- Hello, my darling Moscow Mules. My name is Mina, welcome back. Today I'm really excited because I haven't done a costume design
review on a historical drama in a very, very long time and that's exactly what
we're gonna be doing today. Today we're gonna be covering The Great, which is a Hulu TV show starring Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult, and for those of you who don't know, The Great was created and
written by Tony McNamara, who was also one of the
screenwriters for The Favorite, which is one of my favorite period dramas of all time, if you haven't watched The
Favorite, I highly recommend it. I think it's just so fun,
so silly, so awkward. It's basically like a parodic, is that even how you pronounce it? Parody, parodic, parodic? You get what I mean. It's a satirical representation of Queen Anne's reign in England. - Who did your make up? - We went for something
dramatic, do you like it? - You look like a badger. - Oh. - Fun fact, the director
Yorgos Lanthimos hired Tony for The Favorite after reading
his script for The Great. So there's a lot of crossover in style and the thing I really
love about The Favorite and by extension, The Great is that I feel like the movie just
makes fun of period dramas. (upbeat music) What I also really love about The Great is that it does such a
good job blending silliness with the dark and disturbing
because history is both, like history is both silly and disturbing. There's a scene in the first season when Peter the third decides
that the most efficient way to find out who was trying to kill him is to torture every member of the court. - And then a kind of mental torture. They walk in a small circle, knowing a brick will drop
on them at some point, and they can save
themselves by confessing. - I feel like if it
was in Game of Thrones, that's not historical drama,
but you know what I mean, like if it was any kind of
period drama production, this scene would just be really horrific. It would be really brutal. It would probably make me want to throw up and I'm not gonna lie, the fingernail pulling
station did make me cringe, but I feel like the
sequence is just making such a total mockery of the
ruling class at the time period and it's just so chaotic that it ends up being funny. I don't know how to explain it, like I think you'll just have to watch it. - Remember, think of our glorious future and not the searing pain in your balls. (shoes click) - I thought the word
searing was uncalled for. - The show is extremely vulgar. It's all about excess, not just in the opulence of the set design and costume design, but also
in the amount of cursing, the amount of sex, the amount of just throwing
glasses on the floor. It's fantastic. Okay, for this video, I'm gonna cover both
season one and season two, because I haven't talked
about the show before and season two was just released so I can't just not talk about season two. (upbeat music) If you're unfamiliar
with Catherine the Great, you'll still be unfamiliar
after watching this show. The Great is not an accurate
depiction of her life. The show actually has the tagline "an occasionally true story". I think that's hilarious because
a lot of biopics out there are actually very inaccurate, House of Gucci, but the creators and the writers are just not transparent about it so just seeing this
display of transparency is just very refreshing. - And off please. (clapping) - It is brilliant Katya Velcra. - There are a few glaring inaccuracies that I do want to address just because they're big inaccuracies. For one, Peter the third is
Peter the Great's grandson, not his direct son. This may come as a shock,
but Peter the third, his dad was Peter the second, and if you didn't know, Peter
The Great is Peter the first. Peter the third's aunt Elizabeth, also known as Elisaveta
is actually not alive during his reign. She was the ruling monarch prior to him and he ascends to the
throne when she dies, so she doesn't play this
maternal advisory role that she plays in the show because she's dead. At the end of the first season, one year into being Russian,
Catherine stages a coup, and this is also inaccurate because Catherine came to Russia in 1744, and then she married Peter
the third a year later, and it was 17 years of marriage before she decided to take over, and this is because Elizabeth was still reigning monarch at the time. Peter was only monarch
for about six months so Catherine was not quite young and spry when she took the crown
as she is in the show. So The Great, I would say, is more like Catherine the Great,
alternative universe fanfiction. Therefore I don't really care
about historical accuracy. I'm not going to go into
the series nitpicking because I just don't see a point in that. What I do see fun instead is
just looking at the details they decided to include. Season one's costume
designer was Emma Fryer and for Catherine's wardrobe, she mixed high fashion
designers like Versace, Alexander McQueen, and Dior with mid 18th century
historical silhouettes. The series begins with
Catherine being married off to Peter the third in Russia. She starts off the series as a
very romantic idealistic girl with hopes of a beautiful
and happy Disney marriage, only to quickly learn that Peter
is a shallow immature brute who could not make any woman happy, except for maybe in a certain department. - Do the thing with the tongue. - [Mina] Catherine wears
