I’ve been excited about the series Mary & George (2024) since I first heard about it — 1610s is one of my top favorite historical fashion periods because it’s wacky and OTT and adjacent to my absolute fave. era, the 16th century, and then this story has been hyped as a gay period romp. Thus, TV custom-made for ME! There are seven episodes of the series (for this year, at least…), and I didn’t want to either recap each episode as it dropped on Starz nor wait till the whole thing ended to review it, so I’m going to review it in two chunks.
The basic history is that practically penniless, not-quite-gentlewoman Mary Villiers sees her sexy second son George as a way to curry favor with King James VI and I. Her plan works, and by hook or by crook, she sets up George, herself, and all her kids as wealthy nobles, with plenty of enemies at court. So it’s a juicy story, ripe for costume drama! But it moves a little slowly on TV, getting there eventually (I’d have preferred that Starz dropped all the eps at once, because I’m feeling like it would be a better binge-watch than weekly episodes). I’m not going to go through the plot blow-by-blow (heh), but I’ll run though the costumes that interest me because there’s a lot.
The series costume designer is Annie Symons, who has a long, quite varied resume in historical TV and film. The two things that stand out to me are The Crimson Petal and the White (2011), which has a wonderfully dark, almost steampunk vibe on the 1870s and Great Expectations (2011), which, even though I still hate the story, had the excellently creepy Gillian Anderson as a Regency-era Miss Havisham.
The 17th century, especially the very early part of it, is rarely done onscreen, so this show was a challenge. Symons told Harpers Bazaar that she only rented a little bit of Elizabethan stock because there wasn’t anything specifically Jacobean to be found (and I’ve spotted a couple recycled costumes on extras). Her team had to build tons of costumes from scratch, including about 65 different costumes for the main character, Mary Villers.
Episode 1 is all setup, in a good way. Mary (Julianne Moore) and her family are introduced, and we get some backstory on what made her into such an ambitious person. Her son George (Nicholas Galitzine) seems like just an emo pretty boy, bisexually available to all, and willing to be used in any scheme but not terribly bright or especially greedy (yet?).
Mary gets herself a second husband after the father of her children dies. To do so, she attends a sort of costume party, which explains the “ears” on this hat. The costume designer said on her Instagram that they’re actual hare’s ears!
That pointy ruff and cuffs set is dramatic, but it’s not the prevailing style. I know films and TV love it, but there’s only a little historical evidence it was a thing. I suspect it all comes from this painting of the Queen of France in the 1620s. A version was done by costume designer Yvonne Blake for Geraldine Chaplin as Anne in The Three Musketeers (1974), and the style has been copied ever since.
Anyway, having secured funds, Mary sends George to France as essentially a finishing school. Once he’s cleaned up, she gets him in front of King James at a feast (this happened in 1614), which doesn’t go as planned, but it’s a start.
Tony Curran really does look like James, and he’s actually Scottish, so that helps too. His hair is a little too long, but that means we get to revel in his ginger glory, so I’ll accept it. Compare with this close-up painting:
Queen Anne is also at the feast and doesn’t really do anything, but she has an excellent gown and mile-high hair.
The gown is reminiscent of this painting:
But her hair is a smidge earlier style. The tall, egg-shape updo was more popular in the 1590s through about 1605, and then English women’s court hairstyles got rounder (as in that portrait with the green dress). Here’s what the TV show’s first episode is referencing:
The Earl of Somerset is the king’s current favorite, and he’s a total jerk. That’s him with his wife, on the right, and they canoodle and joke at other people’s expense.
The show isn’t really trying to make Somerset look like the contemporary images of him. He gets a beard, but that, like his hair, is in a modern style.
I suspect someone on the design team decided the men all need different hair and beard styles so we can tell them apart. Because in portraits of the real people, they all have very similar hair and beard styles — y’know, because that was the fashion at court! The king set the fashion, and his favorites followed him or vice versa. They all tried to look alike, just how people copy each other on social media today.
