Upon my word truly splendid to see you here today. Today we're here to talk about the new Emma movie I was pretty excited about it I saw the trailer and I saw that it's kind of a fresh take on Austin who is kind of the author that people they prefer to do it the traditional way because we all know our Austin expectations and we don't really like Experiments or new stuff when it comes to Regency ehre period dramas especially Austin adaptation I was pretty excited to see something new being done to it I myself and I kind of a person that loves to Contradict the supposed strictness of previous eras with you know comedy and weird stuff I was excited and I was not disappointed. But today we're not really talking about that. We're talking about costumes Silhouette is crucial when it comes to creating a historical look silhouette and the fit of the clothing is so Important and so many period dramas don't get that right because it's a difficult thing to do a lot of period dramas have beautiful thought-through costumes but Somewhere between the designs and thirst fittings and the set this silhouette kind of gets lost I don't know if it's the matter of the person putting the costumes on or But designs are bad or bad notes given on on putting on the costume But sometimes this little bit just isn't there and no matter how good the costume is if just do it it's a bit off if it doesn't work for the period that the film is set in it can be a bit unsettling on the Other hand if you get the silhouette right people will be okay with you Experimenting with clothing. So let's say in the favorite We have the right silhouette and the right cuts but modern fabrics and modern color palettes costumes in Emma Had a wonderful silhouette you could tell that the skirts were exactly the one thing we're supposed to be The busts were properly pushed up and the waistline was in the right place Which is not where the waist is one of my pet peeves with Regency or up here in dramas is that these feathers are going crazy. Come on don't steal The spotlight is that the waistline is often higher at the front and then go slower at the back in Emma All of the waist lines were so delightfully Even if anything, maybe the waist lights were actually too even because if you look at fashion plates from 1815 Which is where when the film is supposed to take place Centre front is the highest point of the waistline and then the sides go a little bit lower when I go through the male fashion and male Silhouettes the pants were not as tight as they were supposed to be and I'm not saying that because I like the actors Okay the pants should be a bit tighter and I feel like a lot of the Silhouette was a little bit nice like the vest could have been fitting more the suits could have been tighter as well but then they had delightfully high and starched and stiff colors that I Just as they're supposed to be Paired drama set in the Regency era often tend to go for a super toned down Palette sort of what I'm wearing today mainly because we don't like vibrant colors in Period dramas because we feel like they're not historically accurate obviously some of the shades some of the pigments were not available yet But generally speaking clothes were a lot more colorful that we make them out to be if you choose to go for the moat toned down palette is Okay those colors existed too But there's so much more to explore and I'm not saying that They went for super vibrant colors because a lot of the dresses in the movie were actually white or off-white Or light pink or cream but it still explored some more options I feel and some more exciting options as well So Emma's color palette is pasta, but sometimes quite bold For example her her signature yellow Polly police police police police So the color palette managed to show us what the period looks like But at the same time it was fitting with the director's vision So it fits with everything that happens in the frame all of the paint the streets all of the wallpapers Furniture it usually plays along in some way And if it doesn't then it's it's done on purpose to show a contrast between the surroundings and the person I think the colour Sorry, I think the colour played beautifully in the film It was a really powerful tool and at the same time it played nicely with the Regency era fashion Which are more vibrant than we think and a lot of the excellent dresses that we look at are obviously faded in some bleach So those colors would have been would have been much more vibrant when they were worn What you can't see on fashion place and what comes to life in a movie very nicely as all the Textures how many different textures were involved in making a Regency era out of it? You had smooth rich silks or freely mash Any sets Shem sets is this thing picking through the dress to cover your neckline, by the way? You had flowy Muslims see through Gauss's soft feathers shiny leather gloves stiff butter and Cotton's there was so much going on in a single outfit and it all comes together and it makes It so much more real because you know what those things feel like when you touch them so when you look at an outfit that is so Textured you can immerse yourself more in the story because you know what? They are trying to say to you like this thing is soft or this is very structured and cold it Just makes it a much more immersive experience when there is a lot of textures