House of Guinness (2025-) came up in conversation with some of my friends recently. After listening to some of them dismiss it as “meh” and others arguing that it is a bit slow to get started but the payoff by the end is worth it, I decided I needed to just bite the bullet and watch it myself and come to my own conclusion about it.
Written/created by Steven Knight (of Peaky Blinders and Rogue Heroes fame), I already had a pretty good idea about the overall vibe of the show. I should be upfront here and mention that I have struggled with Peaky Blinders in particular because it’s so over the top violent, despite starring a bunch of my favorite actors. And while I really liked Rogue Heroes, it suffers from the same problem almost all WWII shows suffer from in that there’s not a ton of costuming to discuss by this blog’s standards. So, I figured House of Guinness would be about as nuanced as a punch to the face and there probably wouldn’t be a whole lot of exciting costuming to discuss since it would center heavily on men doing men things in the 1860s. The first two episodes didn’t really disabuse me of either of those notions, but to my shock by the third episode I was fully hooked on the show. And there were even some very good women’s costumes! Finally, a show that both my boyfriend and I can enjoy together!
Well, except for the fact that he’s a giant brewing nerd and kept pointing out the historical inaccuracies of the beer brewing depicted in the show to the point where it was kind of becoming a distraction. Start your own blog, bro! Call it “Beer Flicks” and let me enjoy the costumes in peace!
The basic elevator pitch for the show is that Benjamin Guinness has just cacked off and left his entire brewing empire to his two eldest sons, while basically cutting out his youngest son (a drunk) and daughter (a woman). The two eldest sons, Arthur and Edward, have to agree to not split the company unless they want to forfeit the rights to their entire family fortune. In 1860s Irish money, that’s a whole fucking lot of cash (the show interjects with subtitle that it’s around “one hundred million” in today’s money). So, Arthur, who wants nothing to do with the business, and Edward, who actually gives a shit about the business but starts implementing some pretty radical worker’s rights and protections that the rest of Irish high society is utterly confused by, have to figure out how to work together. Meanwhile, the younger two Guinness siblings have to figure out how to carve their own way with their family name and none of the fortune to call their own. So, right off the bat there’s some really interesting family dynamic stuff that gets developed in surprising ways over the next 8 episodes. And going on around this family drama is the larger political drama going around Dublin and the rest of Ireland at the same time, with the Fenians forming an increasingly formidable bloc forcing its way into Angl0-Irish politics and the establishment attempting to stamp the movement out. There’s a lot to unpack as far as the plot goes, and the show is pretty much upfront about a lot of the plot being fictionalized to some degree or another (which always gets an approving nod from us — because if you’re going to make shit up, at least be honest about it).
The costumes were designed by Edward K. Gibbon, who is best known to our readers for the costumes in Season 1 of Harlots and that utterly bizarrely costumed War & Peace that came out some years ago. Given the what-the-frockness of both of those shows, I wasn’t really holding my breath for anything hyper accurate, but I was quickly impressed with his work in Guinness. First and foremost, the tailoring on the menswear is chef’s kiss, and even if it does get a little boring because menswear is almost never known for its sense of whimsy, the fact remains that I love a perfectly turned suit lapel and smoothly set sleeve head almost more than anything in this world.
The women’s costuming was, for the most part, equally well-done (I only had one quibble, which I’ll get to in a minute). The first few episodes of the show are set in 1868-1871-ish, so the silhouette for women is shifting from the bell-shaped circular hoop to the more swept-back elliptical hoop, while bodices are starting to extend downward cover the hips with peplums for daywear. It’s starting to move toward the bustle era, in other words, so it’s in a transitionary phase that has a lot of interesting nuances that I thought Edward K. Gibbon captured pretty well.
And now for the quibbles.
So that’s my first look at House of Guinness. I’m halfway through the series, and I expect there will be at least one more post forthcoming to recap the rest of the costumes.
Edit: Ok, Kendra got on my ass about not including the ONE THING that anyone apparently cares about … Anthony Boyle hanging serious dong in episode 3. So, if you really absolutely HAVE TO SEE for yourself, feel free to check out this helpful, and VERY EXTREMELY NSFW Reddit post. Prosthetic? Natural? Discuss amongst yourselves!
Have you been watching House of Guinness (2025-) on Netflix? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!
Find this frock flick at:
![Portrait of a lady said to be Jeanne de Valois, comtesse de la Motte [I would be shocked if this was accurate] by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, c. 1780 [I'd say post-1783], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/frockflicks.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Jeanne_lamotte_valois.jpg?fit=300%2C175&ssl=1)
I only skimmed through to see the costumes since I often like this period of fashion, and the wedding scene has some really beautiful dresses, albeit more 1860s than 1870s, but that cowl neck and high low skirt on Olivia is so “trying to be haute couture!” Which I feel like knowing Gibbons other work seems to be a theme. Also the time line jumps around a bit, I’m never sure what exact year it is, at one point a character re wears an outfit that Jean Smart wore in Scarlett which is VERY natural form post 1874 mean while others are still dressed very 1870-1872.
I’ll give it a second try. The costumes worn by the Ellen character had turned me off. I’ll give it a second try.
Sorry, but I still can’t get past that Anthony Boyle full-frontal bath scene. No frocks were harmed in the making of that (gasp) scene.
no prosthetics either.
Thanks for the great post☺️I’m going to have to check this out.
Minor correction but Benjamin junior (Fionn O’Shea) is actually the middle brother with Edward (Louis Partridge) being the youngest – that’s why Benjamin senior passing Benjamin junior over for ownership of the brewery and choosing Edward as a co-heir alongside Arthur is such a slight in the show.
I’ll admit I did not even notice the wedding dress problem (and your right, its pretty terrible) because they got her hair so well up. Also her undies when she kicks him out in the morning.
Just a minor comment. The Guinness family, like most of Irish high society, were not actually Irish, but Anglo-Irish. They lived in Ireland but tended to.identify with the English. Many of the Anglo-Irish were absentee landlords. who gave us the gombeen men,Irishmen who collected rents and drove the native Irish., regarded by non-Anglo-Irish as traitors. Now some of them.wised up and fought for Irish freedom. My own family, the Fitzgeralds, came over with Strong bow and fought in everu rebellion grom 1530 on. They wete the Old Outlanders, versus the new, mostly Protestants, Outlanders who got titles from.Elizabeth I and James I and who oppressed the Catholic native Irish