Rabbit Goody: Weaver for the Film Industry

My friend Rachel Dickinson wrote a wonderful story that’s now online at Smithsonian.com. Years ago, she mentioned a weaver with the fantastic name of Rabbit Goody (that sounds like a movie name right there), who weaves historically accurate fabric for the film industry’s biggest period dramas.

I’m so glad the story is online for all to see, because it’s one of those things where most moviegoers probably don’t think much about things like the fabrics used in the film.

Rachel writes that Goody has been involved in the film industry for nearly 15 years, beginning with “The Scarlet Letter” in 1995. She weaves from her studio Thistle Hill Weaver. 

“The studio has created historically accurate fabric for a number of iconic costumes, from Tom Hanks’ Depression-era overcoat in ‘Road to Perdition’ to Daniel Day Lewis’ oil man outfit in ‘There Will Be Blood’ to many of the costumes in HBO‘s ‘John Adams,’” writes Rachel. “‘Goody understands how costume designers place great importance on the most miniscule details and knows how to get them right.”

It’s amazing to me that filmmakers will go to such lengths to make sure their films are historically accurate. I mean, they could probably “make do” with a modern-day fabric that just looks like the original. Most people might not be able to tell the difference on the big screen. But that would just be phoning it in.

I suppose the real-deal fabrics not only give the film an authentic feel, but probably help the actors get into the right mode for their performance, as well.

Goody says as much: “The camera eye is better than any human eye so inaccuracies show up glaringly. The minute anyone sees an inaccuracy in a movie, that picture is trashed – if you don’t believe one part of it, you’re not going to believe any part of it. A lay person may not know what would be appropriate for 17th-century fabric, but it will register that something is wrong.”

Read the full article on Smithsonian.com.

For more on Rachel Dickinson, visit her Web site, The Haiku Diaries, and her blog, Falconer on the Edge (also the name of her book on falconer Steve Chindgren).

Buy: Falconer on the Edge: A Man, His Birds, and the Vanishing Landscape of the American West

Image: Paramount Vantage; Amazon