- So, there's lots of talk
'round these Internet parts about costumes in films, and, inevitably, everything
that they get wrong, and I'm beginning to get the sense that we are giving the false impression that any attempt at period costume ever is by default deeply flawed
in terms of accuracy, which is definitely not the case. There are definitely some
seriously well-done costumes in films and TV shows out there, and we're about to give those
friends some love today. This list, by the way, is
by no means comprehensive, but merely a personal selection of things that I have seen and have
been very impressed by. Contrary to what a lot of the
internet may have you believe, a lot of period costume in
film and TV is actually, if sometimes a bit imperfect,
generally passable, which is why I still
maintain that I have no plans to do individual costume reviews, no matter how many people insist that I review "Anne with an E." Here's my review: the costumes are fine. This is also not to say that
there aren't accuracy flaws in some of the pieces
we are about to discuss. Once again, I will give
the usual disclaimer that there is no such thing
as "historical accuracy", that due to the passing of time, inevitably some crucial
bits of information have slipped through the cracks and prevent us from achieving true, 100% recreations of actual history. The difference between these, then, and some of the less
sartorially successful films we've explored previously is that there is a very
clear and palpable sense that there was actual research done, that real historical
garments were consulted, that serious attention
was paid to silhouette and proportion and fit. There are details in
these clothes so fine, such as hand-finishing,
thread-worked buttons, weird trimming techniques, that are so nuanced and
specific to the period, it's very clear that the designers
knew in incredible detail what source material
they were drawing from in order to effectively tell a story that serves both the plot, character, as well as the historical
setting, which, surprisingly, is extremely crucial to the
worldbuilding of a period film. This video is also very
kindly brought to you by our friends at Acorn TV, which I shall tell you more
about at the end of this video. First and foremost, number
one in all of my books, is "Gentleman Jack." Did I write this entire
video solely as an excuse to rave about "Gentleman Jack" for approximately five minutes? Irrelevant! Let us take a moment to behold, thread-worked buttons, stays, real, actual, proper 1830s
corded stays, with a busk. Hand. Sewn. Eyelet holes. Friends, this is only
the opening sequence. Buckle up for the rest of the show. So "Gentleman Jack" is a
biographical story of Anne Lister and is based off of events recorded in her own actual journal, which means we have the very
specific dates of 1832 to '33 in which the story of
season one takes place. There are two, I believe, vague portraits of the real
Anne Lister that we know of, and while designer Tom Pye
made an extraordinary effort to reproduce elements of these
on the fictional Anne Lister, down to the neck brooch, there are still elements that
needed to be conjectured, for example the heavy men's boots and the top hat that
she wears in the series, both of which we can
see were chosen to add distinct visual elements to her character, but not in that dissociative, modern relatable aesthetic kind of way that a lot of period adaptations use to "convey character
to a modern audience". The crucial win in the
interpretation of Anne Lister for screen here is the actual existence of all interpretations in actual history. So, for example, the decision to change her
hairstyle from the more, what was in the 1830s,
feminine side curl style on her original portraits to the historically more masculine horizontal buckles seen in the series, yes, is a deviation from the historical evidence that we have, but is a deviation from one verifiable
historical style to another, made intentionally to convey
a crucial element of character while remaining securely within the realm of period believability. This is how interpretation
for a modern audience is done, friends! Making changes from one
questionable historical element to another preferable but
equally historical element for the sake of character
and storytelling, not for the sake of
modern beauty aesthetic? Sign me way the heck up! Speaking of hairstyles, major props to this entire production team for embracing the weird,
wild, wonderful insanity that was 1830s hairstyles. I feel like a lot of modern
interpretations of the 1830s tend to shy away from this element, with the excuse of "unrelatability
to modern audiences", but "Gentleman Jack" is prime evidence that this is not at all a valid excuse. Yes, they're weird, but within the context
of the equally peculiar general fashion of the 1830s, which is also fully embraced, there's a very specific world built here. The contrast between Anne Lister's more subdued and masculine styles is heightened when juxtaposed
with the more elaborate everyday styles on some
of the other women, and further contextualized when introduced to the high fashion version of supreme hairstyle ridiculousness as seen in the ball scenes. But here's the funny thing. Something extraordinary
happens when one is exposed to a thing repeatedly
for a period of time. Far from perpetually seeing
it as alien and weird for the rest of eternity, most of us actually adopt
a familiar acceptance of said thing and learn
to appreciate a little, if not a substantial, bit of beauty in it. This is why I am so adamantly against this philosophy of needing to appeal to a modern beauty aesthetic. We're not even giving
our audiences the chance to appreciate styles for what they were within their proper contexts. Anyway, still on the subject of hair, one of the things I appreciate the most about the hairstyling
