Disclaimer: This post is NOT an attack on Sandy Powell, the costume designer. I love the costumes in this and feel that most would get the House of Worth Seal of Approval. I just feel there's just too much going on and and not enough at the same time with the iconic blue gown.
Also: I am not a costume expert/historian (nor do I play one on tv) so there's bound to be a lot mistakes.
The dress looks mis-matched, as if the bodice of the gown came off of one dress from the late 1890's to early 1900's (from the floof around the neck and the cut of the body, but, like I've said before, I'm not a costume expert) while the skirt is an 1860's elliptical skirt and it just looks weird. Powell says she drew inspiration from the 1950's and I did find a Vogue pattern that resemble the dress but I keep thinking "Scarlet O'Hara wants to know what did you do to her dress".
Then there's the color: it's definitely uses similar fabric as Arwen's Arch dress from a Lord of the Rings cutscene, but it looks like it goes from ZOMGITSBLUE blue to a "...meh" blue on film and most other exhibit photos.
Going back to the bodice again: the butterflies. I know they have a special meaning in the story but on the gown, they look so out-of-place and -like I said earlier- belong on a different dress. I did a Google search on ball gowns and came across some that had the butterflies on it, including this gem from House of Worth, where the fabric is designed so that the butterflies look like they're flying off of the gown; if there was something like this in the gown's skirt, it would've been perfect.
Okay, I've gone over what I felt there was too much of, I'll finally go over what there wasn't enough of... and that was sparkle. It sounds incredibly stupid I know, but for me sparkle is very important and since the dress 10,000 Swarovski crystal, I expected some f**king sparkle dammit! And why just on the skirt? Just cover the damn thing in sparkle and it'll at least be closer to the original.
This rant went nowhere but I'm done. I'm not going to talk about the controversy about Cinderella's small waist, as Lily James has already addressed a number of times.
I confess I liked how the skirt floated.
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