involved Speaking of fabrics one of the ways of displaying your wealth in the 19th century and first centuries before that was by Showing off your fabric fabric itself was incredibly expensive That's why people didn't own a lot of clothes, but the good ones were so good It's unreal in the Regency era they were all handmade and hand Open and because of that they were so delicate and luscious and flowy. It's impossible to achieve by modern technology It's just unreal that is why I really appreciate that in Emma A lot of the fabrics are gorgeous and you can tell they spent a lot of time looking for the right ones Sometimes it's really crucial What kind of fabric you use for? What garment like if you use a wolf or a police? Let's say like the one that M is wearing the yellow one If you used a wool, that is too thick the pleats on the back would be completely ruined it wouldn't work It would be too bulky and to I don't know just heavy so never underestimate the choice of fabric especially in a historical costume The main purpose of Movie costumes is telling the story And in a period drama if it was only about getting the period right you could easily just borrow You know any dress that you can find from Particular period in a rental and your biggest worry would be whether or not it's gonna fit the actresses But we know it doesn't work like that every movie costume designer should analyze this story and work closely with the director To make sure the costumes are enhancing this story They're helping the director tell the story and here we have just that the story revolves around a young independent Confident woman handsome clever and rich and that's what the costumes are. They're rich. They're complicated Multi-layered and well fitted you could even say they're perfect and that's it So well with the whole motive of perfection We see throughout the movie and the adjective that is given to Emma at some point of the movie Costumes also play a massive role in creating the characters after all the first thing we see when a new character Enters the frame and an apparent Donna it's not so easy for us to decipher social differences and personal touches in clothing So it has to be really really precise and clear to the viewer. The costumes has to give us this message very clearly so we pick up on all the hints because most of the characters in Emma are Wearing quite fashionable clothes like no one is a decade behind and the silhouette does not differ that much It's not mainly by differences in the fabrics the colours and the decoration note how plain Harriet's or Jane's clothes are Compared to the ones worn by Emma and Harriet costumes also evolved through time She started quite plain and then gets more and more fashionable up to the point where she kind of looks like a copy of Emma Sometimes characters are established through costume by the contrast of different styles and often words Well tailored garments that are decorated in self fabric trimmings and that kind of makes them look Simple but effective on the other hand. We have the fabulously over-the-top mrs Elton but seems to be wearing more French fashions with and irritants and have your Decoration so their costumes compared to what Emma wears look kind of silly and seem to be too much But we only know that because emma is established as the more clever and sophisticated One so costumes help create the characters but the characters also help us understand the costumes which in a period drama were a Regular viewer is probably not a Regency era fashion scholar It's quite important to get that right to get the message clear They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and with Emma that's certainly true because a lot of the looks are almost direct copies of original dresses or Fashion plates or paintings copying nineteenth-century garments makes it even more authentic Sometimes not only dresses but the whole book is copied like the black dressed up and the worst when her sister visits, it's almost a direct copy of an 1819 Austrian portrait and even the infamous Fireplace scene was directly inspired by a Regency or a caricature These are some lovely touches that make the movie even more grounded in the iran It's portraying but it doesn't mean that the costumes are just some random copies of pretty dresses They most likely have been carefully selected from like thousands of fashion plates and paintings If you ever wondered why people back then needed maids and butlers to help them get dressed up it's because there was so many layers involved a typical young lady's outfit would consist of a shamisen a pair of stockings a pair of Stacy's Chevy sets petticoats Before an actual dress was put on a dress which sometimes consisted of more than one layer That's why you just can't achieve the the right look without all these layers how else would you get this carrots to be so Deliciously flowy and and the bust to be so high in Emma The layers of outfits are often suggested by flash of a petticoat or an underlayer peeking through sometimes Caps peeking out from under the bonnet even overshoes de and that takes off at some point in the movie They reveal another pair of shoes underneath It was also the norm among the rich to change a couple of times a day depending on the activity and dressing or changing clothes is the Topic that appears in the movie quite often and it allows us to have a peek