in this series is that, particularly on Anne Lister, the hair isn't perfectly
perfect all of the time. Nothing weirdly bothers me more than watching these period dramas where the characters are running around, outside on a windy moor, doing
something mildly exertive, all the while having
perfectly sculpted hair...? It just detracts from
the feeling of reality, of human relatability to these people. So, 10 out of 10 appreciation for the flyaways and falling bits and completely-undone-ness of
some of the hairstyles here. Quick moment of appreciation for the literal drawn threadwork detail on Anne Lister's shirt here, but I also want to point
out the attention given not only to the details
of the specific period in which the story takes place, but the broader sense of logic put into the design of these clothes. That is, not everyone
suddenly starts dressing like the latest fashion plate
on January 1 of the new year. In fact, some styles
remain sort of fossilized in their traditional nature. For example, the domestic
staff in the households are very distinctly 18th
century in silhouette. These costumes, within
the context of the story, would've been considered uniforms, a particular set of garments that denoted a particular
professional position, and would not have evolved as quickly as the latest fashions. This is a detail extremely specific to the general social practices
surrounding human dress, not just the details of the
dress itself in a vacuum. This shows that the designer is thinking not just of recreating
historical replica clothing, but recreating the variety of dress within particular contexts
to create this wonderful, realistically believable
world in which, yeah, sometimes people wear things
a little bit out of date, sometimes on purpose, and sometimes just out
of habit or necessity. This is further proven
when we get to behold this dressing gown moment
which, if you look closely, literally looks as if she's wearing a repurposed robe a la
francaise from the 18th century, with those wide ruffled cuffs, the ruffled robings down the front, and the pleated back detail. This is so historically
accurate in practice, this repurposing of old gowns
into new, more fashionable, or just household garments. This is the level of attention
to detail I am here for! There is also, of course, the interpretation of
fashionable silhouette between different classes. Again, we have the delicious application of the logic of practicality here that makes these foreign
period clothes feel so human. Big sleeves were a thing in the 1830s. It was the way a lot of dresses were cut. But the difference between
the upper-class ladies sitting in their parlors
with sleeves stuffed to high fashion ridiculousness and the more plain,
practical, still large, but unstuffed sleeves worn
by the working class girls serves to create a unified world of, here's how humans dressed back then. We don't get that boring,
unrealistic strict divide between upper and lower classes, where only the upper-class ladies get anything remotely eccentric
in their dress silhouettes, because guess what, lower-class
ladies could sew stuff too. But the distinction is made more on how these fashionable
elements are adapted for the practical demands of what that character specifically regularly needed to do during her day. This is the basic element of contextual interpretation
of historical dress that is often overlooked
in period costume design. Oh, what's that? Could that be a zipper? No, no, no. They would not let us down like that. Dress hooks. Handsewn dress hooks. Fast-forwarding a bit to 1849, the next film on my highly
impressed list is "Harriet," the recent, again, biographical
story of Harriet Tubman. Once again, right from
the very opening shot we are given an incredible amount of minute historical detail in the clothes that immediately also tells
us loads about the character and her situation. We see the mismatched buttons
and the careful piecings at the shoulders, which immediately also establishes the historically accurate value not only of the fabric and
the materials themselves, but of clothing as a whole, and the value of clothing is
something that comes into play immensely later on in the film
when part of Harriet's plan to help her family members escape is to literally bring them the clothing that visually represents higher value, and thus, will help
them escape to freedom. Going back to the earlier
point of fashionable silhouette and its adoption by
various classes of people, we get to see this in play
in the form of skirt shape throughout this film. It is only 1849 at the start of the story and the steel-wire crinoline
wasn't patented until 1856, so, we're the slightest bit too early for the widespread adoption
of substantial skirt support in the beginning here. However, the crinoline
was invented in response to the already growing
trend of large skirts, which was previously done
with layers and layers of heavily starched petticoats. These were extremely heavy and
time-consuming to maintain, and these, or an even bulkier
primitive crinoline structure, would not have been worn by anyone having to do much physical labor. Thus we get to see a really
interesting backstory of character as told by skirt shape here. Harriet and her family members, particularly in the earlier
scenes, have very slim skirts, though still gathered
or pleated at the waist according to standard
dressmaking construction in this period. As Harriet escapes to freedom, she herself starts to
adopt more skirt layers, this in the form of petticoats, likely, as her skirts still don't
seem to be quite as big as a structured underlayer would provide. Marie, on the other hand, who comes from more
privileged circumstances and thus follows more closely to the dictates of higher fashion, does seem to have some
significant understructure to help with what I believe is the largest skirt in the film. One thing I really appreciate in this film is the entirely realistic
