So…I have a question for everyone. Is Belle’s dress supposed to be yellow or gold?
Entertainment Weekly recently released pictures for Disney’s upcoming live-action Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens. The cover photo features Belle and the Beast dancing in the famous ballroom sequence, presumably while Angela Lansbury–er, sorry, Emma Thompson this time–sings gorgeously in the background about tales and time and meta-narratives.
Something was bugging me, and it wasn’t the Beast’s horns (which are still very odd to look at no matter how I turn my head). It was, in fact, the ballgown.
Truth is, there’s nothing wrong with the dress at all, at least not practically speaking. It is functional and very close to its animated counterpart. But I kept staring at the picture with this troubling sense of noooo until it hit me–the dress is the wrong color. Right. Right?
Funny thing about animation: colors can be weird. Especially when those colors can’t quite articulate the material an item is made from. Swords, for example, tend to look flat and gray in your average 20th century 2D animated film. They lacked that metallic sheen to help us identify them as metal. But because we’re human and somewhat clever, our brains can typically parse this out. It’s the right shape, and the sound effects department gives it that ‘schwing!’ sound, and we know what we’re looking at.
But sometimes you brain does those translations all on its own, without a multitude of cues. So here’s my problem: Belle’s dress is not yellow, it is gold.
At the end of the day, this is all down to personal perception, and yet I could not be more certain of anything in the world. I have lived the majority of my life thinking of that dress as gold, and you cannot take it away from me. It matches the Beast’s embroidery! What kind of grumpy prince puts yellow embroidery on his coat WHEN IT COULD BE GOLD? HE IS RICH, THERE ARE NO LIMITS.
Interestingly, The Road to El Dorado helped to make this distinction clearer by creating a brand new way to animate gold and give it the luster we typically expect. (Of course, this also benefitted from the additional touch of CGI.) But Beauty and the Beast didn’t have that resource, so the dress is gold and I will take this certainty to my teeny tiny grave.
If you need further proof, I just chatted this to my spouse without preamble, and this was the response I got:
A very un-scientific roundup of opinions in the Tor.com offices has revealed a slight gold bias, then followed by the question of whether or not yellow and gold can be considered different colors in the first place. (Again, on the 2D plane perhaps not. But yes, they are.) In addition, most Disney merchandise favors a yellow hue in Belle costumes, probably for the sake of making the dress look a bit more cartoon-like. But I had a music box when I was a kid that was Belle as a porcelain figures, and the ballgown was definitely painted a shimmery gold. And the Belle in Once Upon A Time also gets a gold gown. So even Disney can’t make up its mind on its own character. Whatever the case, most versions still appear quite different than the canary yellow number that Emma Watson is wearing.
Which is just a really roundabout way of my asking–what color did you think the dress was when you saw the animated film? I have to know, this is going to keep me awake at night. Help.
#Dressgate2016 #TeamGold
It’s clearly blue and black.
I vote for Gold
it depends on which screen grab you look at it’s definitely yellow in others like the 25th anniversary cover. I vote yellow with highlights.
I have always thought of it as gold but not as a gold lame or other glittery gold fabric. Looking at the above cel, it would appear to me that the bodice and swags are a deep gold satin or similar and the skirt is a lighter version of the same color; or possibly the skirt is the same fabric but overlaid by a lighter gold tulle, the same tulle being used for the shoulder ruffles. That’s the way I’d sew it, anyway, FWIW.
It’s quite obviously puce…
Periwinkle-blue, obviously.
Yellow looks so weird to me. I’m leaning gold. I’m going to definitely look next time I’m at WDW.
But for the bigger issue at hand: Gaston is not nearly muscular enough. Am I right?
I always assumed it was gold but I remember the Belle princess dresses being yellow. A google search showed mostly yellow dresses too but while I would describe it as looking a yellow-gold, her dress here definitely looks yellow.
The most important thing is, it looks good.
Internet says: yellow – google search
You asked your wife, Disney asked Gary Trousdale.
The shot answer seems to be, they DID change it from gold to yellow, but they did it 20 years ago.
My vote is yellow. Saw it at Disney World. Saw the Broadway show. I say yellow.
I agree with the OP, the horns on the Beast will take some getting used to. But the biggest issue of all is, as aethercowboy @@@@@ 7 pointed out, they did not bulk Lee Evans up nearly enough as Gaston.
It’s Gold. The dress is gold. It’s always been gold. Gold wins… and if it’s not gold then those Post guys have a lot of work to get cracking on…
I’ve always thought of her dress as gold, though of course it was yellow-ish in the cartoon.
I liked Belle’s ballgown in Once Upon a Time – it’s a kind of muted shimmery gold. I think I prefer that to the BRIGHT yellow of this dress. This dress is lovely, yes, but so bright it kind of hurts to look at it. I think I just like colors that are less saturated.
So, put me in the gold camp.
I always thought of it as Gold. Growing up with the Animated Film, I think of her dress as gold. The yellow of Emma’s dress is a bit loud, and it’s pretty, I like yellow, but I think of Belle’s dress as gold, not yellow.