Just gonna throw this nice promo pic in here because it’s representative of what George and especially Mary wear in the first couple episodes a lot. They’re in dark clothes in dimly lit scenes, so their costumes can be hard to suss out. I lightened this image just to show the general lines of the garments.
Episode 2 opens with a title card of “1615” so that pins us down in time. Mary is still trying to get George in front of the king. She does so by way of the queen, getting George knighted and then his good looks get him fucking the king by the end of the ep. In between, Mary takes up with a prostitute for both business and pleasure on her side. But I’m not really recapping the story, just the costumes here!
George’s first flashy outfit is this blue velvet suit with puffy slashed sleeves. Like most of the upper-class men shown so far, he’s wearing a falling band — that’s the lace collar that’s unstarched and lays softly down at his neck.
The portraits I can find of George Villers show him wearing a standing band — which is when the lace-trimmed or all-lace collar is held up by starch and supporting device made of wire or stiffened card (more on this later). Both styles were worn in this period, though the standing band was more flashy and upper-crust because it’s less practical and requires more upkeep. Very ostentatious!
Moving on, Mary attempts to arrange a marriage for her older son, John, who is implied to have some kind of mental incapacity (which Wikipedia backs up). Sir Edward Coke and Lady Hatton bring their daughter Frances Coke for this dubious mission.
Lady Hatton is an even bigger bitch than Mary, just because she has a shitton of her own money.
Mary somehow just sits and takes Lady Hatton’s verbal abuse. Maybe because she’s wearing a far more attractive and historically accurate jacket!
You can see what they’re going for:
Mary meets with Queen Anne to propose that George replaces Somerset, who Anne despises (historically true, and the queen really did help with George’s rise in station). This gives a chance for a clear, well-lit look at one of the queen’s outfits.
Let’s talk about that wheel farthingale! It’s one of fashion history’s weirdos, right? It looks like the wearer is standing in the center of a drum. The style started in late 16th-century France and spread around the European courts in the 1590s. It was so popular at the turn of the 16th to 17th century that it was mocked, as in this print where devils tempt ladies with large stuffed bum rolls.
An illustration of wheel farthingales used as dance costumes shows the structure quite clearly:
What’s even weirder is the skirt that goes over it — the skirt isn’t just a “normal” skirt that flows from the waist to the hem, it has a noticeable pleat or ruffle at the edge, where the circle of the “drum” falls to the floor. This started as a tuck in the front of the gown because long skirts were worn over this wide, flat structure at the hips, which was canted low at the wearer’s front and high at the back. The tilt happened because of the low point of the wearer’s corset (aka stays or bodies; meaning the stiffened undergarment that supported both the body and the gown).
In this portrait that’s a bit earlier than Mary & George, you can see the start of that pleat / ruffle forming. The fold creates a distinct ridge in the front of the skirt, but gets softer and disappears at the back of the skirt. This is due to the very low, pointed front of the gown’s bodice (and the stays underneath).
That fabric tuck was held in place by pins, and at the end of her reign, Queen Elizabeth I was recorded paying for thousands of “verthingale” pins. An extant example in the book Patterns of Fashion 3 (the 2023 version) by Janet Arnold, shows a farthingale skirt c. 1610-20 with evidence of pin holes and remains of two gathering stitches from where that pleat was formerly held.
As the bodice became less pointy, the tilt flattened out, and the pleat at the top edge of the farthingale became even more neat and tidy. In some cases, the pleat was even held in place with decorative ribbons, as shown here:
And here’s a close-up from a surviving example skirt, showing that, even with a narrow farthingale, that pleated bit on the skirt was still there and it was gathered and sewn down:
A ton of fabric could be pleated up into the top of that skirt! This fashion was all about conspicuous consumption — fabric itself was very expensive at the time, these gowns were made of the highest quality fabric, so to use extra fabric that you tucked up under itself was pure excess and a way to show how you had an insane amount of money to waste. The was extreme elite style. Walking around in giant skirts that you had servants carefully arrange with pins, which could take hours, further proves how fabulously rich and leisurely your life is. See how lux this one is:
Now, do I expect a movie or TV show to recreate this fashion using pins, ties, or loose gathering stitches? Hell no! Even using the extra fabric required for this fashion is rather silly for TV where it won’t show and nobody will notice.