these soft pastel colors to emphasize her youth and innocence. Emma also purposely designed her dresses to look more streamlined
and less elaborate than the rest of the Russian court. Her pan yeas are reminiscent more so of the 1947 Dior Bar suit, when in actuality, given her status, they should be pretty fricking wide. Emma said in an interview, "She's definitely not part
of this kind of mad court. It's a crazy place that she landed in and it's bold and anarchic, and she's not part of that world. She definitely does stand out
from the rest of the palace. They're very much in jewel
tones and winter fruit colors, dark wine reds, gold,
silver, black, burgundy, aubergines, rust." Compared to the other court ladies, Catherine wears minimal
makeup, no mouches, no towering wigs. All of this emphasizes
how out of place she is, but also I think represents
her down to earth nature and her authenticity. In the middle of season one, Catherine gets a lover named Leo. Leo is this very charming, sweet, golden retriever sort of dude, the exact opposite of the
annoying and malicious Peter, and he's Catherine's
first love in the show. Leo is also very cottagecore, I would say. He has this love for nature, which has shown via the tree
that he puts in his quarters and the fruits he's
constantly gifting Catherine. They also spend a lot of
time outdoors together so it makes sense that in the
height of their love affair, Catherine and Leo are dressed
similarly to each other in shades of green. As the season progresses, specifically around
episodes seven and eight, her color palette skews
darker and stronger with a more jewel toned Russian energy to show how she's acclimating
into her newfound goal of being monarch. In the end, Catherine wears a gorgeously anachronistic magenta gown, similar to the one that
Marie Antoinette wears in the 2006 Sofia Coppola movie. Emma says, "That huge
splash of color was an ode to what she can do. It gives the audience a
sense of her greatness." I also love the moment when
she cuts open the dress of the stomach during the coup, and this is when Peter has realized that she is orchestrating the coup, so she does this to protect her own life, and I think it's just
so manipulative, and so, dare I say, girl boss, 18th
century style girl boss of her to use the fact that
she's carrying his heir to prevent him from killing her. I also noticed that Catherine
is an outfit repeater, which I personally don't
have a problem with, but I don't think that
would have been the case in real life. I mean, it is historically
accurate that she came to Russia in only a few dresses,
but as a royal lady, she would just be on constant rotation with newer and different dresses because fashion was how a lot of these rich people displayed their power. The real Catherine wrote
this in her memoirs, "At public balls, I usually
changed costume three times. My jewelry was always very fine, and if the costume I wore
attracted everyone's praise, I was sure never to wear it
again because I had a rule that if it had made a big impression once, it could only make a
smaller one the next time." Catherine the Great understood
the power of clothing, and that's something I'll
expand on a little bit later, but that's also something I wish they would have incorporated
more in the show because the gist that I
got from watching the show is that Catherine didn't really
care too much about style. She was more focused on important matters like politics and philosophy. - It doesn't matter how
I look, just what I do. (laughing) - But fashion carried a lot of
political messages back then, and if you were the Empress or at least a member of the Royal family, you would utilize that and
take it very seriously. - If you've dress well, no
one notices what you do, just what you wear. - Voltaire said that. - He did not. - Maybe I said it then. - [Mina] As for Peter, Emma said, "It was a real world of
mismatching with him, but mismatching I hope in an
interesting and wonderful way. I chose these really fantastic linings that had a sense animal print and then his britches were
always either gold or bronze." Peter is opulent, he's
powerful, he's strong, and he's a rebellious child all in one. Emma also described him as
looking kind of punk rock, which I think was a great decision because he's really just
all about bending the rules to his own will, throwing parties, and just doing whatever he
wants whenever he wants, including having sex with
his best friend's wife. - Grigor and I love each other. This morning I ate a fig
out of his wife's (beep) and here we are. - What? - [Meme Voiceover] They
ask you how you are and you just have to say that you're fine when you're not really fine, but you just can't get into it because they would never understand. - [Mina] It makes sense for him
to dress kind of chaotically because he doesn't care
what anyone thinks, and he's also a spontaneous
man who doesn't think, period. The furs, animal prints,
and gold also makes sense because those are expensive materials and Peter would definitely
want to only wear the best and the most expensive. I actually hated Peter in
the first couple of episodes and I'm sure everyone else did too, but I hated Peter so much
that I couldn't actually watch the show in completion
the first time it aired. I stopped after two episodes. I was like, I really just
