Dive into the world of decadence as we take you through the closets of five swoonworthy TV series – period dramas and romance. Fall in love with everything fanciful and fantastical.
How many times have you wanted to own that look from a character in a series? It’s hard to not be mesmerised by the costumes in period dramas. A critical tool of storytelling, costumes are more important than you thought. Steering the visual narrative ahead, costumes are intricately woven into elements of characterisation. A scarf, a tiara or even a small ring often define a character’s personality, enhancing the persona or charisma.
Larger-than-life sets and jaw-dropping costumes make for an excellent recipe to divert anyone from the mundane musings of everyday life. The pouter pigeon silhouettes of the Edwardian era or the garishly ornate farthingales from the 1700s are a delight to watch!
Here’s what we adore:
Bridgerton
Netflix’s rainbow-coloured period drama but with a difference, Bridgerton is a nod to Jane Austen’s exploration of the marriage market, social norms and society romance Every character is loaded with jewels, feathers and finery, determined on outshining one another. There are silk gown rendered in ice-cream pastels, acid-bright florals, acres of ruffles, rhinestone-encrusted puff sleeves and wigs that play tricks with you. New York-based Ellen Mirojnick is the costume designer who creates magic and flamboyance with these outfits, Mirojnick has left her mark in several movies such as Fatal Attraction (1987), Wall Street (1987) and Bas Instinct (1992). In 2013, she won an Emmy for her work on Steven Soderbergh’s glitzy Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra and followed up with spectacular creations in The Greatest Showman (2017) and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019). She outdoes herself in Bridgerton, transforming familiar Regency-era silhouettes into something fresh and fantastical. A lot of attention has been given to the scooped necklines and how they fit the bust, instead of a regular straight line that doesn’t allow you to see the body. This modern reinterpretation of a Regency-era romance has been lauded for diversity in cultural representation, and we agree that the show is sexy, fun and far more accessible than your average period drama. And the openness of the necklines seem to echo that sentiment.
We love the powdery colour palette that runs through the show. The pale blues, silvers and greens feel like whispers of colour. The pinks and blues are richer and the silvers deepen as the female lead, Daphne (Phoebe Harriet Dynevor), begins her journey as a porcelain doll and transitions into a woman.
Dickinson
The Apple TV+ series, Dickinson, reimagines history through a distinctly 21st-century lens mixing contemporary music and language with real events and famous figures who crossed paths with the rebellious poet, Emily Dickinson.
By design, Dickinson has mastered blurring the lines between fantasy and reality – Emily (Hailee Steinfeld) spends an entire episode in her nightwear, invisible to all but her brother – but remains rooted to its foundation: the thousands of poems the real Dickinson left behind. One of the most interesting challenges show creator Alena Smith offered was that to the costume team, to follow Emily’s lead and break convention.
The showmakers did not want to create museum pieces. The result is a legacy of fun and intuitive dresses that are far more interactive than distant. After more than a decade of designing costumes for theatre, Moeller answered Smith’s call to assist Emmy-nominated John Dunn on Dickinson’s first season. Moeller takes inspiration from Dickinson’s poems, a steady hum vibrating throughout the series to create every outfit. In season 2, for instance, Emily’s black-and-grey travelling suit evokes the sun and the moon.
When the show stops on Emily’s inspirational path in the finale, her dress, of a green snake-y quality, justifies the plot of the scene. Keeping with the theme of nature, Sue (Gilbert, Emily’s friend and lover) wears a brownish silk suit with a floral pattern, and when the two of them get together, it is extraordinarily natural.
The Gilded Age
The Gilded Age on HBO is nothing short of a visual treat, filled with magnificent marble mansions and shining recreations of the 1880s New York City. But possibly the most eye-catching element of this new period drama are the gorgeous gowns that the female cast of high-society schemers adorn. From the sun-bright yellow dress that Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson) flaunts at the end of the show’s first episode to the long, immaculately embroidered blood-red cloak Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon) wears to the opera during the show’s fourth episode, The Gilded Age pulls one jaw-dropping look after another out of its wardrobe.
The depth of the costumes go beyond their peerless stitchwork. The lead costume designer Kasia Walicka-Maim-one, captures one of the most fascinating periods of New York fashion when styles and trends began changing and progressing.
In creating the wardrobes for the characters, Walicka-Maim- one and her costume team of around 65 did heavy research on the prevailing trends and styles of the said time period, taking inspiration for some looks through photography, paintings, fashion plates and writing. The team explored a wealth of material: for example, the designs of the character Peggy (Denee Benton), a Black woman who hails from a wealthy Black neighbourhood in Brooklyn, were inspired from research on the dressing style of the Black elite in New York and other urban areas.
While the gowns are the showstoppers of The Gilded Age, Walicka-Maimone gave similar importance to ensuring that the male characters’ wardrobes were both accurate and unique in each way. As the show is set in the world of business in New York, the male wardrobes tend to be more restrictive than that of the females, with their outfits generally limited to charcoal black and grey suits. However, Walicka-Maimone focused on styling their vests and fabrics in ways that reflected their status and personalities, even if those differences were subtler than those noticed between the women characters.
The Empire
Straight out of the pages of Empire of the Moghul: Raiders from the North by Alex Rutherford, comes the story of a young king who is faced with a seemingly impossible challenge as rampaging armies and brutal enemies threaten his destiny, throne and even survival in The Empire streaming on Disney+ Hotstar by Nikkhil Advani.
The Empire – a fictional saga of a warrior-turned-king-mounted on an unrivalled scale brings together India’s finest costumes to execute the royal stature of the Mughals. The eight-episode series has brought together immensely talented costume designers, working across multiple locations in India and Uzbekistan. The Emoire brings alive a spectacular experience studded with epic scenes of battlegrounds, stupendous forts, and strong outfits.
There are many stories about Babur and the Mughals, but very little about who they were, where they came from and how they came into India. So, a lot of creative liberties were taken to reimagine the costumes and build the visual mood.
Although the costumes remind us a lot about Game of Thrones, they have a unique character of their own. Costume designers, Sheetal Iqbal Sharma and Chandrakant Sonawane, show their extraordinary skills in demonstrating how period costumes could be anchored in mystical realism.
When we talk about the Mughals, we think about Shah Jahan and Akbar and their iconic anarkalis and angrakhas. The show revives the nostalgia of the period but through costumes that are more attuned to modern sensibilities. Rooted in the world of luxurious fur and leather, the costumes reflect the work of talented karigars (artisans) and embroiderers.
The show had to look like it belonged to that time and period, hence a lot of fabrics were sourced from Uzbekistan, Tashkent and Afghanistan. Textile craftspersons from Delhi were also roped in for the project. We love the little details in accessories and headgear.
The Spanish Princess
Bold prints, colours and embroideries are all behind designer Pam Downe’s looks for Queen Catherine. Sample the dress to herald the lead of the show, Catherine: the silhouette is sleek and screams power. The red she wears echoes the colours that Henry wears signalling their close bond. It also represents her valour and joy of being a mother.
We see the use of silk on sleeves and bursts of yellows. The costumes from the first season were recycled in the second season, giving a nod to sustainability. The second season showcases simpler silhouettes with lots of trimmings. The dress fabric is a particular velvet used in furnishing and therefore has more of the sheen factor. It gives an illusion of density with elaborate prints. The effect is to whip up a visual drama with a nuanced nod to pragmatic fashion.
Catherine wears that green dress when the army is going to war. Henry is also in green and they’re very much together, still dressing very much alike. Later, for a tragic scene, green is used to reflect a cooler temperature that felt ideal for everything that was going on.
By: Aishwariya Chattoraj
