Clara as Dorothy in Oz

Judy Garland as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz
movie of 1939.
(Source: Library of Congress Images)

Many people are familiar with the 1939 musical film, The Wizard of Oz, starring Judy Garland as Dorothy. But how many have read the original book published in 1900 by L. Frank Baum? Like many books and movie adaptations, there are many differences between the screenplay and the original story.

Original cover from 1900 edition (source: Wikimedia Commons)

The original book was illustrated by an editorial cartoonist named William Wallace Denslow. He drew many very cute pictures of Dorothy, Toto, and all the characters.

Cover from The Wizard of Oz
by L. Frank Baum, illustrated by W.W. Denslow
(Source: ©1956 version, original illustrations
now in the public domain.)

L. Frank Baum wrote many other novels about Oz, but Denslow only illustrated the first. The cover of this 1956 reprint (seen above with the big red poppy), was based on one of the original illustrations in the book.

Left: Illustration from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, illustrated by W.W. Denslow
(Source: Library of Congress Images);
Right: Illustration from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, illustrated by W.W. Denslow
(Source: ©1956 version; the text & original illustrations are now in the public domain.)

This cute illustration (on left above) of Dorothy contemplating the scarecrow shows Dorothy in a cute gingham dress. Notice the bows on her magic shoes, which were actually silver slippers in the book, not ruby slippers. Costume designers thought that sparkly red shoes would look better in the new technicolor film that was used for the color portions of the Wizard of Oz film.

The blue illustration above (on the right) is one of the illustrations I based Clara's dress on. The dress is a simple prairie dress with a wide yoke, plain sleeves, and no waistline. As you can see, Denslow was not consistent in how he drew Dorothy. Sometimes she wore a checked gingham, other times the dress was plain. Sometimes Dorothy had a bonnet on, as you can see in the illustration to the left. (The shoe bows are back!)

Denslow's Dorothy always has loose braids. How did they ever stay braided without a tie of some sort?

Clara is dressed as Dorothy today, with the gingham prairie dress, bonnet and braids, and the magic slippers (with bows). And Toto... Dorothy could not possibly go anywhere without Toto by her side.

Next week, Clara arrives in the Emerald City!

To print Clara's dress, use this PDF file:

Clara's Dress 67 (799k)

Clara is a free, printable paper doll. Clara will be available on this blog as long as I continue to post new fashion pages for her. You can read the introduction for the Clara paper doll here.

To print the Clara paper doll, use this PDF file:

 The Clara Paper Doll (718k)