I recapped the entire first season of The Gilded Age (2022-), Julian Fellowes’ soap-opera about 1880s New York high society. With season two out on HBO, I’m not as excited but I’m still watching! I’m going to give a light two-part look at the entire season, starting here with the first six episodes and wrapping up when the season ends. Take a look at my wrap-up of season one for overall thoughts on the historical costumes in the series, because much of that will still apply.
The story of S2 is pretty bland, I have to admit. Not that S1 was thrilling, but at least it had to do the work of introducing the characters and the world. Now we know that everything is low stakes and silly, the characters are mostly boring, and the dialog falls flat. Julian Fellowes is really phoning it in on these scripts, IMO. But costume designer Kasia Walicka-Maimone absolutely is not! She continues to crank out a bajillion bustle gowns every episode, and HBO must be throwing buckets of money at her because these costumes are ridiculously elaborate and well created.
Fashion wise, this show is everything The Buccaneers (2023) is not — the costume designs are solidly based in historical fashions, sometimes recreating extant garments or fashion plates, and attention is paid to the level of detail the period was known for. There’s no skimping on trims, ruffles, pleats, inserts, contrasts, etc. Only little things about the costumes are obviously modernized (such as fabric choices). In fact, more often, the costumes in this show lean in hard on the 1880s aesthetics, which may seem gaudy and over-the-top to modern eyes. As Walicka-Maimone told TV Insider of her 35,000 reference images from the era: “It’s shocking to our modern eye to see the explosion of color from that period.”
Episode one starts with all the OTT fashions on display for Easter Sunday, meaning hats and pastels, even on the old biddies!
Bertha Russell, being new money, goes big on her hat. Too big, actually — her and her daughter Gladys’ Easter hats are rather out of proportion for the period. But, like in season 1, this just shows how the Russells are a tad out of step with society’s good taste. They’re brash and bold.
If you’re interested in this show’s costumes, you simply must follow not just the costume designer, but costume maker Eric Winterling on Instagram. Like last season, he posts excellent photos of the full costumes, including details that might not be seen on the TV.
Here’s Gladys in her oversized Easter bonnet. Compare with Carrie Astor, who’s wearing a hat loaded with flowers, but the size is just a bit smaller and that’s both more historically accurate and it suits her better.
Not as much of their dresses are visible in these scenes, so again on Instagram…
Costume designer Kasia Walicka-Maimone shares some of her designs on Instagram, such as this dress for Carrie:
Cousin Marian is still slowly being upgraded from country bumpkin status to more glamorous city girl this season. A standout ensemble is this teal dress with loads of unnecessary lacing:
I searched high and low for an extant garment or fashion plate that could have inspired this gown because it’s weird and amazing, but couldn’t find an exact precedent. However, random lacing did show up in period fashion, for example:
Though all that lacing reminds me of one irritation I have with The Gilded Age show’s costumes — the back closures. It’s not technically historically inaccurate; in the first season, there are scenes showing that it’s definitely hook-and-eye closures, not zippers (yes, I checked; go back through my S1 recaps!).
But because this is a TV show, there are a lot of back views (in high-definition, no less), so I keep seeing that line up the back. And this dress has a front closure! Much like Kendra rants about 18th-century back lacing, it’s illogical for a garment to open in both the front AND the back.
Just looks clunky to me, and it happens a lot on costumes in this show. Oh well.
Moving on. I’m not going to go too crazy finding all the exact repros that this show did, but trust that they are reproducing actual historical fashions, both obscure and well-known. For example, at a luncheon to introduce a new character, Ada wears this green outfit trimmed with an embroidered contrast fabric:
That was probably inspired by this unusual dress:
At the same luncheon, Gladys gets her first marriage proposal, wearing this very pretty reddish satin gown. But it proves how tricky satin can be, especially on TV when the light picks up every.single.wrinkle when the actor moves.
For the fancy dinner that closes out episode one, Bertha is wearing a yellow satin gown trimmed in lace. It’s just barely visible.
On Instagram, the costume designer showed her process for creating this gown:
And maybe it was inspired by this extant gown from a slightly later period:
Episode two opens with Gladys rejecting that proposal, while wearing a gorgeous bustle gown that resembles another one by Worth (appropriate since her family is up with the latest French fashions).
Compare with:
At tea in the van Rhijn household, Marian wears this hideous dress that has got to be inspired by a period fashion plate, it’s just that ugly. I nominate it for the second fugliest thing in these four eps (scroll down for #1).
Peggy moves back into her old jobs as Agnes’ secretary and as a reporter at the Black newspaper. It’s an awkward plot point, but the show can’t figure out how to tell an authentic story about 1880s Black middle-class alongside a soap-opera story of the 1880s White ultra-rich. Maybe some of the problem is of authenticity vs. soap-opera more than race? IDK what the solution is, but then, that’s why I’m not writing TV scripts.
Anyway, Peggy gets a bunch of new clothes that look great!
This outfit has similar lines as this extant dress:
For another tea at the van Rhijn house, Aurora and Marian wear garish but totally period ensembles, while Agnes and Ada remain relatively muted in their wardrobes so I’m not screencapping them as much.
