6 ms·

The depiction of medieval folks wearing drab and dirty and torn clothes in black, browns, and and grays is THE biggest peeve I have with costume design in ‘hist

The depiction of medieval folks wearing drab and dirty and torn clothes in black, browns, and and grays is THE biggest peeve I have with costume design in ‘historical’ movies and tv shows. The absolute worst offenders in recent memory being Vikings and The Last Kingdom, but there are a plethora of others. Not to mention the biker-gear-leather-fetish as armor look they all seem to go for.

elseweather 6y ago
IF you enjoy this kind of thing, (and you aren't already an acoup fan), he wrote an entire article about the biker-gear-leather-fetish trope in Game of Thrones: https://acoup.blog/2020/12/04/collections-that-dothraki-horde-part-i-barbarian-couture/ https://acoup.blog/2020/12/04/collections-that-dothraki-hord...
- sillyquiet 6y ago
  Ah great read! A tad condescending in tone but I imagine they do have to deal with outraged fans a lot.
  - C4stor 6y ago
    The blog is called "a collection of unlimited pedantry", so at least some pedantry is to be expected !
    - jabl 6y ago
      > The blog is called "a collection of unlimited pedantry", so at least some pedantry is to be expected ! While we're on the topic of pedantry, the blog is called "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry", not "unlimited". Pfft!
thaumasiotes 6y ago
https://www.tor.com/2014/03/25/how-history-can-be-used-in-fiction-the-borgias-vs-borgia-faith-and-fear/comment-page-1/ https://www.tor.com/2014/03/25/how-history-can-be-used-in-fi... > Even costuming accuracy can be a communications problem, since modern viewers have certain associations that are hard to unlearn. Want to costume a princess to feel sweet and feminine? The modern eye demands pink or light blue, though the historian knows pale colors coded poverty. Want to costume a woman to communicate the fact that she’s a sexy seductress? The audience needs the bodice and sleeves to expose the bits of her [that] modern audiences associate with sexy, regardless of which bits would plausibly have been exposed at the time. > I recently had to costume some Vikings, and was lent a pair of extremely nice period Viking pants which had bold white and orange stripes about two inches wide. I know enough to realize how perfect they were, and that both the expense of the dye and the purity of the white would mark them as the pants of an important man, but that if someone walked on stage in them the whole audience would think: "Why is that Viking wearing clown pants?"
- sillyquiet 6y ago
  Yes, this makes sense, but you can convey what you want to an audience without compromising historicity so thoroughly I believe. Taking the Vikings tv show example - Ragnar Lothbroke would have been in richly and boldly colorful, probably embroidered, clothing of wool and linen and maybe even silk or cotton from trade. He would have been covered in gold and silver jewelry, and his armor and weapons would have been gilt or inlaid with silver, gold, and copper-alloy and intricately engraved. Instead we get an extra from Sons of Anarchy complete with tats and edgy haircut. Edit, also 3/4s of those impressions the modern audience does have is from decades of movies and tv shows. I think a project that respects its audience could do its part to start projecting more accurate impressions of past aesthetics and fashion sensibilities.
  - taneliv 6y ago
    By the by, any series (or movies) that you'd recommend for their historical accuracy, especially with respect to the everyday things like clothing and other customs?
    - sillyquiet 6y ago
      Master and Commander is really good for more recent history of the Napoleonic Wars era as far as clothing, language and customs. Outlaw King (netflix movie about Robert Bruce) is bad, but a leap better than other medieval outings - they at least try, the armor is sloppy, ill-fitting, and anachronistic but the weapons, clothing and heraldry are really good. Others more expert than me have mentioned Henry V (1944) with Laurence Olivier as being the best movie attempt at 15th century armor. A company that makes clothes and merchandise for 'viking' enthusiasts kick started a short film that is absolutely excellent in terms of language, clothes, and attitude of the very late Viking period, although they too fall prey to the Vikings-as-bad-ass-biker trope on occcasion. (Not to mention the romantic sanitization of all the unsavory activities any early medieval raiders or pirates would get up to). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yqbowUiH-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yqbowUiH-s In general though, true historical accuracy is very hard to find outside niche youtube videos, even if you aren't terribly nitpicky about what is 'accurate'.
BlueTemplar 6y ago
Speaking of Vikings, he covered the latest Assassin's Creed too : https://acoup.blog/2020/11/20/miscellanea-my-thoughts-on-assassins-creed-valhalla/ https://acoup.blog/2020/11/20/miscellanea-my-thoughts-on-ass...
JetAlone 6y ago
Yeah, it's like they saw one depiction of "sackcloth and ashes" and decided to extrapolate it to be the constant fashion of the lower classes throughout medieval history.

