Darby Shaw you beautiful little go-getter you. Pre-law at Tulane, Julia Roberts' Shaw in The Pelican Brief epitomises that early 1990s casual style. I've been thinking about Darby recently for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I'm writing my last ever essay for history (!!!) on legal fiction of the early 1990s, and obviously we've got some Grisham figuring in there. But also because, as a student, I've always been drawn to representations of university or college life - and style. In her student guise she wouldn’t be seen dead in anything other than too-baggy sweatshirts and leggings and trainers. When she’s trying to foil a dastardly plot by a Southern oil giant to stack the Supreme Court with judges who are pro-his case she wears some double-breasted pastel blazers, high-waisted denim and classic court heels, or my favourite – a short-sleeved midi dress with thigh high splits (Stellaaaaaaa!) with a matching vest, all in a washed-out, forget-me-not blue. How could you forget Darby Shaw? Sam Shephard couldn’t. And what about Denzel Washington? He certainly couldn’t forget Darby Shaw. I wonder if people forget me when I wander around campus in sweatshirts and tapered slacks?
There’s a wonderfully sexist description of Darby by John Grisham in the original novel, and it goes something like this. “For two brutal years, one of the few pleasures of law school had been to watch as she graced the halls and rooms with her long legs and baggy sweaters. There was a fabulous body in there somewhere, they could tell. But she was not one to flaunt it”. Julia Roberts is all that and more. She spends most of the movie hiding that Pretty Woman body in out-sized oatmeal sweaters and ochre-hued shirts, and tucking those wayward tendrils under baseball caps and headbands. In the film this tension between Darby's dynamic, active control over her life and her simple - sloppy even - wardrobe is made all the more exaggerated in the film by the sheer, almost remarkable beauty of Julia Roberts herself. Remember, this is just 3 years after she makes Pretty Woman, and following on from Steel Magnolias and Sleeping with the Enemy. If she wasn't "the most popular actress in America" she was almost, almost there (and after this film, and My Best Friend's Wedding in 1997 and Notting Hill just a year later she would be). This isn't the kind of makeunder that Charlize Theron endured to win her oscar, but there is an element of this here. Darby Shaw is a great beauty, but she doesn't dress like one.
What does that mean, anyway? That just because she doesn't wear fitted clothes and toss her hair that she can't be a great beauty? More so than any kind of crime-fiction thrill or investigative journalism impetus, what I always draw from this film is how when you're running around trying to save the world - well, save your world - you'll be much better off doing it in sweats and jeans than you will be in heels and leather. I mean, Lucy Liu, My Girl Drew and Cameron D looked great and all, but it's not exactly practical, is it? And, anyway, the moral of the story is, Darby Shaw gets her happy ending. And she's barefoot in a massive, blown-out chambray shirt when she gets it.
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What does that mean, anyway? That just because she doesn't wear fitted clothes and toss her hair that she can't be a great beauty? More so than any kind of crime-fiction thrill or investigative journalism impetus, what I always draw from this film is how when you're running around trying to save the world - well, save your world - you'll be much better off doing it in sweats and jeans than you will be in heels and leather. I mean, Lucy Liu, My Girl Drew and Cameron D looked great and all, but it's not exactly practical, is it? And, anyway, the moral of the story is, Darby Shaw gets her happy ending. And she's barefoot in a massive, blown-out chambray shirt when she gets it.
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