SNARK WEEK: Fabrics & Trims I Don’t Want to See in Frock Flicks

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Shopping for fabric is, to me, one of the best parts of costuming, coming a very close second to actually wearing costumes. Sometimes, it’s easier and more fun to search for that perfect fabric or trim than it is to truss myself up in a corset, gown, wig, shoes, makeup, etc., all to attend a costumed event!

I know movie and TV costume designers don’t have all the time in the world to hunt for precisely historically accurate fabric and trims because they’re on a deadline and have to stick to a budget. But because I love fabrics so much, seeing the wrong ones used in frock flicks takes me out of the story’s era and makes me sad. It’s maybe not the worst thing in the world, but Snark Week is when we give in to all our pet peeves and nitpicks.

So fellow fabric hoarders, let’s have at it and harsh on the crappy fabrics and trims we’re tired of seeing used in historical costumes onscreen!

 

 

Pin-Tucked Taffeta

This stuff is super modern, and I hate when it shows up inexplicably in historical costume! It’s not a medieval material for sure, so why is this chick wearing it in the 14th century?

I suppose Elizabethan frock flicks are maybe trying for this kind of texture, except you can see in the portraits that it’s a 3D trim applied on top of the main fabric.

Same with this kind of cross-hatch trim, it’s got to be an appliqué.

But onscreen, there’s this kind of treatment — at least in the older flicks, this might have been handmade? IDK but it still looks pretty modern.

Same here, the fabric treatment is a bit closer to the period images, but not right because it should be a separate trim applied on top of the main fabric.

Here’s where they just used the cheaper, machine-made, pin-tucked fabric and it shows.

Adding sari trim doesn’t help!

I know this one isn’t a proper 16th-century dress in any way, but still, the pin-tuck fabric skirt offends me.

There’s so much wrong with this outfit, but let’s just be annoyed by the pin-tucked taffeta petticoat today:

 

Crappy Embroidery Motifs

This one we’ve mentioned before but it happens A LOT so bears expanding on. Some background: Embroidery broadly describes any technique that uses a needle to apply a thread decoration on top of a fabric, and forms have been around since at least the third century. This was done by hand until the middle of the 19th century when machines could also be used to embroider fabric.

I have no problem with movies and TV shows using machine embroidery — that works for their budget and deadline needs. The problem I have is when the design is radically over simplified so it doesn’t resemble what was done in historical clothing. Don’t just plop a big, obvious motif on a guy’s shoulder and call it good!

Period embroidery designs would often be quite dense with lots of small motifs crammed close together on a piece of fabric, and that’s something shows don’t get. Or frock flicks will use motifs that aren’t appropriate for the historical period. Or both!

In the 16th century, the stomacher on an upper-class woman’s gown could display embroidery like this:

Another typical example of the period:

Instead, we’ve seen way too many versions that have one big motif smack in the center of the bodice. While this phenomenon has gone wild in more recent frock flicks, hints of it have been coming like this design … is it a big Hawaiian flower? Or a poinsettia? It’s not relevant to the 16th century, and unfortunately, this dress gets recycled in a bunch of productions!

But it’s really the The Tudors that did this dumb motif thing over and over and over! There’s Anne Boleyn:

This one looks like it’s trying to be two hands reaching up to grab her boobs.

Jane Seymour as a lady in waiting gets a crown motif as if she’s wearing royal livery — look, she’s the king’s property!

Livery in the form of clothing was worn by lower servants (not ladies in waiting), especially by the 16th century, and it would look more like this:

Catherine Howard gets some chunky embroidery, right from her wedding day:

Lady Mary wears tulips center front. Though these flowers didn’t arrive in western Europe from the Ottoman Empire until the late 16th century, and I don’t think she’s that fashion-forward.

If inaccurate flowers aren’t weird enough, what’s with the giant bow embellished across Queen Elizabeth’s crotch? Bad motif and placement!

QEI did wear bows but, uh, not like that…

What’s with the calla lily on this Anne? FWIW, this is an African flower that wasn’t introduced to Europe until the 17th century.

I know this episode was trying to show that Mary Queen of Scots was making a claim to the English throne, but she did that by quartering her heraldry, not by walking around with the English heraldic symbols ON her dress!

