Vikings Costume Review (and Rant)

chris and all welcome back i'm jimmy and today we are doing something that i've wanted to do for a long old time i have a passion for historical costuming as you might have gathered by now and if you haven't gathered that by now then i need to make it more obvious than having lots of historical accessories behind me and doing videos almost exclusively about historical costuming but one of the big bug bears i have is bad historical costumes in tv shows and historical dramas and documentaries are rife with inaccuracies and some of them are forgivable if you're just going for a fairly fantastic pseudo-historical look then cool don't worry about it but if you are making a tv show and you claim that your costumes are as accurate and authentic as possible and they ain't be tied if i should find out and i have found out that this my friends has been happening under my very button nose today we're looking at vikings the tv show vikings is hugely popular i'm sure you've all heard of it most of you have probably seen at least one episode of it full disclosure i've only seen i think three episodes of the first series and after the costuming was horrendous the acknowledgement of the actual knowledge that the vikings had was really poor they thought that britain was some kind of mysterious mystical island that they'd never heard of when they definitely knew about it and one gratuitous sexual assault scene later i was done i've never watched it since and i probably never will unless somebody puts it on at a party i'm very tired and i'm just sat vegging out on the sofa after eating lots of pizza i don't want to watch it but people keep telling me that i should watch it just so i can rant at the costumes and right now i'm really stressed and something that will make me ranty isn't really what i need to relax so instead i have asked some people in the know to send me some pictures of some of the characters so i can pick some of their costume apart see what's bad see what's good see what could have been done better i've also got a few things to say about the design and let's start by saying that these costumes were designed by joanne bergen now bergen is also responsible for this travesty these are the costumes from the tv series the tudors and they're not good they don't have a period silhouette for a start we don't see the cod pieces we don't have big padded uh either trunk hoes or pumpkin britches depending on where you're from and for some reason they're all wearing riding boots indoors which is really not that fashionable in this period i don't really understand they don't have hats and they don't have any kind of tudor looking haircuts they don't look like tudors these people look like modern people in tudor like fantasy dress for a night out maybe a stag do this is what a tudor looks like this is an elizabethan tudor as well not a henrichian tudor from henry the eighth time this is somebody from the time of henry viii look how wide he is now bergen has claimed that she did an awful lot of research to design the costumes for vikings she said things like she had no real evidence of viking clothing in ireland she said that she had to go to scandinavia to learn how to do hand dyeing with natural dyes i forgive the slight shake right now i don't have something steady to hold the camera on with please bear with me i do apologize she claims that she was trying to get to what the vikings were really like she said that she didn't like that people had portrayed them as barbarians and uncivilized and that their clothing was quote couture now couture obviously fashionable designed in today's sense of the word is something that we can talk about with the vikings they had fashion tastes they had influences from other cultures they were very well made most of their clothes they dyed them different colors they used lots of advanced stitches and tailoring techniques like pleating and weaving and braiding topstitching and various seam treatments so yeah they were well-made clothes however well let's just take a look now i'm not going to start with ragnar because i believe that ragnar deserves his own little segment uh we're going to start with a character called rollo or rolo yeah he looks dumb um he's wearing this thin leather stuff that's not armor that looks like it kind of just looks like he's sewn like a load of pleather together to make a mini dress kind of gross um leather arm is not really something we've got evidence for for the vikings at all we have a piece of leather armor from the roman period but it doesn't look like this at all um i'm not sure what this represents totally ahistorical um nope pass black thing what is that is it a black bear no no if you're gonna dye something to look like fake fur then we have evidence for that we have evidence for them dying wool pink tufts of raw fleece and then weaving it into cloaks in fact my friend jane is making one and it's it's black and white striped and it looks incredible uh it looks so cool if i can find a picture of it to put in the video um then it will appear here or here um editing jimmy find a picture of jane weaving that stripy cloak it's awesome but if you're gonna make fake fur like use black and white stripes or dye it pink the original that we have is dyed pink it rubbed with the madder pigment and then woven into a cloth cloak so it looks like fur but it's not um this is definitely just fake fur isn't it this is just a big black fake fake fur blanket and the cloak clasps i mean what the hell are they supposed to be this isn't an opera it's not a victorian opera he doesn't unclasp his cloak and hand it to the attendant should have a whacking great penangular brooch or a pin of some kind um maybe even a saxon disc brooch if he's feeling that way inclined but certainly not these weird little claspy things i i don't know what they're meant to be based on they look elvish they look like something from a tolkien novel the boots are odd they're bad but they're odd i