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The King’s Favorite, originally called Diane de Poitiers in France, is a 2022 French two-part miniseries starring Isabelle Adjani as the famous royal mistress of King Henry II. It still hasn’t been released in the U.S., but I was able to watch it nonetheless through the magic of VPN (and you can too! just, no English subtitles) and people, it’s WACKY. Medieval Times Sex Dungeon is waaaaay too accurate as the costume theme here.
The costumes were officially designed by French designer Cyril Fontaine, who’s only done a few obscure-to-me period productions (Through the Mill, White Saigon, Rasputin with Gérard Depardieu), while Adjani’s were by Dominique Borg (Camille Claudel, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Artemisia) and Stéphane Couvé-Bonnaire; but a news report says they were designed by Maxime Rebière and made by Borg/Couvé-Bonnaire, so I’m confused. It appears the design directive was Goth Renaissance for Adjani/Poitiers, with chain mail and head necklaces galore; following the real Diane‘s penchant for only wearing black and white, everyone gets color coded.
I can’t recap every single plot point, but I also can’t help but share the many, many “highlights,” so here’s my wander through The King’s Favorite. Today, the first half of episode one:
While out hunting, Diane de Poitiers rescues a peasant woman who tells her fortune — she’ll become an “almost queen.” Apparently Diane likes to hunt in a Hannibal Lecter-type face mask and leather outfit:
Diane is friends with Marguerite de Navarre, famous intellectual, important Protestant, and sister of King François I. Marguerite gets ONE DRESS for the entire thing. Since Diane is recently widowed, she can only wear white and/or black, but does so in Full Goth Queen mode:
At court, François I is suitably tall, broad-shouldered, and wears nicely bulky costumes that actually give him the look of the period. He’s always in hit-you-in-the-face RED. His official mistress, Anne, Duchess of Étampes (Virginie Ledoyen), wears only green; she’s peeved that François is remarrying to Eleanor of Austria.
At her country chateau, Diane is full Child of Nature:
A blue dress leads her to flashback to the time when she was present at the tradeoff of François I, who was imprisoned by the Spanish, and his sons. François had been captured in a battle and traded his own freedom for his two sons (dauphin François and second son Henry – yes spelled with a y as he was named after English King Henry VIII). Diane wears a coordinating blue plate on her head for the occasion.
Diane wants to renovate her chateau, so she heads to court to get the money. Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, brother of Eleanor, wants her to spy for him but she says no. She Goth Queens it up:
Anne gets her lady-in-waiting to spy on Diane. She’s threatened by her beauty and wants to find out how Diane stays so young-looking. She’s also plotting with the Comte de Kervannes to take down Diane – I think maybe using some kind of acid attack, but this is where my French failed me.
Marguerite tries to convince Diane to go Protestant and come with her to Navarre, but Diane protests she’s Catholic.
Gérard Depardieu shows up as Nostradamus. Diane visits him to ask him to make her gold concoction that she drinks to stay youthful. Y’all know how I feel about Depardieu, and I spend the scene unhappily looking at his nose.
François I remembers that Diane and his second son, Henry, were close before his imprisonment. He asks Diane to “make Henry a man,” nudge nudge wink wink. Diane wears her best chain mail head necklace and collar for the occasion.
Many of the gowns in this production have that split at the top that could be influenced by these images of the actual Diane de Poitiers:
But I think everyone looks to this portrait, which don’t get me wrong, is super pretty, but I’m getting sick of seeing The Same Damn Bodice Treatment in Every Production:
There’s a flashback in which Diane comes to court with her husband, and it’s implied that she’s pressured into sleeping with François. She’s dressed as some kind of medieval fairy queen:
Anne plots. A lot. She denounces Diane to the (comparatively limited) French Inquisition.
Queen Eleanor really doesn’t like having her husband’s mistress around all the time. Weirdly, she wears multiple colors.
Anne talks about denouncing Diane to the inquisition for sorcery; Diane shows up and François sort of warns her.
Diane stresses, then purposefully runs into Henry, while wearing this very narrow-silhouette-for-the-period high-necked gown with cute hat:
Henry is played by Hugo Becker, a low-rent Jamie Dornan. Henry should be 13 or 14 as he married when he was 14, but he’s clearly in his mid-30s here, I guess to make his relationship with Diane less creepy? The two go riding; Diane wears her Hannibal Lecter mask and leather riding ensemble, including PANTS, while they hang; she’s heard about the Inquisition thing and asks for Henry’s help.
Stay tuned tomorrow for more of The King’s Favorite aka Diane de Poitiers!
Oh, those TV movies were absolutely awful. Nothing really interesting about Diane de Poitiers but a series of clichés like it was a book written in the 19th century. It’s SO cheap despite being shot in real châteaux and having big names on the casting. I hope you have noticed the use of the 1920s cape pattern popularized by American Duchess on the late 1st episode and on the 2nd episode.
What’s also infuriating are the literal product placements. You may have missed the one in this episode, because it’s a bit subtle especially if you don’t speak French : it’s a product placement for the cognac beverage (a liqueur made in Cognac) paid by cognac producers for 20k €. Here is the source (in French) https://www.charentelibre.fr/charente/cognac/francois-ier-qui-boit-un-cognac-c-est-faux-les-legeretes-historiques-du-telefilm-diane-de-poitiers-sont-assumees-12906877.php
But fear not! More product placements are coming in the second episode!
Oh yes, I caught both — but not the cognac! They’ll be in future recaps :)
(Oh wait I should update my previous comment, it’s 20k € paid by alcohol producers, because you know alcohol lobbies in France, PLUS 25k € paid by public funds just to promote that.)
I, too, would like to know how Isabella Adjani stays looking so young and beautiful. And as a fellow Goth Queen I envy every stitch of her hilariously inaccurate wardrobe. You had me at ‘wandered round her country chateau in long loose robes with long crimped hair’.