can't deal with this guy. He's ruining the show for me. So it really pains me to say that after giving the series another shot, he grew on me quite a lot. I think the writers were working over time with this redemption
arc, and unfortunately, after his himbo
transformation was complete by the end of season two, I admit that he is now one
of my favorite characters in the show. - My kung fu master is teaching me to hone my senses and perceptions. I lose my sight, but feel the trajectory through a sixth sense. - There is a moment in the first season when Peter and Catherine meet
the Swedish king and queen and he cleans up, he
looks more put together with the wig and the regalia
to make a strong impression, and he's also matching a bit
with Catherine in color palette and in their fur coats to show how they're working together now. Emma Fryer is really
about having characters wear corresponding outfits
to show them unifying because also in episode seven, when Peter's bending
more to Catherine's will with the whole science thing, he's wearing a lighter
color palette to show how he's trying to connect with her. Peter also sometimes wears
his mother's necklace. - [Catherine] Is that
your mother's necklace? - Yes. I wear it sometimes to feel close. - [Mina] Emma said, "Because
the mom is in the cabinet, he always goes back to his
mommy to ask her for advice. McNamara and I often had chats, Ooh, should we wear the pearls? Would it be right for
it in the scene though? Peter didn't wear them that much, but it was more for an occasion." I kind of wish he wore them
more often in the series because after he said that line, I interpreted these pearls to be sort of like a security blanket, and there were definitely
moments in season one where I felt like him wearing the pearls could have given a better representation of how he was inwardly feeling. Like for instance, when
he's at the banquet following the torture session, you can tell he's feeling a little guilty about literally torturing
all of his friends, and I think it would
have been a nice touch to have the pearls. As for the other characters, the only one I really want to
talk about is Aunt Elizabeth. I loved the way she was dressed. Her fabrics and patterns were
bolder and more eclectic, and she also wore a lot
of fun shaped mouches, all to reflect her eccentric
and strange personality. Aunt Elizabeth is very,
very sweet in the show. She's very loyal to Peter and Catherine. She's like the fun aunt who is not married and just like sleeps
around and is super rich and goes off to Paris and
brings you back nice presents. Like that's the kind of aunt she is. She also doesn't seem to really care about how people perceive her, and that could not be
further from the truth. After Elisaveta's death, Peter
the second actually found 15,000 of her dresses, "some worn
only once, some never worn, two trunks of silk
stockings, ribbons, shoes, and slippers of several
thousand pairs, and so on, and more than a hundred uncut bolts of rich French fabric." Where was Marie Kondo in the 18th century? Elisaveta was also very into gate keeping her style and hairdos. She always had to be the
best dressed at any function she turned up to. Catherine even wrote in her memoirs, "At court balls that the
public did not attend, I dressed as simply as I could, and so I paid my respects to the Empress, who did not much like anyone
to appear overdressed." I will say though, I think her costumes
overall were very well done because she's very embellished,
implying that she clearly at least cares about fashion. Aunt Elizabeth also is sometimes
dressed more masculine. I loved this decision because
Elisaveta in real life often threw cross
dressing masquerade balls so men were expected
to wear women's clothes and women were expected
to wear men's clothes. Apparently between you and me, the reason for these costuming balls was because Elisaveta felt like she had the best looking legs
compared to other women, and she wanted to show
them off in breeches. (dramatic music) So season two starts out
with the coup still ongoing, but Peter is slowly losing the battle and Catherine is becoming
more and more pregnant. This season is all about
Catherine and Peter's love and how it evolves despite the turbulence. We also got a little
Gillian Anderson peppered in which I'm not gonna lie is
the reason I gave The Great a second chance to begin with. The Great also has a new costume designer for this season, Sharon Long, who like Emma Fryer relied a
lot on historical references, as well as contemporary
designers like nineties era Christian LaCroix, Cecilie
Bahnsen, and Simone Rocha. Let's talk about the coronation outfit. Against her best friend Mariel's guidance, Catherine decides to
wear a Russian sarafan. - It is bold and very Russian. - It's both those
attributes be it's problem. It's what our grandmothers used to wear before they were beaten to death for wearing something so ugly. - [Mina] The sarafan is a
type of traditional costume introduced around the 13th century, and consists of a loose long jumper dress that is normally worn over
a linen shirt and is belted. I think they did a pretty good
job designing it in the show. Catherine looks beautiful. It's definitely a more opulent version than the ones I've seen
in historical photos, and I can definitely see the
Christian LaCroix influence, but the elements are all there. Technically because Catherine is married, she should also be wearing a fata, which is a white muslin veil
