Home

fShare

Tweet

Rein is a popular historical series that has its fans all over the world. But how much do you know about the costumes used in this show? Which of them are absolutely fabulous and which are a disaster? Let’s gossip about the designs, fabrics, patterns, color palettes, and cute accessories. The photos of authentic garments of 16th and 17th century and the outfits worn by Mary, Queen of Scots and other characters are included.

This material is based on the video from YouTube channel “Costume CO”.

Many popular movies and series are based on historical events, therefore their designers of costumes often use the authentic clothing cuts, shapes, and features – both vintage outfits and modern ones made according to the rules of the epoch. We’re starting a new series of articles dedicated to the costumes used in popular films and TV shows. And the first one will be the series Reign. We’ll talk about the garments of Mary, Queen of Scots and the outfits of the other characters. Another episode of Costume Cinematographico, a YouTube channel about the cinematic costumes, will assist us in the matter.

In this episode, I look at the costumes from the hit series Reign. The series Reign is a highly fictionalized American television series, and it's very loosely based upon the early life of Mary, Queen of Scots whose reign over Scotland began when she was just 6 days old. The series was started by Stephanie Sengupta and Laurie McCarthy. This show is currently in its fourth and final season. The show stars: Australian actor Adelaide Kane as Mary Queen of Scots and English and actor Tobey Regbo who portrays Francis II of France.

A little bit of the historical background and historical accuracy

Here's a sketch of a very young Mary, Queen of Scots at the age of 12 or 13 and a young Francis II. Both are by French Renaissance painter François Clouet. In reality, Mary and Francis grew up together as children in France and both of them had a great affection for one another.

Both actors are in their early 20s at the time of the shooting but were aged up in their roles as Mary and Francis, and that's a common practice that we see in Hollywood and including in Game of Thrones. In reality, the real Mary and Francis II were ages 16 and 15 respectfully upon the crowning of Francis, as seen on the right in this royal portrait of the teens in 1559.

You can see the modest dress and hair fashions of the time worn by Mary, Queen of Scots: on the left, is a royal portrait of Mary at age 16 by Francoise silhouette and, on the right, is an early 17th-century painting by an unknown artist from The Blairs Museum.

Many of the main characters’ costumes or clothing was actually purchased from just everyday stores and, while the Renaissance costumes come from many of the costume houses throughout North America and Europe, we find that a lot of the background players and the male characters are dressed from these historical recreations.

The custom garments are made by a wardrobe team of about 24 in the city of Toronto with ten additional dailies helping with sewing and breakdown. At the time, in the Season 1, I don't know exactly about the percentage of costumes that were made, but it was pretty low. Towards Season 4 though, I would say, probably, the majority of the costumes were custom made. Some people have compared Reign to the Showtime series The Tudors which is sort of a sexy historical type romance but even though it's anachronistic, it does have some of the story anchored more or less in history while still taking many artistic liberties. Reign, however, is more of a Harlequin historical romantic type romance that doesn't really have much resemblance to the real-life history.

The CW (American English-language broadcast television network) knew their audience, so they approached this young costume designer named Meredith Markworth-Pollack. She had actually worked on the series Hart of Dixie and Gossip Girl and so she knows young girls, she knows what kinds of fashions they like, and so she brought in sort of this contemporary youthful sort of look to the show that would attract young audiences and young viewers.

Markworth-Pollack stated in an interview, “From the beginning, the creators, the director, and the studio said they wanted to incorporate a contemporary feel in the costumes. The vision was there even before I signed on, I just helped execute it”. She goes on to say, “They didn't want the men in pumpkin shorts because it's not sexy so we decided to give all the men custom leather pants. We made probably close to a thousand pairs”.

So to just show you what pumpkin pants are, in these two images you'll see Francis II and Lord Darnley in these two 19th century paintings by British painter Richard Burchett. Both men are wearing pumpkin pants, the proper term is “trunk hose”, with their doublets or jackets, so you can see what she's saying here about them not being that attractive.

Markworth-Pollack says, “For the women, it's finding that fine line of a gown. I want a gown that kept some kind of Elizabethan element, whether it was a nipped waist and an extreme silhouette or if it had a bit of a medieval feel. A lot of it was about keeping the textures in the palette. I found a lot of off-the-rack pieces that felt bohemian and relaxed or super structured”. Markworth-Pollack said, “Women would put hip bumps or hip rolls over their petticoat and then put their skirt and overskirt on to exaggerate the hips and make the waist look smaller”.

These Tudor underpinnings, like the bum roll and Spanish farthingale (a conical hip skirt) – they supported the overskirts and created the bell shape. Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry the VIII, introduced the Spanish farthingale to the English royal court around 1501. The French Court actually introduced the wheel farthingale which was a little bit more of an extreme silhouette.