I looks like gold in the animated screen shot, but with some shimmery highlights. My grandmother used to sew a lot and I remember there being a fabric that was silk fabric that was blue if you viewed it from one direction and purple from another. It appeared to shimmer as it moved or was folded. I suppose it is possible that the animated dress’s highlights were inspired by such fabric.
I’m more annoyed that they could have re-conceptualized it as a proper historic gown, which would have looked a million times more interesting than this boring red carpet dress. It just looks like Hermione’s Yule Ball dress in another color. Bleh.
I’ve always thought of it as gold and I didn’t realise it until I saw this picture too.
Gold. Most definitely gold.
Isn’t gold yellow? I don’t see gold listed in my box of 8 Crayola crayons, so it’s not a color I recognize. Therefore her dress is yellow.
Nick31 @21- Time to get the Crayola 64!
It’s gold! I didn’t realize people saw it any way.
Things that are NOT gold, however: Cinderella’s hair! She’s a redhead!
I’m going to go out on a limb and register a vote for yellow. The way I read the color theory of the original film, the Prince’s heraldic colors were originally cobalt blue and deep yellow. We aren’t permitted to see the parts of the castle that are still recognizably decorated with those colors until late in the film (they are also visible on banners, but not before the ball scene), and the Beast himself slowly progresses from wearing only dried-blood red to cooler colors, then blue, and finally a heraldic coat (whose lapels I would also read as yellow, not gold) for the ball scene, when his self-hatred has gone to its lowest ebb. (Plus, he takes said coat off as soon as Belle leaves–how many suicidally depressed people bother to quick-change their clothes unless there is something emotionally resonant about an article of clothing?)
Yes, it’s a somewhat strange color combination from a mainstream color theory point of view, but to my eye that just emphasizes the idea that it is heraldic in origin and that the colors are probably symbolic. In some backstory that I severely doubt was ever written. :)
I’ve always thought it was yellow. BUT I’m 55yrs old and I insisted Cinderella’s dress was always white. My sister-in-law told me only the wedding dress was white, not the ball gown. And she proved it by pulling out the DVD. So I misremembered it for 40yrs. But looking at Belle’s picture I still say yellow.
maybe it’s because I’ve seen the show more recently, but it’s definitely yellow in the stage show.
but we won’t actually know what shade it is until it’s in the film, since costumes are not quite the same color in real life as they appear on screen.
@25, Cinderella’s ballgown was originally silver and white, but it was recolored to blue when it was released on DVD, most likely because it is blue in Disney’s promotional material. (In the original, the ballgown also looks blue when she’s dancing with the prince, but that’s only because of the shadows/lighting, as the prince’s cream-colored apparel also becomes blue.) And then they made it (an admittedly gorgeous) blue for the live-action remake. I think it’s a similar situation here—Belle’s gown was originally gold, but it’s yellow in the promotional material, so that’s what they’re using for the live-action film.
Interesting, I never questioned it being yellow.
@24. Maybe the beast went to the University of Michigan. Maybe the dress is not yellow or gold, but rather, maize.
@18 mirana – thank you! I think that’s part of my problem with this dress. It’s bright yellow, which I didn’t envision, and it looks very modern, which seems out of place with the other beautiful details of the ballroom and the other characters we’ve seen.
It wouldn’t have to be completely historically accurate, but it looks like, as you say, a modern red carpet gown, which isn’t quite in keeping with the vibe I expect in Beauty and the Beast.
I don’t know who’s doing costume design, but they should have taken notes from Sandy Powell, who did costume design on the 2015 Cinderella. That ball gown was stunning.
GOLD, definitely.
They just used yellow for painting reasons on pictures and covers. In the movie version, everyone thinks it’s gold who watches it. ,-)
Animated Dress: shiny yellow satin in the umber-ish-yellow range that reads as “old (AKA: tarnished) gold” from a close-to-moderate distance and brownish-yellow from a far distance and on film. With “matching” silk bits that aren’t as light-reflective, which makes them read darker.
Live Action Dress: considering how orange Emma Watson’s skin tone looks in the photo, I think the movie went for shiny satin in a “new (AKA: pastellish-lemon yellow) gold” with “tone on tone” silk embroidery to get the “non-reflective yellow” embellishments effect. (They corrected the pic’s exposure down to get rid of the “blow outs” which left Emma looking like she had an unfortunate close encounter with Tan-In-A-Bottle.) Oh, and the skirt’s construction is all wrong compared to the animated stills. There is not a gather in sight.
I dabble in costuming, crafting, photography and paint with water colors/acrylics. Photography of shiny fabrics is a PITA.
It may have as much to do with this particular actor’s complexion as anything. Gold may not do good things to her complexion — like make her look sallow. The more lemony yellow may work better with her skin tones or photograph better on her. For example, I don’t wear certain shades of red well — reds that have a lot of yellow like scarlet, but the more earth tone reds like ruby and oxblood I can wear really well.
Also, I notice that there is a lot of gold leaf detailing in the very Rococo design of the set. A gold gown would not stand out as well against such a background as that more vivid lemon yellow does.
