Strange article about the new Charlotte Bronte exhibition, her dresses.

The article is about this dress 

SR.5.7.Sym.1.42
Title	photographs of dresses worn by Charlotte Bronte
Description	printed page 22 showing two b/w images of a model wearing {103} pink frock and cape worn by Charlotte Bronte and {104} silk dress worn on her wedding tour by Charlotte Bronte [135mm l x 97mm w; fair;] [x 3 copies. (From the catalogue from the Bronte Parsonage) .

This article is surprising me very much: 

theguardian/charlotte-bronte-clothing-exhibition-sensual-side-parsonage-museum

A new side of Charlotte Brontë, showing the author of Jane Eyre’s unexpected penchant for colourful, fashionable, even “sensual” clothing, is revealed in a new exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

“My personal favourite is her pink wrapper, which is a really, really strange garment,” said Dr Eleanor Houghton, a historian, writer and illustrator who has co-curated the exhibition. “It was a sort of house coat with a matching cape. It’s hideous, pink, with little flowers on it, very bold, very bright and huge – very voluminous. It’s absolutely the opposite of anything you would ever associate with Charlotte Brontë.”

It’s a sensual garment, it’s something that she would have been seen in in the house, and with Nicholls. So while it’s not exactly a negligee, it’s sort of a Victorian equivalent. It’s an intimate garment,” said Houghton.

• Really? Do we, Charlotte Bronte lovers, believe she could never have worn this?   This cosy, high-necked, covering everything dress, frock?
• Do we believe Charlotte Bronte was some kind of a prude? The author of Jane Eyre?

I asked the opinion of a friend, who studies the Brontes, her reaction:

"The expert  quoted in the article seem to have an idea of Charlotte that she was some sort of austere, Quaker maid! Ha! Yes, CB cultivated that idea, but none should believe it. At heart she was a deeply sensual woman. 

Charlotte LOVED all the extra bows and ruffles!  Look at her wedding dress. She designed one frilly, extravagant, element after another. Charlotte was not plain in her dress once she had funds from her books.  Her forays into fashion were not always sure,  she still regularly called on her friend, Ellen Nussey, for advice, but they were determined. Particularly when she was visiting London, or on an important occasion, such as her marriage.

The article also portrays  this garment as something like a kinky sex outfit, when it's simply a dressing gown and one that covered her up completely!  People wore dressing gowns back then between their night gowns and  their day clothes.  I imagine Charlotte wore this gown at her dressing table  to brush her hair. etc.  

However, the 1927 catalogue calls this outfit a  "frock", that is a dress, with a cape.  So perhaps it was indeed a dress she wore during the day,( most likely in London, too dressy for Haworth! ) and so it is not a even dressing gown. Today our night dress and day clothes often look the same, like lounge wear, so it may be harder for us to tell! 

I would also point out Charlotte would add large, even extravagant, elements when designing her outfits, like the  balloon sleeves on the going away dress and extra padding on the outfit in question, to add bulk to her tiny figure."