This was how she did it, FWIW:

I remember that Jamestown told the story of the first women being sent to the new American colony, but is she supposed to be a doctor too? Or a nurse?

Because…

Riffing on that royal livery idea, now in the 18th century, I suppose, but the king wouldn’t be wearing a big ol’ badge on his own robes.

You can be quite the peacock with 18th-century menswear and show off embroidered waistcoats and suits, but there are limits. The embroidery should go around the edges of the coat, for example:

Not going off in wacky designs like this:

Is he a tiger? Is it plant life? It’s not an 18th-century motif!

Stomachers worn on women’s gowns in the 18th century had plenty of embroidery too, and there were central motifs. But like in earlier periods, the embroidery was distinctive and detailed.

It’s not on the diagonal:

It would not be a random mishmash of glittery lace:

Nor would it be a big honkin’ lace appliqué:

And while 19th-century designs might get more freeform — and this one isn’t embroidery — the giant red lace thing annoys me, so let it annoy you too!

 

 

Modern Embroidered Fabric

Not only would motifs be embroidered on historical clothes, whole garments could be embroidered. This was a top luxury good because it was handmade until the mid 19th century. As with central motifs, the designs could be quite elaborate like this 16th-century example:

And this one:

This dress fails on all counts — the embroidery isn’t dense enough and the design isn’t period. Oh and the dress is hella ugly.

I guess these next productions are aiming for the general 16th-century embroidery design, but noooooooooo, these modern fabrics don’t work! The biggest giveaway is the color because 16th- and 17th-century embroidered fabric usually had a white background material. Not purpley-brown:

Not burgundy:

Not light blue:

There’s more variety of embroidered fabrics in 18th-century European fashion because embellished materials from Asia start to be imported and even copied. I know Kendra gets annoyed by seeing modern machine-embroidered fabrics used for 18th-century costumes onscreen, but IMO there’s some leeway.  The all-over, loose floral and vine patterns that you find today are similar to patterns from this period:

This is a brocade so the design is woven, not embroidered, but the pattern is similar:

The fabric in this next costume doesn’t bother me! It has other problems like low-rise panniers and very likely back-lacing, but no points off for fabric ;)

What I will definitely complain about is machine-embroidered fabric that uses modern patterns and colors. Or both! Bright orange with daisy-type flowers? Nope!

Dito Farewell, My Queen because acid green is not an 18th-century color and those starfish flowers aren’t a period aesthetic.

I might give this yellow tone a pass, but the floral embroidery is pretty modern.

Nix on the aqua tone-on-tone embroidery!

Moving later to the 19th century, this pattern isn’t terrible but combined with the colors, it all screams modern machine-made.

 

 

Clunky Florals

Who here used to watch Project Runway? Remember how so many designers would say “prints are hard”? Well, that includes florals and especially if you want historically accurate ones. Florals are easy to fuck up and will look dated — with the wrong date!

In the 16th century, “floral” designs were actually embroidered fabric, like what I showed above or these:

Brocades and damasks had abstract designs that may have been inspired by flowers but did not look like literal flowers. For example:

What happens too often onscreen for the 16th century are florals like this:

I should also note that 16th-century damasks had symmetrical pattens. This yellow dress has wildly abstract floral that’s even more noticeable offscreen.

Even worse is her lady in waiting’s pink cabbage-rose gown:

Moving up to the 1970s, Queen Elizabeth gets a groovy floral-print robe here:

Once again, The Tudors throws everything at the wall, hoping something will stick. This first dress is a total mishmash, and none of it works for the period.

Metallic pastel cabbage roses? No, not in the 16th century.

Abstract floral in silver and black, maybe art nouveau?

Gold Victorian floral?

Is this dress made of fabric scraps?

18th-century fashion had more variety in floral fabrics, but that still leaves plenty of room to go wrong. Here’s a guide to the many types seen during this period:

Floral decoration was also included on menswear, such as:

Nowhere half so clunky as this attempt:

This movie is a lot, but I can still find the floral fabric of his coat annoying, even in that context.

WTFrock is this floral autumnal couch fabric???

