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I have put off watching Fanfan aka Fanfan la Tulipe (2003) for decades. Okay, that’s not entirely true, because I tried to watch it twice over the years and got SO BORED. The problem is, it’s a swashbuckler with EXTENDED sword-fighting scenes, and I just don’t care. Even with hottie Vincent Perez and an 18th-century setting, I couldn’t make myself care! I know, who even am I?
But since this Snark Week I’m trying to knock out a bunch of 18th-century films I’ve avoided for a very long time, I finally did as much as I could, which is to say fast-forwarded through the high-res, Russian-dubbed version that you can find online if you do some searching. And screencapped all the costumes, from actually really good to really fucking weird. REALLY fucking weird.
In lieu of a recap, here’s the IMDB summary: “In this 2003 remake of the classic 1952 French film, Fanfan la Tulipe is a swashbuckling lover who is tricked into joining the army of King Louis XV by Adeline La Franchise, who tells Fanfan that by doing so, he will eventually marry one of the king’s daughters.” (Yes, there’s a 1952 French film in black & white. Maybe someday I’ll take a peek?).
The costumes were designed by Guy Adoh (only one or two other credits on IMDB) and Olivier Bériot, who had already done The Libertine (2000) with Perez and would go on to design The King Is Dancing, Bandidas, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, and Franklin. I honestly have no idea what the fuck the two were thinking, and to show you what I mean, I’m going to run down the film’s costumes, from “pretty darn good” to “wow that’s amazing!” to “what the fuck happened here.”
Men’s Costumes in Fanfan: Fanfan la Tulipe
He’s the rakish cad who starts off making out with a country girl in a haystack, villagers try to force him to get married, he signs up for the army in order to get out of it, and then adventures ensue.
He spends a lot of time in this peach coat with embroidered wheat sheaves:

Once he signs up for the army, he gets uniforms, but of course wears them rakishly.


And yes, he gets his shirt off at least once! No butts, sadly.

Men’s Costumes in Fanfan: King Louis XV
Aka my boyfriend. The actor playing Louis looks a bit more like his son, but who cares because he is dressed FABULOUSLY. Yes, there are some at-night-in-the-chateau scenes where he’s in a dressing gown with his own hair down, but who cares when you’ve got:


Men’s Costumes in Fanfan: Various Gents & Soldiers
There’s a LOT. Military geeks might like this film for all the extended soldier/battle scenes, including the French army and one from another country (again, didn’t listen to any dialogue here! They’re wearing red?).
Louis’s attendants are dressed beautifully for the most part, with all the proper elements of mid-18th century French dress:

Except many of them have this weird thing where the front of their buckles (the hair rolls on the side of their wigs) have dark hair.




There’s one guy who turns out to be the baddie, who’s very dark colored (wig, clothes), but most of his scenes involve him and Fanfan leaping around with swords so I couldn’t get a better screencap:

Women’s Costumes in Fanfan: Adeline
Adeline (Penélope Cruz) is a fellow swashbuckler, who starts off having been arrested (I think?) by the king’s soldiers and then joins Fanfan in adventuring. And is the love interest.
She’s badass, so she’s got a men’s hat and military uniform coat:
Which she wears over these stays, which are gorgeous, but I’ve never seen contrast fabric used for a stomacher in the period. Maybe it’s supposed to be a jacket (green) that’s missing its stomacher over a separate corset? Maybe the designer just thought it looked cool?



Later she changes into this brown corset, which has great boning layout for the period:
Except lest you think that’s a skirt, it’s just an apron:

She ends up doing some kind of subterfuge (and getting kidnapped) in this:

And finally, in the “everything is wrapped up beautifully and I think maybe we’re getting married,” she busts out in this stays and embroidered? petticoat ensemble that’s really pretty, but she’s wearing this in front of the king and I am scoffing at the whole “country ladies just wore their stays as outerwear” because no they didn’t, you’re thinking of jackets which can look similar but it’s not the same thing.

It’s very pretty! But it also has metal grommets and I don’t know what the fuck is on her head, did I just wander into Brotherhood of the Wolf?
Women’s Costumes in Fanfan: Various Minor Ladies
There are a TON of minor female characters, all country ladies, and this was my favorite part, costume-wise. It’s established that we’re in a small town in Aquitaine (the soldiers have a banner), and I’m guessing some of what we see (especially the HATS) is referencing regional dress? But there’s a lot that made me go “ooo!”
We start off in a haystack with this chick:


Yes, stays with tied-on, usually matching sleeves was a thing! It’s my understanding this is the kind of thing that would be worn at home, but given they’re lower-class ladies, I’m going to give it a pass.