Reminds me of things like this:
This season’s scandalous widow is Mrs. Blane, who also shows how tricky satin can be.
But she also gets a nice crisp, white and blue repro ensemble:
It’s right out of this painting (which was previously reproduced in Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill):
In the same scene, Gladys wears an adorable dress in a rosebud print and again, her hat is a bit oversized.
Episode 3 begins with the absolute ugliest dress in these eps! I don’t doubt this has historical precedent, but it’s just hideous.
I almost wonder if it’s on purpose because Bertha wears it in the same scene as she faces off with her new nemesis, Mrs. Winterton, who was formerly her lady’s maid. Mrs. Winterton wears this delightfully lovely lavender and white outfit:
Meanwhile, Peggy persuades her newspaper boss to let her join him in a trip south to interview Booker T. Washington. Like all the characters, Peggy wears repeat costumes from S1 (which I love seeing — that always feels more realistic to me), but this yellow dress is a striking new ensemble.
There’s an incredibly dumb scene where several characters attend a very bad early Oscar Wilde play (“Vera: Or The Nihlists”). They meet a very flat, un-witty Wilde, and his only purpose seems to be as Victorian gaydar, noticing Oscar van Rhijn and his ex-boyfriend. The scene irritated me, the costumes were boring, so I’m not screencapping.
This episode ends with Ada on a date with the new rector, and she’s wearing this vivid blue dress.
Excellent reproduction of:
Among the couple new characters introduced this season is socialite Maud Beaton. Here she is in episode 4, with Marian, and Maud’s suit shows the kind of “modernizing” this show’s costumes tend to do — just using a slightly modern fabric print, but in a period cut. Though this looks closer to 1890 than 1883, when this season is set.
And I might as well include an image of Agnes. Other than that Easter parade, her costumes tend to be the same heavy, dark, velvets she wore in S1. She’s a creature of habit!
The rest of this episode is all about Bertha’s social machinations (oh wait, that’s the plot of the whole show!) — specifically now, she’s getting back at her former maid who married into money. The final costumes of note to me are at a dinner for the Duke of Buckingham. First is Bertha’s stunning silver gown:
Then there’s Mrs. Winterton’s white and gold gown:
I think the lines of her gown resemble this extant example:
I’ll finish up the rest of season’s most interesting costumes in the new year!
Are you watching season 2 of The Gilded Age?
Oh frabulous joy! I was so looking foward to this!!!
I have more (much, much more to say) but you’re not the only Blog in Town to comment on how hideous Bertha’s mauve and … perriwinkle (?) dress with the ruffles (theylook like cupcake liners to me) is – TLo also opined thusly. It’s awful.
I loathe Marion but the dress with lacing is AWESOME.
Lastly, I cannot tell if it was intentional but Enid Winterton’s outfits seem somewhat more tasteful and more pleasing to us, the moderns than the awfully garish luxe outfits of both the actual haute and the nouveau riche.
The bangs on Christine Baranski are just so odd. She has a modern-looking face to start with, and the hair makes her look out of place in every single image I see, no matter how great her costume is. Some of the bodices also look too long so when the character is seated, there is extra fabric above the top edge of the corset, which shows through e.g. Peggy’s yellow dress or Gladys in the red/fuchsia.
I’ve long thought that Fellowes is at heart a soap opera writer who seems to think he’s above soap opera, and this show’s weird tonal teetering between nothing much happening (endless vague posturing about invitations and watercolor classes and opera) and huge drama dealt with usually weirdly briefly (babies dying, brides being left at altars!) really exemplifies that. I have enjoyed the costumes this season, though I agreed that the Russell women’s hats were off. I really love Gladys’ rosebud dress, though–what a perfect ingenue look for the period!
I actually enjoy the fact this show is fairly low-stakes (Though admittedly this may be a result of usually watching Science Fiction, Fantasy and other inherently EXTRA forms of fiction): sometimes one wants and adventure, sometimes one wishes to spend an hour or so in agreeable company.
Also, as noted, some of the costumes are nearly as lovely as the actresses wearing them: I’m not made of stone!
Also, for some reason Ms. Cynthia Nixon as Aunt Ada gives me Strong Marple Energy and I keep trying to puzzle out why.
I think Gladys’s gown at the « Opera dinner » at the end of ep 1 is the ugliest of the galaxy and beats down even Bertha’s. Which is to some extent consistent with the fact that Berta prides herself to choose the best clothes for her daughter…lol.
Also sidenote: did anyone notice that the secret valet’s daughter had the perfect traits for a woman of this era, she reminds me of Queen Mary
I haven’t watched the whole season yet, and some of the costumes are good, but there are a few with actual cutouts on the bodice (Mrs. Fish and somebody else) and that’s really jumping the shark in my book. Where the hell does that come from? Nobody, but nobody, had cutouts showing actual flesh on bodices in that period. Also, in general, Gladys’s costumes are hideous, and Marion’s need padding or something to bring her into the period silhouette. I’m not super impressed.