handling of underwear. Don't get me wrong, I
love a good gratuitous historically accurate corset scene, but the general reality is
that we don't tend to mention, or even think about, our
underwear on a regular basis, and neither did people in history. It's just there, doing its job. You can tell these actors are
all underpinned as necessary. Those two darts on either
side of the front of a gown was natural dressmaking
construction at this time, and really just don't sit right unless you have the
proper understructuring to fill that conical dress
shape created by the darts. Harriet, or anyone,
really, is not tight-laced! That would be mind-numbingly impractical, and it's a good thing we
understand that corsets and tightlacing exist as entirely
separate entities, right? But, this film is an
excellent example of corsetry being used subtly and practically for the strictly functional
purposes it served in history, rather than the
aesthetic-vanity-oppression representations of today. Harriet walks from
Maryland to Philadelphia without so much as
mentioning her underpinnings, so, I don't really ever want
to hear any more moaning about the female-oppressiveness
of historical underwear from actresses, like, ever. Okay, controversial opinion
time, but try as I might, I just do not like Jane Austen. Which is why it was such
an extraordinary testament to the absolute brilliance of the Alexandra Byrne-led costume team that I actually managed to
sit through the entirety of whatever the heck was "Emma." But seriously, this film
was so beautifully done in every aspect, The silhouettes of the
characters were so on point, everyone literally looked as
if they'd just stepped out of an 1815 fashion plate, AND they still had the time and energy to put in so. Much. Cheeky. Detail. We have the miles of rouleaux trimming, we have the whitework embroidery, we have the clocked stockings and the ear-cutout collar things and the basting stitches and yes, handsewn eyelet holes. But, the one single detail
that made me literally shriek was this one extremely unnecessary but extremely necessary moment where she pulls up her
dress and shows us that no, she is not, in fact, wearing underwear, because split drawers were
still not really a thing yet, and yes, believe it or not, before split drawers were a thing, you just didn't wear anything. This is something that
no one ever addresses, so this moment literally
brought me so much joy I cannot even begin to describe. Not to mention, of course, that the underwear that
we did see was comprised of completely appropriate stays with, yes, proper 1815 shifts underneath! It's kind of sad how unreasonably
excited we get about this, but then again, when we have
been so consistently betrayed by shiftless corset-wearing
for so many long years, one must not be @'d
for feeling such feels, thank you very much. But, back to silhouette, which obviously is so on point
due to the intense attention to appropriate understructures. Personally, I was having a grand time playing "Spot The Gown," since many of the garments
seen during this film are literal reproductions of actual surviving
Regency gowns in museums. Yes, there is something to
be said for costume 'design' as an art form in and of itself, but there is also something to be said for the sheer and utter
magical experience created when you get to see that
gown you were drooling over one afternoon at the
V&A on an actual body, moving, dancing, breathing,
getting to see it come to life on a real actual human being! This is time travel, basically! There is the one caveat that there were so many different outfits in this film, pretty much everyone is
in a different outfit practically in every scene, which isn't the most
historically accurate thing, since we are still technically
in the pre-sewing machine era and everything is still
painstakingly stitched by hand, in theory, but this is
a Jane Austen story, so presumably these people all
have at least 10,000 a year, or something, which means
that they can afford extravagant hoards of
hand-embroidered gowns. Why not? In any case, it kept me watching the film, so I'm really not complaining. The only minor complaint I did have was with the obviousness
of Emma's wig which, though lovely, was obvious, and not in a historically
accurate 18th century wig kind of way. The make-up, if present, is so subtle. Seriously, there is
nothing more frustrating than a beautifully-clothed period film featuring 2010s block
eyebrows, obvious contouring, or unashamedly modern lip colors. In the menswear territory, we again see the progression of fashion reflected in the social
class of each character. Posh blonde chap's coat is longer, with the flat collar and narrower lapels, more attuned to the styles developing throughout the 19th century. Farm chap, on the other hand,
has the shorter, cutaway coat with the stand collar and wider lapels more in fashion at the
beginning of the Regency period. His coat is older in style, since presumably he doesn't often go to have a brand new coat
hand-tailored for him according to the latest fashion. "Tulip Fever" brings us
to Amsterdam in 1634, and if you haven't heard of
this film, I don't blame you. It is not a film I would have
watched, let alone twice, if I hadn't heard such amazing
things about the clothes. And indeed on that front,
it did not disappoint. Right from the start, we, again, are greeted with what in all appearances looks to be a beautifully
hand-felled hem on that linen cap, and the theme of
glorious, fine felled hems continues right the way through to the copious amounts of ruffs. It is my understanding that
designer Michael O'Connor worked with lots of costume
makers who originally worked in original practice
at Shakespeare's Globe, so it is not the remotest surprise that especially in the small linen bits, the ruffs, caps, and cuffs specifically, are really exquisitely done. But back to ruffs. They went really hard with
