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everydayechos:
schweizercomics:
Having just finished watching the first episode of BBC’s The Musketeers, I have to ask:
Are we seriously still on this leather armor thing?
Since the early 2000s we’ve seen a slew of “period” pieces in which misguided producers thought it would be a good idea to take the fashion sensibilities of The Matrix (already dangerously close to dated at the time of its own release) and apply those sensibilities to films set in the distant past. And so you get movies like Van Helsing and King Arthur and Ironclad and Solomon Kane and dozens of other films in which pretty much all materials are replaced with leather.
Even Cardinal Richelieu is head-to-toe leather
Yes, leather has been used throughout history, often for clothing and armor. But so has wool, so has linen, so has silk, so has oilcloth. The way that leather is employed in the costuming of the overwhelming percentage of action movies that happen to be set in the past is not only wrong from every conceivable historical vantage point, but also from an aesthetic standpoint. It doesn’t look cool. It looks like what an out-of-touch middle-aged producer thinks teenagers will think looks cool. And because of their ubiquity, these costume elements remove any chance of the film or show having a “look” of its own, a visual identity, and instead delegate it to be one of many that have interchangeable, forgettable art direction.
And worse than looking generic and anachronistic is the narrative shortcoming that they encourage. The filmmakers, having what they think is a costume that conveys edginess and attitude (failing entirely to realize that it conveys neither because of its consistent and poorly executed overuse), allow themselves to be lax on actually developing that individual uniqueness and verisimilitude via the script. It becomes all style and no substance and the films are subsequently immediately forgotten, if any notice is taken of them in the first place.
Each period in history has its own weird, unique, and genuinely awesome fashion elements that can be played up to great effect. It’s such a shame to not use this, because it can tell you SO MUCH about the characters.
Let’s look at another film set within half a century of Musketeers: Shakespeare in Love.
Using period-appropriate clothing, and more than that, the way that the characters choose to wear it, the filmmakers can illicit very specific responses to the characters from their audience.
Geoffrey Rush’s character is comic relief. He’s an optimistic hard luck case, and his costume is a parody of the finery worn by Colin Firth’s character. The great big round pants look silly, the weatherworn nature of his jerkin makes its silk finery into the 16th century equivalent of a tuxedo t-shirt. The ballooned pants give him an almost stuffed-animal, cartoony quality. This character can’t be taken seriously, and you shouldn’t take him seriously.
Similar is Colin Firth. But his costume demands that it be taken seriously because it IS in good shape, and this does two things: first, it makes us think that he’s silly and vain (the care in which he obviously takes his appearance screams vanity), and second, it makes us question the social conditions in which such an outfit would be considered not only acceptable by enviable. Our modern conceptions of what does and doesn’t make somebody look good are in play here in full force, and the filmmakers can use that to their advantage to make us think that any society that would put this git on a pedestal doesn’t have rules worth obeying, which is pretty key to accepting the conceit of the plot.
Seriously, that neck ruffle and the dangly pearl earring. How could you NOT hate him on sight?
Now we have Will Shakespeare. He has big pants, too, but big by their cut, not by the volume that they create. They’re allowed to hang loosely on his legs, giving him a much slimmer appearance than the others. He’s the only guy wearing leather, but it’s not to give him a generic warriorlike edge, it’s to evoke that cavalier blue-collar John-Travolta-in-Grease rebel look. It’s period-appropriate, but more importantly it’s CHARACTER-appropriate. It’s left unbuttoned, in the style of 20th century teen rebels, and his shirt is unbuttoned, too. He strikes a slim cut to contrast the ballooned appearance of his contemporaries. He looks like us, which is how and why we identify with him as a character so easily.
It’s the contrast that counts, not what you start with.
All of this is done within the framework of using period appropriate costumes.
Now look at these costumes from The Musketeers.
Which one of these guys is the devil-may-care gambling dandy? Which one is the religious ladies’ man? Which one is the tortured soul alcoholic?
They’re all wearing what is basically the exact same outfit the exact same way. And so a great opportunity to convey huge amounts of information about the character, their personality, their social status, and their relationship to the audience is squandered. It’s a disservice to the actors (especially in a show as well-cast as this one) to not allow them to garb themselves in the idiosyncrasies of their subject. And all of this, while important to the nature of the narrative as a self-contained thing, completely ignores the possibly important fact that nobody in 1630 wore anything close to this sort of thing.
There’s often a fear on the part of folks making movies that we as an audience will see period clothing and think that it looks stupid, and that’s an understandable fear. You’re putting a ton of money into these productions, and you don’t want anything, including the absurdity of some of the costume mores of history, to stand between your project and an enthusiastic audience. But that viewpoint ignores the most basic and important principle of designing costumes based on historical clothing, and that’s that historical costuming for narrative is really all about SHAPE and HOW the characters wear the clothing. You have take one outfit and make a dozen different shapes that tell you a dozen different things, giving volume to different parts as it suits your needs. It can be worn a dozen different ways. Catholic school outfits aren’t the only set of clothes that’s infinitely modular.
EVERY BIT OF CLOTHING EVER is.
So enough with the leather.
Sandy Powell, (The costume designer for Shakespeare in Love), is a freaking genius. She and that movie are a big part of the reason I got my degree in costume design. So much of costume design is about the characters and figuring out WHY they would choose to wear particular things, and the examples listed above show that very well. (I’m going to stop now before I go into lecture mode about costume design theory and fashion history)
Also, a lot of the menswear in the movie could have walked out of Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion books, which are based on actual historical samples.
