The Prince and the Dressmaker

As the titular Prince in The Prince and the Dressmaker, Sebastian is heir apparent to the fictional European country of Belgonia, who secretly puts on dresses created by Frances, and enjoys Paris’s nightlife as the fashion icon Lady Crystallia. Wang conceived of Sebastian as genderfluid, but never imposes this term onto the narrative as it would be anachronistic to late 19th-century Paris, and also push readers to experience Sebastian through a specific identity’s lens. In Sebastian’s words, “some days” he feels right “wear[ing] boy clothes and look[ing] like [his] father,” and “other days […] Sebastian feel[s] like [the prince is] actually a princess” (44). Sebastian anticipates rejection from both his family and society for his love of dresses, and therefore keeps his alter-ego secret. However, Sebastian also finds a great deal of joy and power as Crystallia, explaining that he doesn’t “feel like Prince Sebastian could lead a nation into battle, but Lady Crystallia could” (75). This duality encapsulates the theme of Gender Expansive Self-Expression Through Fashion.

For much of the novel, Sebastian’s natural empathy causes him to feel a great deal of familial pressure to be the Crown Prince his parents expect and to marry a princess. He cares deeply about the people in his life and remains highly attuned to their needs, such as when he realizes that Frances needs glasses (103) or when he imagines his future wife finding out about his love of dresses and asks “how could [he] do that to someone’s daughter?” (74) The latter provides an example of the ways in which Sebastian’s concern for the comfort of others leads him to push down his true self in order to conform to a more traditionally accepted version of a prince. The pressure of Familial Expectations Reflecting Social Mores becomes a destructive force in the Prince’s arc, leading Crystallia to sacrifice Frances’s career opportunity in order to keep Sebastian’s secret, and later resulting in Sebastian committing to a betrothal he doesn’t truly want. Although Sebastian is forcibly outed against his will, eventually his parents do accept and celebrate their child’s identity, which helps allow the Prince to live freely by the end of the novel.

King Leroy of Belgonia is Prince Sebastian’s father, and an archetypically masculine figure, making him an important vessel for communicating social mores and familial expectations. He is introduced in a scene where he screams “Block him!!” at a polo match (67), immediately connecting Leroy to the trope of men as aggressive sports fans. He’s also blunt and pushy about Sebastian’s betrothal prospects, suggesting that Sebastian take Juliana to a garden he describes as “quite the retreat for lovers” (80) and later instructing Sebastian to “get [his] lady groove on” (108)—a playful-yet-serious form of teasing evoking a traditional, conservative view of gender and cis-heteronormative courtship. The trajectory of King Leroy’s character arc leads him to break out of the confines of this traditional mindset and embraced what most concerns him: his child finding someone who loves him and whom he loves. Seeing Frances’s love for Sebastian just as he is convinces the King “everything [will] be fine” (263). The bombast Leroy displays at the polo match is similarly recast when he models one of Frances’s dresses and becomes a striking performer on stage.

A secondary arc for King Leroy follows an evolution in his position as king. Initially, his leadership of the kingdom defines his sense of self; his very name is a version of ‘”e roi,” French for “the king.” When he falls ill, he feels the most important to convey to Sebastian is that he knows his child will “take good care of [their] kingdom” (156). Yet, by the end of the novel, he places less value on his royalty, wondering “[i]n a world where department stores exist, where do kings and princes even fit in anymore?” (263) and prioritizes Sebastian’s happiness above all else. 

Prince Marcel is a foil to Sebastian as well as the primary antagonist in The Prince and the Dressmaker. Marcel highlights Sebastian’s distance from traditional gender roles by embodying an a hyper-masculine archetype of a prince. He hunts, eats messily, and states that “[l]ooking at all these princesses makes a guy want to blow off a little steam” (79). He also flirts with Crystallia at their first meeting, and when he sees Lady Crystallia alone at the bar, he declares that Crystallia would “be very lucky to be on the arm of someone like [him]” (202). Marcel’s attitude toward Crystallia underscores Prince Sebastian’s reticence to evaluate the princesses he meets—treating them as objects, prizes to possess.

As a flat character defined by his conventional masculinity, Prince Marcel also serves as an apt plot device to out Sebastian to his family and the kingdom at large. Feeling threatened by Sebastian presenting as a woman he finds attractive, Marcel orchestrates a vengeful public reveal of Sebastian’s secret to reassert his own sense of masculine power, remaining the only character with no redemptive or sympathetic moment in the text.

Madame Aurelia, a longtime costume designer for the Paris Ballet who designed for “The Muse of Crystallia,” inspires a young Frances to become a designer. Aurelia’s designs are bold and fantastical although, like Frances, she herself dresses simply, wearing all black with her hair in a tight bun. This all-black wardrobe is a nod to more contemporary designers and artists known for sticking to a monochrome personal look to direct attention toward their work. From her youth, Madame Aurelia was “edgy,” telling Crystallia that at age four, she “cut up [her] mother’s wedding gown and wrapped it around [her] naked body” (123). This implies that Aurelia’s success results in part from a refusal to conform to more traditional expectations (e.g., marriage), which becomes a tenet Frances must accept in order to achieve her own success.

As a mentor figure, Aurelia is brusque but kind, gracefully retreating when it becomes clear Crystallia doesn’t wish to share a “real name” (123-124) and telling Frances that she “should’ve told [Aurelia she was] the designer” (269) after the Trippley show triumph. This strain of kindness also renders Madame Aurelia open to collaboration, as demonstrated by her offer to “look over [Frances’s] work” and “see if she has the right stuff for [the] show” (125) as well as in the final chapter, which depicts Frances working at Madame Aurelia’s atelier.

Princess Juliana, the Princess of Monaco, arrives at the palace for the first one-on-one meeting Sebastian has with a potential bride. In that meeting, Juliana is straightforward but diplomatic, offering that she “would like to continue getting to know” Sebastian (83), with the possibility for more in the future. She is also a fan of Lady Crystallia’s fashion, and generously offers to introduce Crystallia to Madame Aurelia. Though Juliana is a secondary and static character, it is crucial to the text that she be beautiful and likable, to demonstrate that Sebastian’s resistance to betrothal is not simply due to the lack of a good match.

Peter Trippley is the son of George Trippley, the owner of a brand-new department store holding a fashion show at its opening. Like Sebastian and Frances, Peter loves fashion, but prioritizes pragmatism and profit over innovation in design and personal friendship, as when he praises Frances for designing “the perfect outfits for the sophisticated shopper [Trippley’s] is trying to court” (240), when he waves away the lewd drunk’s harassing of Crystallia by saying the man is “a very important investor” (93), or when he realizes Sebastian is at the fashion show and brings the King and Queen to collect the missing Prince. Yet, despite Frances’s switch to her more daring collection, he’s able to congratulate her at the end of the novel since the creative risks she took paid off and “people really seem to like” Frances’s dresses (269), resulting in commercial success for the store.

Emile, a palace official, is a foil to King Leroy in that he knows Sebastian’s secret, doesn’t judge him for it, and actively enables Lady Crystallia’s adventures in Paris. He exists as a calm and loyal presence in Sebastian’s life, subverting Wang’s initial presentation of him in the graphic novel as tall, mysterious, and a little ominous. As a static and flat character, Emile serves the same role of messenger and agent for Sebastian throughout the novel.