Also, if someone has a lot of emotional investment in a film, as you seem to do, they would tend to want the details transferred exactly. Re-imagining an animated film for live action involves a fair amount of re-imaging it, too. Live action film has different demands — colors, lighting, etc., than animation. You can get away with things in animation that look kitschy on screen or that don’t photograph well. Cut these people some slack. You need to give them room to bring their own creative vision into it.
I think it’s amber yellow, maybe with touches of gold in the embroidering, but certainly not wholly gold because how uncomfortable would that be?
The real crime is that the new, live-action dress is modern and boring. There was so much they could have done by retouching an actual historical design.
I’d say that the colour of the dress could be described as gold. I refuse to accept, however, that Disney was intending the golden dress to look like a gold dress, because the fabric simply isn’t heavy enough (from how it moves). I’m guessing they were going for the look of real (i.e. silk) satin. Granted, my guesses are biased because that’s what I’d have already guessed what a ball gown of that style would be, but cloth-of-gold wouldn’t swish around the way that Belle’s dress does.
According to the Belle Barbie I had in the early 90s, gold!
@25 and 27 – oh, Cinderella’s dress is definitely white and sparkly. I refuse to accept this blonde haired, blue dressed Cinderella the marketing people want to push on us ;)
Anyway, when I say gold, I don’t mean literally gold, but just that the dress was shiny. Not this canary yellow thing we’re seeing here. Honestly, something about this dress just looks a bit like a prom dress to me; it just doesn’t seem very sumptuous in the way the original was.
The real problem with the dress, IMO, is less in the color and more in the fact that Emma Watson did this movie on the condition that she wouldn’t have to wear a corset, which is why they had to go with a bodice that looks so awfully out-of-period. The skirt doesn’t match the style of the original, but I can see why they changed it–this skirt looks like it will move beautifully onscreen. If only the bodice didn’t spoil the effect…
Just saw the stage show at Disney Hollywood Studio yesterday, and that incarnation of the dress looked pretty gold to me.
I cant agree with you more. The Dress is gold people! But Disney got it wrong with cinderella as well her dress was silvery white the only reason it looked blue was because it was night… I would also like to add the dress is completely wrong all together especially for the time period it looks way to modern. Also the animated dress has a special style on the skirting called pickups which are completely missing. All in all i hope the movie is good but its already lost a star over the dress. If the rose doesnt glow like its so far showing thats another star… You can thank Watson for some of why the dress is the way it is by the way. She had say in how the dress was to appear…
It wouldnt have been so bad had they actually put in a little more effort into the sleeves. Looks like a dress you could get at clearance rack not the dress of a french princess…
And later in the week at Disney, at the Storytelling with Belle presentation, instead of the gold looking satin dress from the stage show, the dress she wore was more of a yellow velvet. There are evidently lots of incarnations of her dress, each chosen to fit the media she appears in.
I have to say gold and regardless the dress is ugly as heck in the real version this ruins the whole movie to me. Especially since they used the ugliest yellow possible. I grew up knowing it was gold. This dress is so plain and boring sure they embroidered but look at this dress does it even remotely scream French princess? Very very disappointing and to top it all off I hate yellow period. Gold would have been so much better. This dress doesn’t complement her at all. Pee yellow how lovely… Look to me they were rushing it and really didn’t care because we will watch it any way
I definitely would have preferred that they made it gold for the new movie–and maybe more elaborate than the cartoon version vs. the less elaborate version they came up with. :/ She would have been even more stunning in a gold dress.
Gold.
And don’t get me started on the missing gloves.
Or the actress who may be pretty in a common way but is definitely no Belle.
And amusingly, I don’t recall any of Belle’s dresses in the actual film (seen over the weekend) being nearly as bright in color as the picture here.
Her dress was gold in the animated movie. However at any rate the whole movie was as lame as the dress.
It’s yellow.
Because it matches the Beast’s waistcoat, whose colors are taken from Werther’s blue and yellow ensemble in Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. The Beast would obviously be a huge fan – he’s completely emo, and he lives in the correct time period. H
Ok so all along I thought Belle’s dress was yellow. Like canary yellow or even almost mustard yellow. I have 2 daughters who were very young in the early 90’s who watched that (darn) video 1,000 times. We even had all the lines memorized and they would jump around the living room and dance and sing.
Imagine my huge surprise earlier tonite when I was at an Irish bar w friends doing our weekly trivia night out. One of the Q’s was ‘ what color was Belle’s dress in the ballroom scene’?
When they said the correct answer was ‘gold’ I said no way – gold is a metallic color and her dress was not metallic. Oh well- we finished the game in a 3 way tie for 1st place.
Tomorrow I’ll ask my girls what color they think Belles dress was.
I actually have proof her dress was gold. During the making of the animated version disney pressured them to make belle’s dress pink for marketing to little girls.However the direction begged and later convinced disney to make her dress gold so she would be different. This settles the debate of her dress being yellow of gold. Her dress is gold people and as usual disney screwed it all up the best way they know how.
Director*