with silk floral designs and golden embroidery,
but we'll let it slide because we know how period dramas love anachronistic hairstyles. I am looking at you Pride and Prejudice. The braid style looks
inspired by this portrait of the Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna, but little miss Alexandra
was unmarried so that's why. Also while we're on the
topic of historical accuracy, in real life, Catherine wore
a very French coronation gown, but I liked that they
took creative liberties with the sarafan because
what is historically accurate is that Catherine the Great re-introduced traditional Russian dress into the courts, reversing Peter the Greats instated, French inspired dress code, and I think putting her in a sarafan here is the easiest and most
visual way to acknowledge this part of her historical legacy. I also like how they added into the script Mariel kind of tutting
Catherine being like, this is not trendy anymore. - You do not understand. To our eyes, this is a joke. - And then showing the
little girls being like, oh, Catherine, you look so beautiful because obviously they have no memories of what their great
grandparents were wearing. - You liked what I wore at the coronation? - You looked stunning. - From a modern perspective, I think traditional Russian
dress is so gorgeous, but it's kind of funny to note that like back then when Catherine was in power, it was probably considered
to be like a vintage look and not everyone understood it. Because Catherine is pregnant this season, all her dresses are maternity dresses. Well, I guess they wouldn't
be called maternity dresses because maternity wear didn't
really exist in the way that we understand it today,
but you get what I mean. I mean, the dresses had to accommodate Elle's prosthetic baby bump. Sharon Long mentioned that
designing these dresses was quite a struggle. She didn't build up the
sides of the skirts too much because she was already
building up the front and didn't want Elle
Fanning walking around like a massive balloon. She also said that they did experiment with some of the historically
accurate looser silhouettes of the time period, but that they didn't
translate too well on camera. I understand this struggle, which is why I don't really ever feel like judging maternity dresses in period dramas because first of all,
there's not a lot of research about maternity wear
from this time period. Most pregnant women of the time just had their gowns altered
to contain the bump, and when they were not pregnant anymore, they had their gowns re-altered back so there's not a lot of
surviving maternity garments. For instance, the robe a la francaise was worn with a stomacher at the front, and if a woman was pregnant, she could just replace the
stomacher with a wider one. Around episodes seven and eight, Sharon said Catherine
was at her most pregnant, and so she let go of trying
to preserve the waist in any way. She ended up using softer fabrics and referring to contemporary fashion like early 1960s Balenciaga. I don't actually know if
Elle Fanning wore stays for the entire season because I do know that Sharon Long said it was really hard to have the stays over the prosthetic bump
because spoiler alert, Elle Fanning was not actually pregnant so when she moved, it was like the stays and the bump would kind of move and it just looked bad, so I don't know if they
found a solution for that, but I do appreciate in episode three, them showing Catherine
wearing maternity stays. These are stays that
had lacing on the side so that they could easily be adjusted to accommodate the growing bump. Catherine honestly looks
hilarious here, I love it. Definitely not accurate for her to be just in her underclothes and a banyan, which I don't even know if
I pronounce that correctly, but it's a dressing gown
and it was inspired by the Japanese kimono and they
actually existed at that time. So it's not accurate for her to be just prancing around the palace,
basically wearing nothing, especially in front of men, and she's also wearing drawers here, which most women didn't
adopt until the 19th century, but other than that,
I'm honestly all for it. I think she looks so funny. It definitely gives her a
more contemporary flare, like she's wearing a bra and pajama pants. As for color Catherine
sticks with her pastels and shades of blue. I noticed she wears warmer colors like shades of yellow and pink when she's more in love with Peter. - Such a joy to meet you for when this angel slipped
from between your legs into the world was the
happiest of days for me. - [Mina] You can see the
use of color symbolism very clearly in this scene. She's wearing a yellow dress
and feeling sympathetic to Peter, deciding to allow
him to hunt for truffles, despite his orders to
stay under house arrest. But then Peter says something dumb that sets her off, and so. - For instance, he had a
proclivity for peaches and sonnets, but not knives and bloodshed
and now he is dead, and not saying it's his fault, but being a meritous lobcock
didn't help him did it? - She puts on this darker
dustier purple robe, and we don't see the yellow
dress underneath again for the rest of the episode. The one thing that I wish
they included more of, especially now that she's
the monarch is jewelry. In real life, Catherine
wore earrings and necklaces with Russian folkloric designs on them. It was really important
for her to imbue herself with a Russian imagery