don't enjoy this uh i don't enjoy this man his axe is actually not a bad length but it's kind of between a hand axe and a either abroad or a danish axe depending on where you're from weird but yeah um it's not a cool look this black and form no fake fake fake looks super thick okay who's next horrick horrick okay um the silhouette isn't bad actually the tunic neck plunging down like that is quite feminine vikings showing their chest like this um was not fashionable showing your chest was very effeminate uh in this period especially amongst the anglo-saxons but we think in other germanic cultures and possibly the norse as well it looks kind of like a later norman tunic or even an earlier carolingian tunic which i could forgive um but yeah the plunging neckline no the cuffs look nice i suspect if we went a little closer they wouldn't be authentic looking weave or braid i know bergen said in an interview that she wanted to have lots of braid and lots of metallic thread to make things look um a little fancier just to show that kind of um that ability that ability to make good well-made fashionable clothing but what's with the women's brooches he's got he's got brooches that would normally be used to hang a string of beads on an apron dress that would make that would be very very bad look for him that would that would effectively be um cross-dressing which was something that a woman could divorce her husband for in the viking period in north society no no no animal skin he's got this big old animal skin yet they did line their cloak with fur we know that we found evidence of that marmot fur was found lining the mammon cloak um but just lumping a pelt on top of your cloak i'm not sure i'm not sure that's a good idea i mean it could be itchy it could be full of fleas bugs and stuff be very hot as well not convinced it's very long as well i mean here's an image of a man in a cloak and it's not as long as this for practical reasons if he's um involved in a ceremony maybe if it's a riding cloak later on yeah but as they wear and in this period no no knee length a little bit longer maybe but not trailing along the floor that's just stupid modern boots no no uh no his belt i've just noticed his belt that is massive what's with this it's like a weightlifting belt it's house why is he in that what is he a fur trapper is this set in quebec this series should be wearing a toque no saggy modern boots modern very modern looking trousers they look like they could just be cotton uh no stop yuck who forgot next uh apparently this next person is called jarl borg so if he's a yal before we open this file i will be expecting lots of jewelry silver especially a sign of wealth wearing silver as a sign of wealth because silver was what their money was made of i will expect maybe some silk cuffs or silk trim um bright colours lots of bright colours brightly dyed cloth was a sign of wealth because dying cloth using natural dyes by hand takes time it takes skill it takes lots of effort and work it takes potentially dangerous chemicals like ammonia and it's it's almost magic it's almost a magical process so it's a specialized craft so um heavily dyed clothing so i'm expecting bright colors i'm expecting a lovely tunic um some big baggy trousers maybe that kind of thing and probably i'm expecting it to be covered in i'm expecting to be covered in thor's hammers and jewelry and that kind of thing so here we go yarborg crotch flop [Laughter] oh man i keep looking at it it gets worse every time oh my god it's as bad as the legend said okay here is my penis gaze upon it oh my god oh my god okay whoa let's leave him for now and let's look at this guy next to him oh look at that dork hat it's a hat for dorks oh it's all got little bits of plastic on it no rough i feel sorry for the i feel sorry for the actor who got to wear this i feel sorry for the bg who had to wear this oh he looks so stupid in this look at what they've put you in my friend i'm so sorry they did not pay you enough for this oh god he's got the hagar the horrible things on his arm oh my goodness me i've never seen someone actually do that in a serious tv show those furry things on his arm editing jimmy zoom in zoom and enhance oh i thought that was a joke i thought that was just a joke i i didn't think people actually wore that when they were being vikings that's so bad that's so bad that's based on like victorian theater costumes for like wagnerian opera so bad oh my god let's move on um spearheads on your shield why so my main issue with this entire this entire shot here is everything looks fake that vam brace on well those van braces on their arms fake plasticky yuck uh this belt plastic trash looks like it looks fake nothing here looks like metal why are they topless why are they topless don't do that don't be topless it's cold that's a stupid stereotype for you there joe so let's move on to the actual y'all i assume this is yarborg in in the in the front here i genuinely i don't know i'm going into this cold like i say this is just me looking at costumes biker pants we're the penis cover so why this is trash this is absolute trash it's it looks like fake leather for a start it's really modern black leather doesn't look like it's been dyed or treated or tanned in a period way in any way because it hasn't sewn on really badly the the this looks like arseless chaps that a man who cannot sew has tried to sew a cod piece onto that's what this looks like if this man is a yall he is like i mean for a start i don't think they used the title yala until after this point i think it was first used in like the 12th century in scandinavian society but why why is he wearing why did you put him in these things he looks awful he looks awful the spears are nice i am surprised that they've got boar spears those are bore spears they're hunting spears those those wings at the side are designed to stop an animal from charging at you after it's dead as far as i'm aware that's a theory anyway um actually the only thing the