Into all these layers and to understand the looks are much more complicated than it seems and it allows us to understand how ceremonial life was back then the movie allowed a couple of mistakes into those ceremonials though such as revealing necklines during the day or Covering them up at the evening, which is not really something you would do it was clear That one was for today and the other one the other look was for the evening So it was usually done by characters whose personality could explain doing that? A good period drama costume isn't just a dress or a suit something that we often forget nowadays Is that the clothing in the 19th century? Was sort of your business cards you could use it to accentuate your social position So one way in which you could express how much money thought and work went into your outfit was Through the accessories as you can see when I look today Regency ladies love their accessories and they kind of excelled in this they could wear so many things at the same time Seamus adds gloves I'm wearing an outdoor outfit right now, which is why I'm wearing gloves and an opponent but anyway you could were settled early a heavily decorated bonnet knit gloves and expensive cashmere shawls and elegant veil a cap of fine lace and embroidered chamois said Practical galoshes a silk parasol all these things could improve an outfit and in the Regency era The less is more rule didn't really apply to anything in mother cinema we often tend to go for the modern aesthetic and we don't really appreciate the Accessories creating the look because it looks ridiculous at some point. There is just so much going on by modern standards We underestimate the power of accessories when creating a historical law when it comes to Emma I have to say that the accessories were one of the only pieces of costume in the movie that made me raise my eyebrow a couple times mainly when it comes to strange neck were the odds Lonely neck wrapped up mrs Elton wore and it looks like it was missing a chamois set and the one that Emma wore a strange to punky sort of neck corset In the early 19th century There was a lot happening on ladies heads because complicated elaborated hairstyles meant that you could afford and made To get it done for you I also appreciated that the director was not afraid of curse because a lot of pure dramas sets in the Regency era tend to shy away from curls and Pretend curls didn't exist mainly because they seemed unsexy by modern standards It just doesn't look hot enough, but the majority of women in the early 19th century cut the front of their hair short especially so they could curl it and wear it sort of like this and if Look at the designs of hairstyles from time or the actual portraits of women in the 1810 There is some hairstyles without the crazy curly sides But it's usually an exception so Emma was very Truthful in that aspect as almost all the female characters had curls on the sides of their faces I have to say though Emma's curls were really odd. They were going for the rocker Look as we see in one of the scenes Fleur and my swearing rep calls in in her hair but it's not nearly enough rags for that type of look and that many tight curls and also I tried Achieving that look by using rack curls and it doesn't work like that at all According to the hair designer for the movie. It was a conscious decision to modernize to look a bit to me it was obvious that a modern curling IRA most used, but then I'm also You know used to curling my hair in a Regency way, and I know the results so for me It was obvious that it's not what would happen in the 1815 because the rest of the look was so immersed in history the hair did take me out of the story of it because all I could think about was how the very ends of Emma's curls are straight because you can't put them inside the curling iron as you Do it. That being said I am still impressed that they went for some intense curl action And they didn't go for 90s style lose Beach waves or lose hair at all and it is true that the look invented by the hair designer is quite unique and Maybe in the future it will be known as the Emma look mrs Elton's hair was a bit an acoustic mainly because it featured an Apollo knot which was this weird stiff thingy on the top of her head and that was popular from 1820s to mid 1830 but it's an Anachronism that establishes her character as fashion-forward and also a little bit ridiculous and its contrasts with other characters very well overall I really appreciate the efforts of making the hairstyles moderately historically accurate and not being afraid of Experimenting when it comes to looks that are at nowadays could be considered strange a weren't afraid to make actresses look lame Which is something I really appreciate Sonia costuming a period drama is a difficult job and a lot of thought goes into it which is also why it's sometimes so disappointing learn good story gives a really good opportunity for gorgeous historical costumes and that Opportunities wasted luckily for us Emma wasn't that story? so Excuse me While I go and create a new set of Regency wardrobe for myself because I want to look handsome clever and rich peace out
A really great video!
Great video! I love her outfit and the whole thing is just so well thought-out and researched. Very informative. Would really like to see more of these!
I also enjoyed her “peace out” at the end.