The Great is a comedy, but is a room full of cabbage roses really that funny?

But The Cook of Castamar is really a hotbed of inaccurate floral fabrics. This is pure 1980s cabbage-rose duvet cover:

This is your grandmom’s curtains:

This is off-cuts from a 1960s evening swing coat:

I don’t know if this was supposed to be floral or what. Some kind of misty watercolor BS?

This ditzy floral is about 100 years too early.

The early 1800s Regency period is known for delicate florals or maybe a wide floral band of trim at a gown’s hem.

I can look past most of the crazy materials used in Bridgerton because, taken all together, it builds the world of the show. But what Portia Featherington wears, especially in season 2, is so beyond over-the-top, it does hurt ones eyes!

It’s like an acid trip.

Is she going to a luau?

 

 

Inappropriate Paisleys

The teardrop or leaf-shaped “paisley” design probably originated in the seventh century in Persia, where it’s called the boteh. It’s been used in all kinds of things such as architecture, on paper, and in fabric across Iran and India.

Not until the late 18th century did British colonizers encounter this design and appropriate it into western fashions. In particular, the Scottish town of Paisley began copying shawls from Kashmir with the boteh design — that’s how both “paisley” and “cashmere” gained wider popularity.

Only frock flicks showing 19th-century European clothing or later should use paisley fabric or motifs. You can’t just stick it into these 16th-century costumes and think it’s OK.

Not good.

A terrible costume made worse by the wrong print.

Half-assing it here.

While I love this color combo and gown for Lady Danbury, I don’t think the paisley-adjacent fabric was necessary.

Victor Hugo’s novel was written in 1831, and the character of Esmerelda is supposed to be French Roma, so maybe by this date and her cultural association, she might wear a paisley design. But this giant abstract swirl is super modern!

 

 

Dupioni Silk

You hear “silk” and you may think “luxury” “high class” — but not all silks are equal when it comes to historical costume. If you’re outfitting the crème de la crème of society, you want the fabric to look the best, and that means smoooooooooth fabrics, not lumpy, bumpy, slubby silk. Which is what dupioni silk is. If you see those little stripe-like marks built into the fabric, it’s dupioni.

This fabric was originally made when two silkworms spun their cocoons too close together, creating a lower grade of silk with shorter fibers. The name comes from “double silk” and it was the “second” type of silk, whereas the “first” quality silk was made from long, intact silk fibers that came from individual cocoons.

Here’s the kind of smooth, glowing first-quality silk worn at court in the 16th and 17th centuries:

This slubby stuff is not!

Nor is this!

Even a simple 18th-century dress like this one is made of a flat, smooth silk, not dupioni (click on the museum links in these examples to see the high-rez versions):

Look at that slubby silk on her bodice! It’s not just the photo quality; his shirt fabric looks smooth.

Seems like A LOT of dupioni was used in Elisa di Rivombrosa. Thing is, that doesn’t make much sense as a budget choice because in the 21st century, dupioni silk can cost in the same range as a silk taffeta or more than a heavyweight polyester taffeta.

The acid green doesn’t help matters.

Just a glimpse of that dupioni bodice, but it’s there.

Couldn’t pirates steal better quality?

This pink one kills me! It’s so pretty and it’s inspired by an extant jacket in Paris that I’ve seen and love. But the slubby silk takes it down a notch.

Many types of silk were used in 19th-century fashion. Just not dupioni. Check out this silk satin dress:

And see how pale these comparisons are when rendered in dupioni! Surely a queen could afford better.

I guess when you’re wearing an upholstery-trim head necklace, you only get dupioni dresses. sad trombone

Tragic stories do not have to mean tragic fabrics!

Victorian clothing could mix different types of silk, like this blue taffeta with a dotted satin, but still no dupioni. It won’t be used in fashion till the middle of the next century.

I can only see a bit of her dress, but it’s all slubby and she’s supposed to be an upper-class lady.

Confession time: I’ve made a bustle gown from dupioni silk! But I was doing my own goth style and the costume wasn’t meant to be all that historically accurate. Unlike this frock flick…

Or this one, while pretty, the slubs are grating.

 

 

What historically inaccurate fabrics or trims bug you?