to prove to everyone that she is Russian and her
jewelry also represented her imperial power post-coup. Costume designer for the
Catherine The Great HBO show, Maja Meschede said, "Russian
jewelry of the period, when compared to the
French or Germanic jewelry of the same time is much more,
I guess the word is "blingy." It was larger than life,
the diamonds were huge, and dresses of the time, the wider the petticoat of your dress, the wealthier and more
powerful you were thought to be is the same with diamonds." I mean, look at the necklaces
Catherine is wearing in every portrait and there are always
extra jewels in her hair. As for Peter, he's now
unemployed, unemployed king. We love it, honestly,
sorry, Peter kind of won. He really said I do not dream of labor. - I don't want to be emperor. - Where does that leave us? ("Party Rock Anthem" plays) - [Mina] This relaxation
is totally evident by how often we see him
wearing underclothes or just very simple shirts and breeches. He's no longer fully decked out because he's living a life
of leisure and comfort now. Sharon also said for inspiration, "There's a brilliant seventies
photograph of Cat Stevens in what looks like metallic gold jeans, which we've got on Nick
and a fur colored coat. So we mix the seventies
references of those rockstar furry collared coats,
with a couple of images of original coats at the time. Nick just loved all the fur." Sharon also used textile patterns to represent Peter's hobbies and interests because that's all he
has going for him now. - I also study French, Kung
Fu, theology, astronomy, and have lately invented many condiments containing a whipped egg
yolks with mustard and lemon. - In episode one, he wears
a fur trim tapestry coat that has dead pheasants on them to depict his love of hunting. I think the last time we see
him wearing his mother's pearls is when Catherine locks him in his rooms with his mother's corpse and
he's kind of hallucinating and freaking out. Peter's development arc this season is him kind of letting go of his parents and recognizing how abusive they were. - My parents did not
like me much, did they? - Fuck 'em. - So I thought it was a
good symbolic choice for him shedding the pearls and hopefully they don't
come back in season three, if there's a season three. Though, they are very fabulous. Sharon also experimented with more frills and soft fabrics like chiffon. She still maintained his darker palette so that has looked balanced the
masculine with the feminine. My favorite costumes this season are the ones made for the baby shower. The guests are all dressed in French opera inspired costumes. Peter's still got some animal print on, but it's a paler brighter palette. He's wearing panyes. This part is so, so fun. As for the other characters, I think Sharon did a good job keeping up with Elizabeth eccentricism. Mariel, Catherine's former
maid, finally got some nice clothes when she's upgraded
to being a lady again. I did notice this very small detail where she wears a ribbon
choker pretty consistently, and the only other character
that wears them a lot is Georgina, Mariel's archnemesis. Georgina is partially
exiled during the season, so her husband Grigor
is free from her grasp and hooks up with Mariel
kind of immediately once she leaves. So Mariel's back to being Queen B, especially being the emphasis BFFL so her adopting the
choker is a nice touch. I will say that the
Grigor and Mariel romance felt really random to me. I wasn't a fan. I felt like it was just
a convenient decision for them to just say, okay, let's have the best friends get together to make things a little
bit more complicated, to make allegiances a
little bit more complicated. - Yes why would you? Because you wouldn't be
that dumb, and if you did, she would have to kill him, and then I would have to kill you. All in all, I think there'll
would be a lot of killing. - But I didn't really
see a lot of chemistry between the actors, and they did try to push
for this old backstory back when Mariel was a noblewoman, but they didn't interact like
at all during season one, so I could tell that they just decided to do that for season
two, and I don't know, I feel like if you're gonna set up this historical backstory, you should have at least
alluded to it early on, like in season one. Elle and Nick though,
perfect chemistry as usual, super dynamic on screen together. I'm sad to say I ship Peter and Catherine. I do. - Although in a sense, she is right. I am her prisoner for I
am trapped by her love. (laughing) - I just love a girl boss
x himbo romance, okay? Let me live. Okay, that's all I have for today. Thank you so much for watching. Let me know in the comments
what you think about The Great. I'm interested to hear what
you all have to say about it because I found that half my
friends really liked the show and the other half were kind of like, nah. And do we think Peter will actually die or is Catherine and
Peter just gonna have a Hollywood lovey-dovey
fantasy happy ending rewrite? I'll see you all next time and I hope you have a
lovely rest of your day. Bye, bye (kisses)
Yes I love the extra recognition it’s getting, I mean I don’t know much about historical accuracy and the costumes are definitely influenced by modern silhouettes but they all look GORGEOUS
Oh man I love Mina Le’s videos, so awesome to see a crossover here. And I agree with the costumes!!
Peter’s metallic pants are chefs kiss