(Your picture was not posted)
everydayechos:
schweizercomics:
Having just finished watching the first episode of BBC’s The Musketeers, I have to ask:
Are we seriously still on this leather armor thing?
Since the early 2000s we’ve seen a slew of “period” pieces in which misguided producers thought it would be a good idea to take the fashion sensibilities of The Matrix (already dangerously close to dated at the time of its own release) and apply those sensibilities to films set in the distant past. And so you get movies like Van Helsing and King Arthur and Ironclad and Solomon Kane and dozens of other films in which pretty much all materials are replaced with leather.
Even Cardinal Richelieu is head-to-toe leather
Yes, leather has been used throughout history, often for clothing and armor. But so has wool, so has linen, so has silk, so has oilcloth. The way that leather is employed in the costuming of the overwhelming percentage of action movies that happen to be set in the past is not only wrong from every conceivable historical vantage point, but also from an aesthetic standpoint. It doesn’t look cool. It looks like what an out-of-touch middle-aged producer thinks teenagers will think looks cool. And because of their ubiquity, these costume elements remove any chance of the film or show having a “look” of its own, a visual identity, and instead delegate it to be one of many that have interchangeable, forgettable art direction.
And worse than looking generic and anachronistic is the narrative shortcoming that they encourage. The filmmakers, having what they think is a costume that conveys edginess and attitude (failing entirely to realize that it conveys neither because of its consistent and poorly executed overuse), allow themselves to be lax on actually developing that individual uniqueness and verisimilitude via the script. It becomes all style and no substance and the films are subsequently immediately forgotten, if any notice is taken of them in the first place.
Each period in history has its own weird, unique, and genuinely awesome fashion elements that can be played up to great effect. It’s such a shame to not use this, because it can tell you SO MUCH about the characters.
Let’s look at another film set within half a century of Musketeers: Shakespeare in Love.
Using period-appropriate clothing, and more than that, the way that the characters choose to wear it, the filmmakers can illicit very specific responses to the characters from their audience.
Geoffrey Rush’s character is comic relief. He’s an optimistic hard luck case, and his costume is a parody of the finery worn by Colin Firth’s character. The great big round pants look silly, the weatherworn nature of his jerkin makes its silk finery into the 16th century equivalent of a tuxedo t-shirt. The ballooned pants give him an almost stuffed-animal, cartoony quality. This character can’t be taken seriously, and you shouldn’t take him seriously.
Similar is Colin Firth. But his costume demands that it be taken seriously because it IS in good shape, and this does two things: first, it makes us think that he’s silly and vain (the care in which he obviously takes his appearance screams vanity), and second, it makes us question the social conditions in which such an outfit would be considered not only acceptable by enviable. Our modern conceptions of what does and doesn’t make somebody look good are in play here in full force, and the filmmakers can use that to their advantage to make us think that any society that would put this git on a pedestal doesn’t have rules worth obeying, which is pretty key to accepting the conceit of the plot.
Seriously, that neck ruffle and the dangly pearl earring. How could you NOT hate him on sight?
Now we have Will Shakespeare. He has big pants, too, but big by their cut, not by the volume that they create. They’re allowed to hang loosely on his legs, giving him a much slimmer appearance than the others. He’s the only guy wearing leather, but it’s not to give him a generic warriorlike edge, it’s to evoke that cavalier blue-collar John-Travolta-in-Grease rebel look. It’s period-appropriate, but more importantly it’s CHARACTER-appropriate. It’s left unbuttoned, in the style of 20th century teen rebels, and his shirt is unbuttoned, too. He strikes a slim cut to contrast the ballooned appearance of his contemporaries. He looks like us, which is how and why we identify with him as a character so easily.
It’s the contrast that counts, not what you start with.
All of this is done within the framework of using period appropriate costumes.
Now look at these costumes from The Musketeers.
Which one of these guys is the devil-may-care gambling dandy? Which one is the religious ladies’ man? Which one is the tortured soul alcoholic?
They’re all wearing what is basically the exact same outfit the exact same way. And so a great opportunity to convey huge amounts of information about the character, their personality, their social status, and their relationship to the audience is squandered. It’s a disservice to the actors (especially in a show as well-cast as this one) to not allow them to garb themselves in the idiosyncrasies of their subject. And all of this, while important to the nature of the narrative as a self-contained thing, completely ignores the possibly important fact that nobody in 1630 wore anything close to this sort of thing.
There’s often a fear on the part of folks making movies that we as an audience will see period clothing and think that it looks stupid, and that’s an understandable fear. You’re putting a ton of money into these productions, and you don’t want anything, including the absurdity of some of the costume mores of history, to stand between your project and an enthusiastic audience. But that viewpoint ignores the most basic and important principle of designing costumes based on historical clothing, and that’s that historical costuming for narrative is really all about SHAPE and HOW the characters wear the clothing. You have take one outfit and make a dozen different shapes that tell you a dozen different things, giving volume to different parts as it suits your needs. It can be worn a dozen different ways. Catholic school outfits aren’t the only set of clothes that’s infinitely modular.
EVERY BIT OF CLOTHING EVER is.
So enough with the leather.
Sandy Powell, (The costume designer for Shakespeare in Love), is a freaking genius. She and that movie are a big part of the reason I got my degree in costume design. So much of costume design is about the characters and figuring out WHY they would choose to wear particular things, and the examples listed above show that very well. (I’m going to stop now before I go into lecture mode about costume design theory and fashion history)
Also, a lot of the menswear in the movie could have walked out of Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion books, which are based on actual historical samples.
(Your picture was not posted)
