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Harry Potter - Clothing: Muggle vs. Wizards (7/11/2022)

The other day I was working on one of my Harry Potter fanfics and I found myself at a point where I needed to describe Hermione's outfit for the Yule Ball.

And the very first thought to pop into my head was that I didn't want to describe Hermione's dress as pink like her dress is in the movies. I've always held a definite preference for the periwinkle blue described in the books over the pink color they decided to go with in the movies. There are also some nice recolors of her dress, some of which are a periwinkle shade of blue and others which are a slightly different shade of blue.

So I knew that I would be describing Hermione's dress as periwinkle blue and--

I remembered there are certain fans who are very insistent about how the girls wore dress robes to the Yule Ball and not dresses. Hermione for example, "was wearing robes made of a floaty, periwinkle-blue material..." (Goblet of Fire – Chapter 23 – Yule Ball) And they're most certain that Hermione did not wear a dress while my mind is thinking that's not quite right, because I know I personally didn't think twice about Hermione wearing a dress to the Yule Ball.

And no, it isn't because I'm willing to overlook irregularities in the movies.

It's because as I read the books I knew full well that the words robe and dress were under certain circumstances synonyms for each other. And so I'd always pictured Hermione wearing a dress because the type of robe I always imagined the girls wearing would in fact be the type one could also use the word dress as a descriptor.

But this led me to think about I've come across fans harping on how the movies got it wrong, that there aren't enough robes seen in the movies including the newer Fantastic Beast movies and I found myself not understanding at all what the issue is because the characters in Fantastic Beasts do in fact wear clothing which happens to be "a long flowing outer garment" (Merriam-Webster) despite these fans claiming otherwise, that it—to summarize, "was Muggle clothing, not robes."

Except as I've said, the characters are wearing robes—a lot of the characters in the wizarding world do in fact wear robes. They're just not wearing that classic pullover robe that many of us remember Merlin wearing in Disney's Sword in the Stone, but there seems to be this idea that the fashion of wizarding world Britain somehow remained frozen in time for well over a thousand years which doesn't make any sense given how cultures evolve and change over time.

And sure, the Clothes article for Wizarding World does say, by and large, wizard clothing has remained outside of fashion, although small alterations have been made to such garments as dress robes." It also says, "wizard clothing might be said to be frozen in time, harking back to the seventeenth century, when they went into hiding." For which there are fans that take these quotes to mean there's absolutely no change to what wizarding clothing looks like, that it's definitely remained frozen in time, except--

- outside of fashion – not conforming to the latest fashion trends (in this case not conforming to the latest Muggle fashion trends)
- small alterations – not referring to the kind of alterations that Madam Malkin does for Harry in the first book to make his robes fit, but instead referring to small alterations in fashion trends (in other words, small changes in the style that are noticeable)

small alterations to make clothing fit, but instead referring to small changes in a trend which in turn would be something noticeable
- might be – "that which might be or happen' a possibility" or "denoting that which might be or occur; possible; potential; hypothetical" (Your Dictionary); "what might be; a (remote) possibility" and "that might occur; postulated' (remotely) possible, potential" (Lexico); doesn't mean definitely
- harkin back – "to go back to or recall to mind something in the past" (Merriam-Webster); "to cause one to think of or recall something" or "to have originated or begun as something" or "to revisit or recall something mentioned earlier." (Free Dictionary – Idioms)