the ruff game in this film, which is supremely appropriate considering the, particularly
Dutch, early 17th century went extremely hard with ruffs. Wide ruffs, thick ruffs, ruffs folded into all sorts
of intricate patterns, all of which were recreated impeccably in wondrous variety in the design. There is clearly incredible skill amongst the makers of the clothes here, because it takes some
seriously practiced ruff work to recreate the fold pattern
for something like this with only the help of portraiture. Also, it's a little vague here, but it really looks as
if the folds of this ruff are held together with
little straight pins, which is such a small intricacy of how these things actually worked that I'm pretty sure you have to have actually read Janet Arnold, at least, if not delved into the murky depths of primary account records yourself in order to find this stuff out. So, ok, you have won my trust. I'm always particularly biased towards 17th century things because, especially early 17th
century through Restoration are such under-represented periods, probably because, like the 1830s, it's a bit of a weird
one to our modern eye. Far from the delicate
floofy gowns of the Regency or the hourglass silhouettes
in the later Victorian eras, the early 17th century sees, well apart from the sheer in-your-faceness of ruffs in general, raised waistlines,
extremely deep-set armscyes, and just generally really large gowns. But, we also get to see
such glorious eye-snacks as beautiful hand-worked lace,
and I'm not going to lie, I definitely spent a
substantial part of this film wondering where on earth the design team got so much gorgeous lace, because truly authentic-looking lace is extremely difficult to find nowadays, and takes it ages to hand-make, and inaccurate lace is
one of the easiest things to just pull you straight
out of the period altogether. Once again, there were a few numbers here that directly point to actual
surviving extant garments, such as this pair of smooth covered stays in the Darmstadt museum in Germany. Basically, again, everyone in this film looks as if they've literally just stepped out of a Frans Hals portrait, which is probably a good thing, considering that portraiture is a central element of the plot. Number five on my list
is a little bit cheating, because it's technically not a film, but a filmed version of a play, and that is the 2012 production of "Twelfth Night" at Shakespeare's Globe. This is designed by dress historian slash costume
designer Jenny Tiramani, back when the Globe was a sort of experimental archeology project where they attempted to
recreate Shakespeare's plays as they would've been done, potentially, during his lifetime, which I
don't think they do anymore. But all of the clothes in this play are completely handsewn
using late 16th century and early 17th century sewing methods, actual dress patterns
and drafting techniques from the period, all natural fiber materials to the point where the silk velvet for Olivia's gown was literally hand woven. The ruffs were starched
and set every night, every detail down to the buttons had to be verifiably present in history on or before the year in which the play was originally staged. I couldn't not mention this one because, if you're looking for
historical representations, I'm of the belief that this is
maybe, potentially, arguably, the closest thing to historical accuracy represented in post-period
entertainment, like, ever. So as you may notice, all of the films and shows
I selected for this video were produced within the
last eight years or so. This is not a coincidence. In fact, I think this hugely signifies the increasingly
heightened public interest in period clothes, which means that there's more pressure on costume departments to get it right, and, of course, more attention is put into reproducing the actual history. Plus, it's getting increasingly difficult for films to get away with
frustrating inaccuracies, because audiences are getting smarter. I mean, look into the comments
section of any YouTube video trying to spread misinformation on Victorian corsets nowadays, or, Janet Arnold forbid, try to use the word corset to mean stays. Well done, friends. This brings me immense
hope for the future. Audiences have the opportunity
to actually learn stuff while watching period films, and to develop their own unique
appreciation for old styles, instead of just being continually gaslit into believing that there is
only one true beauty aesthetic and that we are physically incapable of appreciating anything that we don't already see every day. No. Believe it or not, the demographic of people
who watch period films tend to do so because we like to explore life in previous times. Shocker. Speaking of those of us who enjoy period and educational entertainment, this video has very kindly been
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endeavor to recreate life in a 1900 fishing village, "Savile Row," a three-part miniseries on London's iconic tailoring district, and what I know is already
a favorite amongst you lot, "A Stitch in Time," the
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practiced reconstruction of a selection of portraits
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the top of my own watch list. If you are interested in having a browse, you can try Acorn TV free for 30 days by going to acorn.tv and
using promo code bernadette, or visiting the description box below. Happy watching! Anyway, thank you for
joining me on what was admittedly just an excuse for me to fangirl extensively over old clothes under the guise of analysis, but honestly, that's
just this entire channel. (horn honking) Are we quite finished? (siren blaring)
I’m so glad she mentioned Emma! I thought it was the most beautifully costumed film I’ve ever seen!
I’m so excited to watch this video 😍