While costumes in films are essential in helping to define a character, it is not often that a costume is a direct part of the story or plot. However, this green bonnet plays an important role in a scene from Gone with the Wind. In both the film and the novel, it is the piece of clothing that Rhett Butler uses to tempt Scarlett O’Hara out of mourning far earlier than appropriate. Mitchell writes of the bonnet:

It was of dark-green taffeta, lined with water silk of a pale-jade color. The ribbons that tied under the chin were as wide as her hand, and they, too, were pale green. And, curled about the brim of this confection, was the perkiest of green ostrich plumes.

Designer Walter Plunkett re-created the hat for the 1939 production of Gone with the Wind, where Vivien Leigh wore it as Scarlett O’Hara. The piece would be used again in 1941 in Go West Young Lady on Penny Singleton as Belinda Pendergast. In 1942 it was worn without the ribbons on Helen Parrish as Ellen Sanford in the film In Old California.