All TV and movies need to do is give the effect of this style, and we here at Frock Flicks exist to provide some historical background about it. Thus, I’m gonna nerd out about wheel farthingales and the skirts that cover them. Oh, and also because I’ve made a few and it just might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve worn ;)
But I like how this gown on Queen Anne at least mimics that gathered pleated style, since the real queen was supposedly quite fond of the fashion. In 1617, the Venetian ambassador to England wrote that the queen wore: “so expansive a farthingale that I do not exaggerate when I say it was four feet wide at the hips,” according to the Royal Collection. This white and blue dress isn’t massively wide, but it does have a pleat at the top edge of the farthingale.
I think she could use another petticoat under there (the skirt flutters around too lightly), but the shape is great for the 1610s for Queen Anne. Do we think that’s a legit tuck in the fabric?
Looks pretty good … we’ll get back to that.
Let’s check out the rest of her outfit. The hair is tall again, and it’s great that the back has an elaborate styling too. Paul Gooch looks to be the head makeup and hair designer for the series, and while he hasn’t done any press I can find, key hair stylist Adam James Phillips has posted TONS of great stuff on Instagram. You might recognize him from his Emmy-Award-winning work on season 1 of Bridgerton.
So the hair is good, but that back lacing, while the concept is fine for this period (the gown has no front closure), the lacing really should be spiral, because yes, we are here to nitpick that shit. But yay, no metal grommets!
Lastly, check out that print on her dress — it looks like blue and white Delft tiles, and is that a mermaid? Wut?
Is it because she’s from Denmark? Except mermaids were often used as symbols of temptation and prostitutes in this period, and that’s not something a queen would wear a dress printed with. Well OK then.
She’s dressed in a more seemly fashion for the next scene, where the queen and king watch a masque, so George can perform and intrigue the king, all according to Mary’s plan.
Now Queen Anne’s hair is in the more typical round shape. Equally fantastic, just a smidge better for this decade!
Adam James Phillips has a slideshow on Instagram showing how he created this wig, for example:
However, in that same slideshow, I spied this evidence that Queen Anne’s wheel farthingale gowns may not be the accurate pleated / tucked style. Here you can see the underside of a ruffle that’s cut separately and has a small hem. Of course, that’s a theatrical way to create the style — it’s faster and saves fabric!
Back to the hair — here’s the round style Anne’s rockin’
A closeup shows not just the excellent hair but her standing lace ruff with a glimpse of the wire supporter:
Compare with a similar glimpse of a wire structure under the massive ruff in this drawing:
As ruffs got bigger at the end of the 16th century, they couldn’t stand up just by use of starch (though starch can do a lot! trust me, you can get rock-solid stiffness from just rice starch plus heat). Flat lace collars, in particular, need something to help them stand upright, yet also look attractive enough so if the supportive device shows through delicate lace, it would be an asset, not a detraction. Something like this:
Wire was twisted into a frame for a supporter and called by many names: underproper, whisk, pickadil, rebato, supportasse. The terms were often used interchangeably for any device that held up a ruff, because other styles were made of cardstock, buckram, even whalebone. They could be tied around the neck and / or pinned to a dress or collar to stay on (because, as we’ve discussed before, ruffs don’t float — they need to attach to something!).