elseweather 6y ago

IF you enjoy this kind of thing, (and you aren't already an acoup fan), he wrote an entire article about the biker-gear-leather-fetish trope in Game of Thrones: https://acoup.blog/2020/12/04/collections-that-dothraki-horde-part-i-barbarian-couture/ https://acoup.blog/2020/12/04/collections-that-dothraki-hord...

sillyquiet 6y ago
Ah great read! A tad condescending in tone but I imagine they do have to deal with outraged fans a lot.
- C4stor 6y ago
  The blog is called "a collection of unlimited pedantry", so at least some pedantry is to be expected !
  - jabl 6y ago
    > The blog is called "a collection of unlimited pedantry", so at least some pedantry is to be expected ! While we're on the topic of pedantry, the blog is called "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry", not "unlimited". Pfft!

thaumasiotes 6y ago

https://www.tor.com/2014/03/25/how-history-can-be-used-in-fiction-the-borgias-vs-borgia-faith-and-fear/comment-page-1/ https://www.tor.com/2014/03/25/how-history-can-be-used-in-fi... > Even costuming accuracy can be a communications problem, since modern viewers have certain associations that are hard to unlearn. Want to costume a princess to feel sweet and feminine? The modern eye demands pink or light blue, though the historian knows pale colors coded poverty. Want to costume a woman to communicate the fact that she’s a sexy seductress? The audience needs the bodice and sleeves to expose the bits of her [that] modern audiences associate with sexy, regardless of which bits would plausibly have been exposed at the time. > I recently had to costume some Vikings, and was lent a pair of extremely nice period Viking pants which had bold white and orange stripes about two inches wide. I know enough to realize how perfect they were, and that both the expense of the dye and the purity of the white would mark them as the pants of an important man, but that if someone walked on stage in them the whole audience would think: "Why is that Viking wearing clown pants?"

sillyquiet 6y ago
Yes, this makes sense, but you can convey what you want to an audience without compromising historicity so thoroughly I believe. Taking the Vikings tv show example - Ragnar Lothbroke would have been in richly and boldly colorful, probably embroidered, clothing of wool and linen and maybe even silk or cotton from trade. He would have been covered in gold and silver jewelry, and his armor and weapons would have been gilt or inlaid with silver, gold, and copper-alloy and intricately engraved. Instead we get an extra from Sons of Anarchy complete with tats and edgy haircut. Edit, also 3/4s of those impressions the modern audience does have is from decades of movies and tv shows. I think a project that respects its audience could do its part to start projecting more accurate impressions of past aesthetics and fashion sensibilities.
- taneliv 6y ago
  By the by, any series (or movies) that you'd recommend for their historical accuracy, especially with respect to the everyday things like clothing and other customs?
  - sillyquiet 6y ago
    Master and Commander is really good for more recent history of the Napoleonic Wars era as far as clothing, language and customs. Outlaw King (netflix movie about Robert Bruce) is bad, but a leap better than other medieval outings - they at least try, the armor is sloppy, ill-fitting, and anachronistic but the weapons, clothing and heraldry are really good. Others more expert than me have mentioned Henry V (1944) with Laurence Olivier as being the best movie attempt at 15th century armor. A company that makes clothes and merchandise for 'viking' enthusiasts kick started a short film that is absolutely excellent in terms of language, clothes, and attitude of the very late Viking period, although they too fall prey to the Vikings-as-bad-ass-biker trope on occcasion. (Not to mention the romantic sanitization of all the unsavory activities any early medieval raiders or pirates would get up to). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yqbowUiH-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yqbowUiH-s In general though, true historical accuracy is very hard to find outside niche youtube videos, even if you aren't terribly nitpicky about what is 'accurate'.

BlueTemplar 6y ago

Speaking of Vikings, he covered the latest Assassin's Creed too : https://acoup.blog/2020/11/20/miscellanea-my-thoughts-on-assassins-creed-valhalla/ https://acoup.blog/2020/11/20/miscellanea-my-thoughts-on-ass...

JetAlone 6y ago

Yeah, it's like they saw one depiction of "sackcloth and ashes" and decided to extrapolate it to be the constant fashion of the lower classes throughout medieval history.