Shopping with Jane Eyre
“The hour spent at Millcote was a somewhat harassing one to me. Mr Rochester obliged me to go to a certain silk warehouse: there I was to choose half a dozen dresses. I hated the business… he fixed on a rich silk of the most brilliant amethyst dye, a superb pink satin. I told him in a series of whispers, that he might as well buy me a gold gown and a silver bonnet at once: I should certainly never venture to wear his choice.”
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Chapter XXIV
Like Jane Eyre, I hate shopping. As an actual physical act it makes me both angry and depressed in equal measure. The changing rooms, the sheer volume of uninspiring choices, post-apocalyptic shopping areas that smell of bubble tea, weird pretzels and the occasional unicorn fart blast from a Lush. All of it is horrible. I’d rather be stuck in a lift with Laurence Fox and a full bladder than spend an hour in Bluewater. But, in 1847, Jane Eyre did not have to contend with such things. And whilst consumerism and ‘the high street’ as we currently know it could arguably be traced back further than Brontë is writing (the first ever UK department store was opened in 1796, although the now defunct Debenhams can lay claim to being the oldest chain, established in 1778. I wonder how many ladies made their debut in, er… Debut?) arguably it is the Victorians who really ramped up the spending frenzy thanks to, you’ve guessed it, the Industrial Revolution. (If you want a real exploration of this in Victorian fiction then I recommend The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola. Big shops putting small independent retailers out of business? Hmmm. In the words of Zola ‘plus ca change.’*)
Brontë doesn’t include a scene with Jane in a changing room wailing ‘Why is it backless? Where does my bra go?’, whilst Rochester sits outside, bored and tells her he’s off to Sports Direct and to ‘Text me when you’re done?’. If Jane Eyre were written today, Rochester would probably just hand her his credit card and tell her to ‘go crazy’ on Net A Porter.
But the real reason that Jane hates shopping is that Jane knows who she is and, therefore, knows what she likes and she doesn’t need Rochester telling her this.
Identity is really at the heart of why Jane is eye rolling her way around the warehouse, whilst Rochester skips about stroking the fabrics and going ‘Oooh! Shiny!’. When Rochester picks out fabrics for her that are completely opposite to Jane’s preferred colour palette of black and grey (another way in which we are similar) Jane stays firm, choosing a ‘sober black’ satin and modest lilac gingham rather than the ‘superb pink’. Jane is all too aware that, in becoming Mrs Rochester, she elevates her social status and that with this there are EXPECTATIONS. But Jane is not willing to conform.
The novel hangs on the fact that Jane is resolute in her values and has a strong moral compass. She is, in modern parlance, a ‘boss bitch’. She is confident, independent and speaks her mind. She meets Rochester head on with conversation, despite the fact that her societal position is lower than his. She is at times frustrated and bored but also animated and, as far as a Victorian heroine ever can be, a bit horny. (No, really, consider Chapter XXXIV: “Can I receive from him [St John Rivers] the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love (which I doubt not he would scrupulously observe) and know the that the spirit was quite absent”. Translation: Could I put up with shagging him knowing I don’t fancy him and he doesn’t really fancy me? Hard pass.)
I, on the other hand, like many women, float in identity limbo. I am not young anymore but I am not yet properly middle-aged. I am in that obscure ‘unseen’ age demographic and yet, perversely, also of the age where the scrutiny of appearance is high (coughs in fine lines). I have young children. I am a writer. I like culture and gigs and going out and laughing with my friends and drinking one more martini than I should and wearing heels. I am forced to deal with poo more often than I would ever have imagined. I live in the countryside where the predominant season is ‘Mud’. I feel most myself at festivals. I will not wear anything colourful outside of the month of August. I have a folder of screenshots of Parisian streetwear styles for inspiration. I mostly wear leggings and dress in shades of rain cloud.
As women age our identity flexes and moulds itself around the life path that we choose (or believe that we have) to pursue. But there are always the EXPECTATIONS- the most obvious and eloquent summation of these are in the speech given by America Ferrera in the Barbie movie. Even if your journey doesn’t include marriage and/ or children, then the consequences of EXPECTATIONS can still manifest itself into wardrobes of clothes than we never wear because our intentions at the time were not really about ourselves. We were not thinking about us, who we really are, when we bought that dress we were thinking ‘I want to be carefree! I am now a person who wears tea dresses! And puts jumpers over them in winter!’ (despite the dominance of thin, crap polyester making you freeze your visible tits off in summer and turning you into a sweaty, electric shock nightmare in winter).
Jane Eyre’s irritation at Rochester trying to get her ‘dressed like a doll’, also feeds into this dynamic; having clothes chosen and bought for you by a loved one is, as Jane identifies, a major ick. An ex once took it upon himself to go shopping on my behalf. I hated everything but I wore it. Nothing felt right on my body, the style wasn’t my style- even though at the time I couldn’t have told you what that was, I just knew that it wasn’t this. Was I upset that he was dressing me as he wanted to see me? Probably. But, in retrospect, I am more upset that I didn’t have the confidence to say “Take these back. They are not me.”
*I don’t know if he definitely said this but he was French so it’s a possibility.
Reading List:
Fellow rain-cloud dresser worried about colour combinations? This lovely book looks very handy indeed.
Need a reality check about our constant clothing consumption? Read this.