The curtain dress that Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) wears to v

The curtain dress that Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) wears to visit Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) in jail is certainly one of the most famous costumes in Gone With the Wind (1939). The curtain dress makes its appearance in the second half of both the novel and the movie when a desperate Scarlett, who is badly in need of money to pay the high taxes on her family's plantation, Tara, decides to sell herself to Rhett in exchange for the much-needed cash. Scarlett can't go in the rags she wears to work in the cotton fields so she comes up with the ingenious scheme of making a hoop-skirted dress out of the moss-green curtains that are an O'Hara family heirloom.
For the curtain dress, costume designer Walter Plunkett acquired moss-green and chartreuse velvet that he exposed to the sunlight to achieve a faded appearance that would be appropriate for the much-used drapes. He then created an ingenious design with the curtain tiebacks made into a belt and a matching velvet cap adorned with chicken feathers. Plunkett also toned down his excellent sewing skills for a dress that looks like it could have been thrown together in one evening.
The conserved green curtain dress and hat worn by Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind is preserved at The Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.