, weren’t. The unflattering sleeveless pale crepe number Paige wore in “Charmed Noir” is a classic example—the color was bad (the tone was bad, at any rate, since her part of the episode was shot in black and white) and the fit was worse.
But it wasn’t always like this.
In season one in particular all three of the Charmed Ones dressed in ways that could only be considered normal. “Attractive young women on television” normal, perhaps, but normal nevertheless—if a tad heavy on the wearing of witchy jewelry. Prue had an interesting insect-dangling-off-of-a-necklace thing going for a while mid-season three.
What changed?
Two things.
The first change was obviously Prue’s death. Prue, the strongest-willed of the Halliwell sisters, had always been more than capable of keeping Phoebe in line. With her influence removed, Phoebe’s fashion choices became steadily more bizarre. Given those choices, poor Paige (as the new, youngest sister, never subjected to Prue’s eye rolls of disapproval) has to go to amazing lengths to be the blithe, young, free spirit she’s meant to be. Unfortunately, those lengths have included a pale blue fake fur jacket (“Hyde School Reunion”) and a pink plaid and lavender fantasy schoolgirl outfit (“Ordinary Witches”). Neither Phoebe nor Paige seems to have any concept of work-appropriate clothing. And age-appropriate? Phoebe’s age was given as twenty-seven in “Size Matters” in season four. Three years later, she’s thirty and still baring skin like a teenager.
Piper, who runs a club and could get away with a lot more glam, shows the only restraint remaining in the family.
The second change takes us outside the world of Charmed and into the world the rest of us have to live in, where “the rest of us” includes the people who produce the show. Charmed’s first episode aired on October 7, 1998. While various Christian coalitions for family decency no doubt existed back in the waning days of the last millennium, they didn’t have the power they acquired two short years later, during the middle of season three, when a new government came to power in the United States. Charmed is a show about witchcraft. Good witches battling evil and saving innocents, granted, but the new administration brought with it the prevailing opinion that there’s no such thing as a good witch.
Charmed, while never a phenomenal breakaway success, had a solid core audience that followed it from time slot to time slot—solid and loyal and large enough to make advertisers happy. Happy advertisers make for happy studio heads. They wouldn’t have wanted to cancel the show, but they certainly would have wanted to keep from attracting the attention of the religious right and the perception of its growing power.
What could they do?
They could rework the show so that no one could possibly take it seriously.
But Charmed was already a contemporary fantasy with little or no connection to the real world, up to and including a distinct disregard of San Francisco’s weather and its effect on what the sisters might be wearing. Season seven’s “A Call to Arms,” canonically happening in January in Northern California, featured gauzy summer clothing at an outdoor wedding. It also featured a sari and heaven only knows what to call that outfit Leo was wearing—but their foray into ethnic clothing is an entirely different story. Given that it is a fantasy, how could the producers of Charmed make the show even less real and therefore less likely to attract the attention of rising right-wing hysteria?
I have a theory. It came to me while shopping for a present for my eldest niece. As I walked down the bright pink aisles at the toy store, I recognized the clothes: the Capri pants, the gauzy flowered blouses, the out-of-scale accessories.
The Charmed Ones are now dressing like the world’s most famous eleven-inch doll.
Some of this doll’s clothes have to be very, very tight in order to stay on. Some have to be loose enough to get over inflexible legs and arms, so they fit badly in other areas. Just generally, the way that they fit has little actual relevance to the bodies of most women. Your average little girl is perfectly happy to slide a pink mini dress on a redheaded doll. And at forty-plus, Barbie is still wearing clothes designed for teenagers.
The Halliwell sisters have been turned into Barbies with enough cunning little outfits that they never have to wear the same thing twice. Let’s not even talk about the shoes. Some of the ridiculous footwear on this show is remarkably familiar to anyone who has ever rolled over and been rudely awakened by the presence of a purple plastic pump in the sheets.
Is there anything less threatening to Middle America than a doll that’s been around for over forty years? Mothers played with these dolls as children, dressing and undressing them, and now, as feminist author Tracy Quan has observed, their children are playing with the dolls “in homes all over North America. Barbie has become one of the family, and nothing can stem this tide. Even the most committed feminists have been known to buy Barbie dolls for their daughters, as have fundamentalist Christians.”1
Barbie can be a witch because it doesn’t mean anything. She’s Barbie. Barbie can be anyone—from astronaut to veterinarian to equestrian to member of the USMC. It’s been that way right from the beginning and we’re all used to it by now.
