Hairstyles from the Anne of Green Gables Sequel
Anne’s Gibson Girl Updos and Other Grown-Up Hairdos From the Movie
Jul 30, 2009
The hairstyles of the first film showed Anne’s journey from a gauche young girl to a stylish young woman. In Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel, Anne’s hanging beribboned double braids are a thing of the past. Anne typically wears a variation of the fashionable Gibson Girl style, which is also worn by a number of other characters in the film such as Diana and Ruby Gillis.
Anne’s Gibson Girl Hairstyles
The Gibson Girl look was a very full, puffy hairstyle that framed the face with a cushion of hair. This was achieved by combing the hair over pads or hair rats. The length of the hair could then be styled at the crown of the head, usually in some kind of chignon. The simplest form of this was a cinnamon bun or “cinnabun”; Anne wears this style when arguing with Gilbert over the Rollings Reliable story and again at Diana’s hayride, with a particularly full and teased version of the Gibson puff.
At the start of the film Anne’s Gibson Girl style is accented by a neat braid clubbed at the back of her head. Later, when she wins the Rollings Reliable competition and again when she apologises to Mrs Lynde for selling her cow, she wears an unusual variation with the top layer of hair wound into a small bun on the crown, and the rest of her hair French braided beneath. The braid is secured with a wide ribbon. During the funeral for Mrs Harris Anne wears her back hair in a French twist.
Anne’s “Big Hair”
The fullness of Megan Follows’ hairstyles was a source of amusement for the film’s director Kevin Sullivan. He noticed that throughout the films, Anne’s hair kept expanding – for example, the Gibson Girl puff worn during Matthew’s death scene looks positively flat compared to the huge, teased, frizzy style worn at Diana’s wedding. Sullivan is reported to have particularly disliked Anne’s mass of loose curls during the scene where she shows Gilbert her book, and the extreme Gibson Girl updo during Anne’s argument with Gilbert about the Rollings Reliable competition.
Anne’s Waves and Curls
According to the first film, in which her hair is shown dripping wet, Anne has naturally straight hair. In the sequel Anne’s hair ranges from straight to wavy to curly, depending on the hairstyle – all looks that would have been possible for a girl to achieve in the early 1900s. For fancy occasions Anne’s Gibson Girl puff is often made with wavy, slightly teased hair, with a few short strands worn loose and curly around the face.
When Anne goes to visit the dying Gilbert, her front hair is worn in a disheveled Gibson Girl puff, wound into a cinnabun at the crown. Her back hair is loose and flowing, in waves that could conceivably be braid waves.
Anne’s Hats and Headwear
Anne wears a wide variety of hats in the film, mostly flat straw hats trimmed with ribbon. At Diana Barry’s wedding she wears a lacy white fascinator; on her first visit to the Harris home she wears a purplish tam-o-shanter.
Hats during the Gibson Girl era were typically wide-brimmed to complement the full hairstyles. Anne wears considerably smaller hats than the rest of the cast, Diana’s hats being more accurately representative of the period. The hats were worn either flat on the head or slightly tilted, usually forwards.
Other Hairstyles from Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel
The vast majority of adult female characters in the film wear Gibson Girl hairstyles. Diana Barry, Ruby Gillis, Miss Stacey and Pauline and Mrs Margaret Harris all wear this style. Exceptions include Katherine Brooke, whose severely “flat” hairstyle is an overt symbol of her repression and sourness, and Marilla, who wears her hair brushed straight back into a small bun.
The girls at Anne’s school wear their hair in beribboned half-ponytails, with or without bangs. A few girls wear ponytails. Minnie May wears double braids, a style similar to Anne’s first hairdo in the original film.
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