single items in this shop that are anywhere close to good or well made on any level are the spears that's it everything else crap crap crop ethel red is this apple red the unready is this seth already already we're getting already already in this show interesting interesting okay gonna take a sip of tea to prepare myself i'm going to take a second sympathy from the other side of the cup to prepare myself okay 16th century berganette only 800 years too soon very nice um that is an early modern helmet guys that is an actual early modern helmet i would expect to see a conquistador wearing that i would expect to see a german infantryman of maybe the 80 years war wearing that possibly even someone in the 17th century maybe a sword and buckler man but um no no my god i've got another picture with loads of people wearing them as well oh why why why is that your thing for the saxon soldiers why is the thing put all the saxons in literal post-medieval helmets not even late medieval post-medieval this doesn't look like it's from vikings i've got this shot here that doesn't look like it's from a show set in the viking period this looks like it's set in like 1580 spain in 1580 like this is appalling appalling choice nice 13th century sword horrible weird black thing yeah so this guy's cloak i think this next this guy next to him in the green cloak is ethel red but this guy's cloak if it were an actual silk brocade would be so choice but it's not it looks like kind of something cheap and cottony to me the bondage tunic is weird like bondage gear has its place but it's not it's not in early medieval england um oh yeah so this guy is ethel red he looks almost okay he looks almost okay almost um painfully heartbreakingly close to okay his tunic if it once again if it's real brocade trimming real wool that would be a nice color the cut is okay the cloak is close it could be good but it's fastened with clasps they had brooches brooches joan your research should have told you that if you'd researched it brooches my friend come on dude any picture of a saxon his three pictures in rapid succession of saxons wearing single brooches to hold their cloaks closed and one of them is a king so oh my god it's dracula oh okay so i had to check that this wasn't a scene from the tudors that i'd accidentally been sent and it's not these these are terrible we've got this weird t-shirt on this guy behind ethel red i know it's meant to be a gambeson but it just looks like a t-shirt with channels sewn into it that's not anglo-saxon armor crap crap armor here is a 9th century english warrior and that's not what this guy's dressed as so let's move on to lagerthe lagertha lagatha i don't care she looks awful she looks badass don't get me wrong she looks like a badass woman um badass warrior but from a history point of view she's just dressed like nothing this is nothing what is this this is not hang on though hang on um however having said that she is we've got a glittering ray a glimmer of hope because she's wearing tortoise brooches holy moly okay tortoise brooches they wore these one on each side here and here um to hold up your apron dress to hold up the loops on your apron dress and to string beads between them decorative beads but um this has got like a weird chain modern chain looking thing between them don't really know how that's even been woven together and um the weird cloak bugger i'm honestly trying to find positives here and there's there's nothing like i've got another one here and it's just like a modern super modern boots this obviously modern boots an asymmetrical dress looks like it should be on a red carpet somewhere cold embossed leather glued to chainmail weird plastic vamp braces there's an unfaced shield put some effing leather on your shield we can see the planks um weird weird hair badass don't get me wrong but 21st century badass in the 9th century alien effectively okay um i think the only one i've got left is ragnar here we go oh wow [Music] so we've got weird circles of metal tied onto a vest as armor um no a full animal pelt over his shoulders okay so i've read an article i've read an interview with this woman and she says that like and i quote american indians yikes unquote they worshipped nature and wore the skins of many animals all right shut up talking like they used animal hides they used animal skins they didn't wear badly and i mean childishly badly sewn suede trousers saggy fashion boots and just an entire animal on their backs whilst in armor you know how heavy all of this would be you know how sweaty he would be in all this leather you know how hot he'd get i mean how does he layer this why is he wearing suede like where did you get this junk wow i mean the only good aspect of this is the spear it's literally once again the spear is the only good thing in this entire picture that's period accurate okay so apparently all that weave on him is meant to look like a cool texture reminiscent of braided hair but he looks like a black wicker dustbin what uh the boots like i mean i wore new rocks when i was an angry teenage goth like we all wore new rocks new rocks were cool but why is he in them so he's a christianized viking at this point so that that's interesting wool tunic silver jewelry good leather shoes colorful wool what i i don't understand i honestly don't understand any of the thought processes here and i know i've had them before i'm going to get people saying oh chill out it's just entertainment it's just a tv show except it's not one it's on the history channel and this isn't history it is hard to wash trash tv cashing in on game of thrones and bafflingly the costume designer has been given awards for her historical costuming before on tudors and she claims she put years of research into this to make sure quote they couldn't be game of thrones vikings and i i just the nerve like she did norse bilbrey dying billbreeze joan bilbrays they were dying with woad and madder and lycan and like walnuts why are you using bilbreys to get blue