What’s that? What about Barbie’s blatant sexuality? The completely out-of-proportion figure? Well, you said it yourself: it’s completely out of proportion. So far out, in fact, that it can be dismissed as unreal, plastic, de-sexed. Neuter the witches, neuter the sexuality that has always clung to witchcraft.
So, my theory in a nutshell: after observing the changes in the costuming over the seven years of the show, I conclude that the producers have disguised the Halliwell sisters as Barbie in order to slip a show about witchcraft past the rising power of the religious right.
Is this a bad thing?
I don’t think so. Okay, let me qualify that: some of the outfits, yes, they were bad things—I’m thinking particularly of that pale blue fake fur jacket here—but overall, no.
Just as Barbie is ultimately a toy to be played with, slipping the Charmed Ones into Barbie outfits has given the writers more room to play. Freed by their adoption of a classic symbol of childhood, the writers have walked off with a barely disguised Hogwarts as well. Phoebe became a mermaid—a terrific-looking costume by the way. Paige slipped into a gritty detective novel. Piper became Death’s assistant—and picked up pretty much her only “What are you wearing?” of the series for the shapeless black coat that seemed to come with the job (although Death himself looked considerably more nattily attired). The girls ended up on reality TV, demon style. Even Leo got captured and caged by Amazons.
A moment’s digression about the men of Charmed; the bad guys are significantly better dressers. Cole was always well dressed—when the writers allowed him to be dressed at all. Julian McMahon spent a fair bit of time out of his shirts (season three’s “The Primrose Path” and “Power Outage” being prime examples). Poor Leo not only had to spend most of his time in baggy t-shirts, flannel, saggy butt jeans and white socks in brown shoes, but when he became an Elder the poor man had to shrug into a gold velour robe. He didn’t catch a break with the wardrobe department until his alignment got dicey in season seven and he became an Avatar. And Chris . . . actually, Chris’ clothing mostly suited his age, and that’s really the best that can be said about it. Young men aren’t generally the picture of sartorial elegance, nor do they want to be.
It’s not easy being an accessory, and that’s really all the men on this show ever were. Good luck finding Ken even half a dozen outfits in the double aisle of Barbie pink; Ken has always had significantly fewer fashion choices. And the less said about what isn’t beneath Ken’s saggy butt trousers, the better—like Barbie, Ken has only the appearance of sexuality, having also been safely neutered.
This is not to say that Charmed is totally free of sexuality. It’s there. But it’s bad.
The bad guys wear a lot of tight black leather, shiny boots and metal studs. The bad girls also get the leather, boots and studs, but also show considerably more cleavage. When any of the Charmed Ones go temporarily bad, the black leather and cleavage is a dead giveaway. This costuming shorthand allows us easy identification of evil without having to think about it much, which is always a big crowd pleaser with the religious right. Barbie in black leather? I don’t think it’s ever happened.
Here’s the really clever part: the Halliwells haven’t only become Barbie; given their preoccupation with clothes, they’re also the girls playing with the doll. You can’t get much less threatening than that. Clothing at the Halliwell house is chosen for any and every occasion with all the attention to detail of a seven-year-old sorting through scraps of fabric looking for the perfect tiny outfit. Seven-year-olds generally don’t care about age-appropriate, or work-appropriate, or that redheads cannot and should not wear certain shades. Little girls are “in the moment,” and if that moment includes a sleeveless, rhinestone trimmed cocktail dress to be worn on a date that doesn’t include either cocktails or, in point of fact, actually going out (“Witchness Protection,” season seven), then at least they’re playing quietly and the grown-ups needn’t worry about them for a few moments.
How preoccupied with dressing up are the Charmed Ones? When Paige died in “Styx Feet Under,” the season seven episode where Piper went to work unwillingly for Death, she stalled her final passage by confessing to Piper that she stole one of her favorite jackets and a pair of earrings. On Charmed, Death itself has been delayed by fashion choices.
Lest Death have the final word, let’s finish up by replaying the opening montage and revisiting the question: “What is she wearing?”
If I’m right, there’s only one answer.
Camouflage.
Tanya Huff lives and writes in rural Ontario, Canada, with her partner Fiona Patton, seven cats and an unintentional Chihuahua. Her twentieth book, Smoke and Shadows, came out in paperback in the spring of 2005. Its sequel, Smoke and Mirrors, came out in hardcover in July 2005.