The series chief ruff maker Marija Radojicic has posted some super yummy behind-the-scenes ruff stuff on her Instagram, and you really must check it out! In fact, if you scroll through her ‘gram, it looks like this rebato worn by Queen Anne is directly inspired by that one at the Met with the fleur-de-lys pattern, but done in dyed-red wire to go with the dress. Fair warning, Radojicic has shared a lot of images from later episodes, since the whole thing has aired in the U.K., and there’s some delicious big ruffs a coming! OF COURSE, she’s using Patterns of Fashion 4!
For this courtly scene, the king wears a standing band, so he’s got some kind of supporter under there too.
Enough ruff stuff, lol, this was supposed to be about George showing off for the king, which he does.
To sex-up the historical fashions, costume designer Annie Symons didn’t always use the fine linen fabric that would have been accurate for men’s shirts at the time. She told Harpers Bazaar:
“We used a lot of gauzy fabrics and see-though fabrics. There are quite a few scenes where George or the king are just wandering around in a shirt. We wanted it to be suggestive without being explanatory. We used a lot of fabrics with a certain lightness about them, and that adds to the sensuality, and the freedom of movement.”
I was a little disappointed in the masque scene because, as I’ve mentioned before, I’d love to see a historically accurate Inigo Jones masque done in a frock flick. The costumes and sets that Jones designed were so weird and wonderful, it’d be fabulous theater! Blah blah blah, not sexy, not relatable, blah blah blah. I CAN RELATE TO THIS WEIRD STUFF.
The rest of this episode is hunting stuff, so not interesting to me from a costuming perspective. But plot points occur, and finally action is happening.
Another year has passed by episode three, so it’s 1616, yet George hasn’t gotten very far at court. He’s had sex with the king a few times, but Somerset is still in charge. So Mary tarts herself up — literally, her whore-friend paints her face — and wears a big fancy dress to go to court and plead George’s case.
Courtiers make snide comments about Mary’s dress being ‘out of fashion,’ but I think it’s just the color and maybe the makeup. Her ruff isn’t as fancy as the lace ones worn by many at court, but she doesn’t have much money yet. The style is accurate.
Costume designer Annie Symons said in Harpers Bazaar:
“For Mary, she uses costume as a chameleon-type calling card. Wherever she goes, she seems to fit in — apart from one scene, where she very deliberately wears a big purple farthingale dress with the “prostitute makeup.” But that was very deliberate, and she wears that to deliberately draw attention to herself.”
This extant ruff supporter is similar to what Mary’s been wearing so far:
And to continue to harp on the wheel farthingale pleat / tuck or ruffle thing again (because it’s one of my obsessions, and this is my blog), looking at both the screencaps and this behind-the-scenes photo, I almost think Mary’s purple gown is constructed in a more historical fashion, at least compared to the green dress (which I think she wears in a really dark scene, where it doesn’t look this color).
I also spied this (and you know what we say about metal grommets):
George gets his fanciest outfit so far, though I’m annoyed that he’s wearing it unbuttoned. As we said during our very first Snark Week, this is the era’s equivalent of leaving your fly unzipped.
The suit itself is reminiscent of this portrait of George in white.
Somerset and his wife Frances make a big entrance. She’s pregnant and showing it off.
Frances Howard was already part of a scandal, having divorced her first husband because of her affair with Somerset.
The high-waisted gowns she wears as “maternity” dresses rather look like what would become court fashion in the 1620s.
Lady Hatton and her family are also at court, and she continues to be a big bitch to Mary. Historical bitch fight, incoming!
The king and queen are wearing matchy white outfits. Let’s start with Queen Anne.
They don’t seem to be doing exact portrait repros, but big white wheel farthingale gowns were really popular from the 1590s and on. Think of the well-known Queen Elizabeth’s Ditchley portrait — there were a whole bunch of portraits like this, because of her!
And I think the queen’s gown is another theatrically constructed ruffle. Also, I’m not loving the lace on this standing ruff — it’s a tape lace like Battenburg lace, which just barely dates back to this era, but would be more delicate than this particular one. Considering how much really cool lace that looks spot-on for the period the show does use, this lace stands out to my eye.