woad mate woad blue we found indigo the pigment indigo which you get from woad in viking age clothing from york and i think from dublin as well a trip to jorvik viking center would have told you that like a trip to the yorkshire museum would have told you that like here we go here we go here's a viking age brooch it's from dublin he is a pre-viking age brooch it's from near dublin here's a viking age brooch from wales here's a saxon style brooch from scotland and here's a pile of them in the british museum so no yes the vikings on the north brought artistic elements to ireland and britain but they were hugely influenced by native designs they were massively popular they basically got the idea of this kind of pen annual approach from the irish saying that there's no evidence of viking clothing in ireland i'm sorry here's a decorated viking age shoe from ireland joan oh look here's another one whoops wait wait come back come back come back i've got another one and a boot joan i've got a boot i've got filigree worked gold brooches he's a silk cap from dublin no hang on that one's from lincoln here's the one from the no hang on sorry that one's from york need i go on i mean i'm going to anyway are these not couture enough for you if you want to make um if you want to make a woman look fancy in your viking show how about a pair of nice gold heavy tortoise brooches a ton of beads a silk cap dyed purple instead of whatever in friga's name that's meant to be if you went to scandinavia to learn about real vikings and portray them how they were why don't any of these vikings look like vikings why don't any of the women look like norse women no tortoise brooches no apron dresses no beads there's a single actual artifact on any of these characters that we just saw weapons aside it's hard to screw up weapons and they still do that in most of this show from what i can tell where is a single piece here that deserves to be on a channel called history saying things like in an interview she said that the vikings industry introduced the shaded panel into european fashion i asked all the other costumers what the hell that meant and none of them really knew does it mean stripes because no they were not the first to introduce stripes to europe that is a nonsense does it just mean multiple panels in different colours no stupid we have pre-viking clothing with different coloured pieces of cloth that's a nonsensical statement in as much as they had fashions and made their clothes by hand yes there was a couture element to the vikings but just like the irish the britons the saxons the carolingians everyone did that the carolingians were probably the most influential by the way in western european fashion in this period they all had changing fashions the irish was still there their culture didn't just vanish up the vikings bum saying stuff like the irish women loved the vikings because they smelled really nice yeah that's a quote from the anglo-saxons not surprising that she beefed that but oh my god making a huge deal of the vanity sets the combs the care they took in their hygiene which is all true begs the question why did none of these people look clean and well looked after why do they have big stupid stitches in their clothes why are they caked with mud you nutter i get it to an extent the directorial team has a lot of influence over the costuming i understand that i've worked in film and theater i get it but if these are your designs that get made why is there so much bull crap here like what is this face paint what is ragnar a kiyoshi warrior now like it's not based on anything nothing it's just fantasy there's just wow and the fact that the hollywood reporter calls this authentic yet imaginative shows that this is damaging most of the people reading that article will go huh authentic so this is what they look like and i know that people like aton shay films have argued against the importance of accurate clothing in historical films and tv and i understand his argument and i agree with a lot of it but from the point of somebody still trying to educate people on the clothing of the past this attitude and the reporting of it is a huge insult it's so bad for what i try to do like people will take this as what this period looked like enough people will watch the history channel and assume that this is well-made and well-researched historical drama that this is damaging like seriously bad and if she gets an award for costuming on the show it will not make it accurate or any of the costuming accurate if this series has inspired you to start reenacting then please in the name of thor don't use this as evidence it's super bad like so bad and i would forgive joan bergin everything if she just admitted this is arty farty nonsense playing at historical clothing but she doesn't she claims it's authentic she claims it shows these people how they were and that's an insult that people like me in historical costuming will not take lying down nemo may impune a la cassette mother f stop it stop it i know i'm late to the party on this one guys but holy smokes super super bad thank you for bearing with me i hope you enjoyed this um i hope you enjoyed watching a welshman get angry at a tv program's clothes dealcon willia thank you for watching um thanks grievous click kyoko bottom lake hoffier video please subscribe and like this video it's really good for the algorithms apparently um hello to all of my new subscribers as well this channel just keeps getting more subscribers so yay thanks um i have a community tab now so i'm going to be posting previews and polls and pictures and all kinds of junk on there so if you want to go over there and hang out then hey let's build a community um thank you very much once again and uh who will i'm a draw bye for now

Channel: The Welsh Viking

Views: 109,564

Keywords: The Welsh Viking, Vikings, Historical Drama, Costube, Costume rant

Id: Awgcy0SDuMg

Length: 28min 48sec (1728 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 16 2020