I could forgive the weirdness of the wardrobe in Brotherhood of the Wolf because it wasn’t historical but this is the goth equivalent of ‘I’m not wearing it unless my tits are out.’
Her wardrobe is gorgeous! Just, not 16th century.
Diane doesn’t believe in hairpins, apparently! 0.5 for Not being based on a PFG Novel. Minus 100,000,000 for all the WTFrock!
Did young Diane take tips from Princess Margaret in the Tudors on wearing badly fitted, off the shoulder dresses?! Never take advice from the Tudors!
Okay, this is way off the beam, but I have to ask: In the very first photo, What is with that poor horse’s forelock? Maybe scissors hadn’t been invented yet? I am no historical horsie expert, but it doesn’t begin to make sense that a horse that is presumably (if picturesquely) used for hunting would have so much hair in his face that he can’t see out. If I missed the memo about horses having teenage-girl hair in olden times, I apologize.
THE GREAT HAIRPIN SHORTAGE STRIKES EQUINES
Dian de Poitiers apparently doesn’t own a comb.
Actually I think she does, just, only two hairpins!
This last line made me LOL so loudly!
I’m guessing this movie didn’t require a lot of varied emotions from its actress, given that she has the EXACT SAME expression in every single screen cap you shared…
Well, “able to move her eyebrows” and “able to emote” are two different things…
AHAHAHA.
This post sent me down a rabbit hole of wondering if it was Diane de Poitiers who had a château built over a river which I saw a photo of in my high school French book and never forgot?, googling it and finding out that yes it was her & it’s the Château de Chenonceau, spending 20 minutes reading up on Chenonceau and looking at photos, thinking I really should put it on my bucket list, realising that while my disability means I can’t cope with the heat anymore and many of my dream overseas trips are now unfeasible France in spring might actually work, and starting to plan to save (I’m in New Zealand so it’s a long & expensive haul to get there)…
So congrats, Flickers, you’ve given me my goal for one (possibly last) big OE! Who knew you were also travel influencers?
Also, I SO want a pattern for that bonkers red off-the-shoulder gown with the big puffy sleeves.
Chenonceau is gorgeous! I went once, too briefly, but I remember it well. There are lots of little places you can see inside where Catherine de Medici redid her initials over Diane’s (bec. sometimes it worked & sometimes it didn’t, lol).
It is Chenonceau and it’s beautiful! Definitely go in spring, better weather and fewer tourists. When I went it was PACKED (June maybe?).
For more context : Diane de Poitiers was the keeper of Chenonceau until 1559 (death of Henri II). As Chenonceau was royal property, she had to give it back. She did not build the gallery over the river (it was Catherine de Medici, after she got back the château in the 1570s) but Diane did build a bridge over the river. At the same time, as a diplomatic gesture, Catherine gifted her the château of Chaumont, her own personal château she bought on her own money. Chaumont was a bit old fashioned, and in fact Diane never lived there if not for very short periods of time. She had the walkway remade with her initials, but she spent her days at Anet which was built for her.
First I see Diane besides wearing Goth, trying to ape the Pre-Raphs with unbobby pinned hair, Aththen Excalibur, maybe, and finally REN FAIRE. Anne d’Estampes’ baby fit green SCREAMS Prostitute. And where’s Marie de Medici? And Henri looks on steroids.
( when reading your comment about Depardieu, sadly I wonder if you heard about his latest disgusting deed…)
Oh god, I think I read about it and blocked it out (didn’t some doc come out where he sexually harassed a journalist and a kid on camera?)
That’s it, he harassed a Korean hostess by using the language bareer and made disgusting comments about a ten year olds. After that, many people from movies industry started to say how he harassed and assaulted many women. One of them, who played his wife in Danton, killed herself recently, her trauma may be one of the causes
It’s so unfair that everyone remembers Diane de Poitiers slept with the king, but they all forget she invented Botox!
Seriously, I thought it was just me! :)
History is written by the victors.
Puppeh! Sorry, I just had to (I’m hanging out with Senor Bacardi tonight). :)
Is this a horror show? Why does Diane look scared in every single picture?
Botoxed to hell and back?
Ok, I’m a 16th Century France nerd and A.) Those dresses were weird and in style for a relatively limited time period, based on what I’ve seen B.) No one really makes them right for screen. Or at all for any other purpose.
Basically they are the “I saw you like fancy bodices so I put a bodice on your bodice while you’re still workin’ out this henrician thing” style. Most you can see very clearly are hooked in the front below the bust line (although there are exceptions to that, so I wouldn’t say it’s a hard and fast rule), and sometimes were used as extensions to the well known “henrician” gown that we know from all the Tudor things. However, it seems pretty clear to me that on the rare occasions that we see them full length as extensions to this earlier type of gown, it’s fairly clear that it is a transitional gown between the henrician type gown focus on fabric with most embellishments on the underlying kirtle. Because it’s transitional, you get a variety of looks from the more conservative earlier style to a more flamboyant trim focused style that is evident later and makes a shift from a more balanced? Rounded? silhouette for women to a longer silhouette that we see later in France and parts of Italy.
I have OPINIONS and need to make my own, but in the meantime, everyone just gets my opinions.
NOOOObody expects the French Inquisition!
I’m trying to fathom some of the choices here. Was there some kind of tug-of-war going on between some of the producers over whether or not they were making something akin to historical fantasy like Brotherhood of the Wolf as opposed to vaguely realistic historical drama?
It’s hard for me to find words–in English or French–to describe the stills above! The closest I can get is: Mon dieu?!#$%@ Was this a vanity project for Isabelle Adjani??? I mean, the display photos are from an exhibition that is named after her!