The king gets an appropriately flashy suit in white with silver trim and big table-cut diamond jewels, plus a standing ruff. He’s properly buttoned-up in the scene, just not in this promo pic (but this is a better image otherwise).
Totally looks like a riff on this portrait of James:
The king and the Somerset couple play dumb games, and Mary causes a scene, getting herself thrown out of court and reprimanded by the queen. Francis Bacon offers to help George, and I only note it because he’s wearing a GREAT costume!
I love the embroidered pattern on Francis Bacon’s doublet, and even more amazing are those sheer cuffs. The linens of this period could be incredibly fine, delicate, and sheer, and they were used for collars and cuffs by the wealthy. Painters were sometimes able to capture the effect, like this:
There’s more plotting and shenanigans, and George falls ill with the pox in front of the king, who’s wearing a different white suit. This time James is all unbuttoned, but it’s a casual scene, so I guess it’s not the worst thing.
The shape of James’ suit is fairly true to the period. You can see the doublet waistline goes rather high, but because he’s wearing it open, the whole effect is more of today’s lower waist fashion. Compare with this extant example:
George just wants mommy when he’s sick, but he’s got Mary, who’s all business in this dark suit. The scene is super dark too.
Costume designer Annie Symons shared this photo on Instagram that shows the suit in much better light. She notes that it’s made of a custom embroidered velvet and describes the suit as “chic businesslike” and influenced by Christian Dior’s 1950s New Look style.
I guess the New Look shape is that fitted waist and flared skirt, although Dior was referencing the 19th-century hoopskirt, which was, in turn, referencing earlier shapes like, y’know, the farthingale. Fashion is cyclical!
In Harpers Bazaar, Symons elaborated on her process with the actor:
“The main thing was to get shapes and a look that really complemented Julianne. I first met her in Savannah, while she was filming ‘May December.’ I flew out with five suitcases of stuff that was available — bum rolls, hip rolls, farthingales, God knows what else — and we spent a whole day trying on different shapes and learning what suited her. What I ended up doing was leaning into Dior’s New Look a bit. Jacobean waistlines creep up, but it’s not that flattering on camera, so I kept her costumes on a natural waist.
What we landed on is akin to the New Look, which came later, and also to the Elizabethan look, which came before. Waistlines in the Jacobean period were creeping up higher and higher — but that means a lot of bulk on camera. She wore a corset mainly to support the weight of these rather large skirts.”
Next Mary visits the Somersets because she’s engineering their downfall, and we get a better look at her “embroidered” jacket. I really like this one, but alas, no more details from the costume designer.
Frances Howard is on trial, and in the first close-up shot, I was impressed by this attempt at a blackwork smock. The design is simple but it gives the right period effect.
Embroidery from this time had a more regular pattern, often on a grid, like these extant examples:
But then the camera pulls back and shows her full outfit. WTFrock is she wearing? Is that … a crop top and a skirt tied over her pregnant belly? WEIRD.
The Somersets are convicted and sent to the Tower, so apparently the court now wears blue. That part isn’t explained, but Mary got the memo because she’s dressed to fit in this time (though her dress is so dark blue it almost looks black in the dim lighting, that’s why I had to lighten this screencap a ton to show any details).
Lady Hatton, mega-bitch as ever, wears a flashy blue and gold gown with a big standing ruff.
Her daughter Frances is in a nice blue gown too, but she’s stuck with a floating ruff. sad trombone
The royal couple are less matching today, just nicely coordinating. I guess it was James’ staff that sent out the “wear blue” memo because he’s rockin’ it.
Queen Anne is a smidge more subtle with this blue-and-white blue print. The fabric is such a great period repro!