Next we have a PASSLE of village ladies in similar fashion-fabric corsets, usually with tied-on sleeves, often with kickass hats:


There has always been regional dress variations, but the good news is that started to be codified in the 18th century with the “costume album” phenomenon, by which artists/writers/intellectuals started trying to categorize peoples and nations in part through their dress (want to know more? Check out my book Dressing à la Turque). So it’s perfectly reasonable to think that this was a specific Aquitaine-ish style! The problem is I don’t have time for a deep dive into this, so I’ll let our French readers weigh in and offer you two of the examples of regional French dress from around this area. Both definitely have cool/weird headdresses, but they look more like caps so maybe not as helpful:


Back to it!



The villagers try to force Fanfan to marry this chick (is it the haystack chick cleaned up? No idea) in an embroidered? corset and interestingly-trimmed skirt.



Women’s Costumes in Fanfan: Madame de Pompadour & Her Ladies
Here’s where things go off the rails, people. Because Madame de Pompadour and two of her ladies form a significant part of the film, from Fanfan rescuing them from brigands to going to Pompadour’s? chateau and then hijinks ensuing.
Pompadour and her ladies look GORGEOUS, but I feel like someone took acid before designing their costumes. To wit:
Both Pompadour and her main lady — Wikipedia tells me this is Madame Henriette, one of Louis’s daughters — are all about MORE IS MORE. Pompadour wears a red ensemble with diamond patterning, PLUS various layers of trim, PLUS weird ruffled polka-dot fabric skirt that reminds me of a flamenco dancer. Meanwhile, Henriette is in blue and white with several patterned fabrics, tons of lace, an embroidered veil, and more.








There’s an older attendant, whose rape is played for laughs because she’s plus-sized, which was very unfunny. She’s in black with tons of lace, including her excellent cap:

Later at the chateau, Fanfan goes into Henriette’s room, and she’s wearing a corset over a sheer blouse (come on, that’s not a chemise), hoops, and a sheer petticoat.



Then Pompadour busts in, and she is wearing the most FABULOUSLY LUDICROUS underwear-as-outerwear ensemble. I can’t even wrap my brain around it, but I’ll try:



Older lady attendant is still in black, but this time with a bigger pleated cap:

And then for the final celebration/possible wedding, Henriette looks pretty even if her overskirt is too short, and Pompadour got confused about dress vs. wedding cake:



Did you manage to get through Fanfan? Got ideas about what happened with Pompadour’s costumes, or know anything about regional French dress? Weigh in in the comments!
My main association for Vincent Perez is the first of many terrible Crow sequels where he mainly wears a cropped leather vest and I desperately wanted to dress like Mia Kirshner as Sarah. The dresses in Fanfan look pretty if inaccurate and I do love some swashbuckling so I might have to check this one out.
Wow. Just wow. Re: uniforms. The extant mid-18th century uniforms I’ve seen in the military museum at Les Invalides are navy and ivory. Why the designer decided to go for aqua, no clue. I also did a quick search with Monsieur Google, and I see primary colors. Navy, ivory, red in some cases. As far as Pompadour and Henriette – the costumes seem to be inspired by Lacroix or bespoke London designer Basia Zarzycka. I almost feel like Pompadour’s underwear as outerwear could have been featured in an Adam Ant video. A number of the people (Louis XV included) look as if they could have stepped out of the Fêtes Gallantes that they do at Versailles these days. OTT, and not always in a good way.
Ah Fanfan… remember being the first time I left the movie theatre before the end of the movie because it was so bad…
The 1952 version is much more charming and was trying to evoke the « wars in lace » as we say in French about the 18th Century wars.
Good lord, THE PLUMES!!!!!
I had one of those moments where you crack up laughing so hard at something and you just can’t stop. Not only was I crying with mirth at those enormous plumes on Louis (I needed to dig out a hankie…), but I actually laughed so hard and so long I triggered an asthma attack and needed to find my inhaler. Legit, I was laughing that hard.
And when my wife asked what was so funny and I tried to explain it to them, they looked at me as if I had grown a second head.
Oooh, that first French peasant, the one in the blue striped corset, is wearing a cornette. I’m fascinated by that particular headpiece and have a whole (private) Pinterest board of nuns from the the Daughters of Charity wearing them.
OBSERVES REMARK ABOUT PENELOPE CRUZ GETTING ‘great boning’, BITES TONGUE –
Also, as a sometime student of military history I took one look at the first picture of Our Hero in … for want of a more polite word ‘uniform’ … and thought “This young officer should be cashiered from his regiment, then handed over to the Fashion Gendarmerie for a suitably condign punishment.”
I mean really, he’s not just an officer of the Lace award, he’s a FRENCH officer.