And she’s back at the tall hair, so let’s enjoy some close-ups:
All the bows on her hair and dress remind me of my favorite portrait of her, a dress I’ve wanted to reproduce myself someday:
The king apologizes to Mary for previous BS, and in their conversation, he mentions that he’s worried about witchcraft (which Frances Howard was accused of). This is a nice little nod to King James having written a Daemonologie book in 1597 and pursuing witch hunts during his Scottish reign (he was less concerned with the matter once he moved to England).
Ah, but here we see that while the king does wear a standing ruff, he doesn’t get as fancy a rebato as his wife!
George shows up, recovered from the pox and wearing bright blue (he got the memo!).
Thus he’s reunited with King James, and it feels so good. There’s some sex, but like the fucking in this series so far, it’s just some kissing, a little bit of naked butts, and fade to black. For all the promo hype, I’d classify it with our other weaksauce sex scenes.
Episode four takes place in 1617 and doesn’t have a lot of costume content. It’s all Mary’s scheming or George catering to the king’s needs. Mary wears another of her boring black dresses for a not-quite court event with the king. I don’t like her hat — it looks Victorian, not 1610s.
Her hat needs a brim, like this:
Also, what’s with the two earrings in one ear? We had words about that back with the Mary Queen of Scots (2018) movie — yes, multiple earrings show up very rarely on elite women in the 16th century, and usually this portrait is used as an excuse to do it.
But multiple earrings wasn’t common. Doing it to show a woman is edgy or outrageous is such a modern cliche.
The king visits Scotland, where he’s kind of on the outs with George, they bicker some, George fucks another guy (which turns out to be part of a plot to have George killed), the king seems to go mad for a bit, and he has a big sad about his first favorite, the Duke of Lennox. Emo boy stuff!
I haven’t spied any contractually obligated leather pants in the series yet, but there are a lot of leather doublets. Not quite biker jackets, but close. However, I’m more annoyed by George’s hair — SO MODERN.
In Edinburgh, there’s a feast for the king, but George has to sit at the “kids table” (they actually call it that, which, UGH, modern) with his younger brother and some other dudes. Just like his older bro, Christopher “Kit” Villiers has stupidly modern hair. I love the burgundy damask doublet though.
Nice lace falling band on George and a new blue doublet (he wears a lot of blue).
At their table is random Scottish lord Peter Carr, (possibly fictional) cousin of Somerset. You know he’s Scottish because he’s wearing tartan. eye roll
He and some other guys do something like a highland jig for the king, and it looks like he’s wearing a kilt — there’s certainly a lot of fabric flapping around when he dances! 1610s is a little early for the whole kilt thing, at least on a lowlander like this fella.
But take a look at the king’s striped suit. He was only in the background of this scene, so it was hard to get decent screencaps.
But maybe they are doing some portrait repros, because take a look here:
Back in England, Mary and Edward Coke kidnap Frances to get her married to John Villers. They’re caught by Francis Bacon, who’s subbing for the king, and sticks Mary, Lady Hatton, and Frances together to wait until the king returns. That’s fun for everyone! Oh, and John is going nuts, which Mary is trying to cover up. Bacon rides out to meet king on the way back, but Mary beat him to it. Finally she has a more historically accurate hat.
The costume designer mentioned in Harpers Bazaar:
“I was delighted that Julianne embraced the hats, because they’re part of the outfits. Hats can be difficult — you need to work really tightly in conjunction with the hair people, especially in period stuff. The hair supports the hat.”
An even more delightful headdress is Frances’ wedding veil. Gorgeous fabrics covering up the unhappy girl.
White wasn’t typical for weddings yet (that’s a Queen Victoria thing), but hey, TV has do the obvious stuff.
Mary’s finally wearing lace standing ruffs, and George is in blue again.
At least historically, things just keep going up for Mary from here. Who knows what will happen in the final episodes. We’ll check in again after they air on Starz.
Looking for more costume info? Check out this visit with the costume designer and some of the makers!
Have you watched Mary & George?
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