In these two pictures here, you're going to see a reproduction of a wheel farthingale and a corset (or “stays”, as it sometimes called). And this is a reproduction by costume technician Danielle Jordan. The farthingale, which is that rigid structure there, is actually supported by the bum roll. And Henry VIII's youngest daughter Queen Elizabeth I, popularized that look and actually took it to extreme measures.

Just for fun, I found this amazing reproduction of an Elizabethan gown that's completely made of paper, so I wanted to show it to you. It's done by Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave. It's made completely of paper, and she's actually hand-rendered or hand-painted all these beautiful details on the skirt on the right.

About the costume designer’s work

When Markworth-Pollack describes the type of show that Reign is, she says, “It's almost like fantasy instead of historical because you're coming up with a whole new look and it needs to be believable and something different for the viewers”. Markworth-Pollack attempted to costume the show in a little bit of a guerilla-style technique. She started by combing some of the larger costume houses even before the production began. She went to Angels in London, Tirelli in Italy, and the Stratford Festival costume warehouse in Canada. If you're not familiar with Stratford, it's actually one of the largest Shakespeare Festivals in North America. Ontario draws a lot of people from the United States and all over the world for it, and what happens is they have this large surplus of costumes that they store in an enormous warehouse and then they rent out to theatre companies and film companies.

Markworth-Pollack says, “When you start a show, you're using rentals mostly. We were renting from Europe, from the studios in Los Angeles, using a ton of vintage and off-the-rack, and really only building for our principal characters”. Markworth-Pollack shopped ready-to-wear online from her office in Toronto saying, “We shop quite a bit of vintage here in Toronto but I'm also constantly scouring: the web Net-a-Porter, The Outnet, and BHLDN are my go-tos”.

It's obvious that many of the designer gowns are stunning and it's understandable that young people would love the costumes, especially because the young cast is so gorgeous and, honestly, you can put them in a potato sack and they would still look good. And yet Reign has received quite a bit of criticism in terms of the design and the fact that it isn't… well, not just even the design, but the show itself is not historical. And yet, Markworth-Pollack knows her audience, she knows that it's attracting young viewers, young female viewers.

We should also remember that it wasn't so long ago when historical accuracy wasn't even a thing in television, especially with costumes. The very first historically accurate costume depiction was in the BBC's 1971 six-part miniseries Elizabeth R that starred Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth I. The costume designer was Elizabeth Waller who won an Emmy for her work on the show, and she recreated many of the historical Elizabeth gowns for Glenda Jackson by adapting them from a number of the Queen's famous official portraits. The entire BBC wardrobe, and that's about a million items, were purchased in 2008 by Angels & Bermans in London who now rent out the costumes to shows like The Tudors and Reign.

To give you an idea about the historical accuracy, here's one example of a costume reproduction based upon the Phoenix oil on panel portrait of Elizabeth I by Nicholas Hilliard (that's on the left) and then the reproduction of the costume from the BBC drama Elizabeth R is on the right. In this close-up, you can see that the wardrobe team recreated every last little detail.

If to talk about the designer’s work in general, there are three examples of contemporized historical stories for younger audiences that did a much better job than the Rein. For instance, Sophia Coppola Marie Antoinette that starred Kirsten Dunst; Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet, which is actually sort of a very a modernized version but it still has some elements of the Tudor period; and Brian Helgeland's A Knight's Tale which is extremely anachronistic, but it's a very well done version. Costume design has to be anchored in something: it can either be through a silhouette (which is essentially the outline of a costume form from a specific period of history), it can be done through a palette of color, through textures, through patterns, and other ways.

Here you are several good uses of design. The first one is made by Jean-Paul Gaultier. He did this fabulous – and he's a haute couture designer, in case you don't know – he uses color in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover in a way that really sort of sets the tone for the movie. Jean-Paul Gaultier was working closely with the production designer. As did Cecil Beaton, who is a costume designer for My Fair Lady and who did this fantastic black & white Ascot tableau scene for that famous movie. It's actually been recreated over and over again because it's so amazing. And then, finally, Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel – the production designer and the costume designer have clearly worked together.

Here's an example actually from Reign that is a good example of the design. It's got the three girls, the three handmaids who are all dressed in slightly different outfits but the color is the same. They've got this beautiful sort of dove gray color that really works well.

This image here actually is a really good example of sticking to one period. The designer uses soft palates and repeated textures. You can see in the cloak, in the brocade, that she's got those repeated textures. The silhouettes are very similar and the palette is very similar – it's interesting. But this is such a good example because it actually comes from the Reign episode “Clans” for which Markworth-Pollack won a Canadian Screen Award for best costume.

I'm sort of making a collage here of all of the different looks from the show and this is sort of what drives me a little bit batty. Really, the designer is drawing from about 600 years of history. Here, we've got Tudor, Elizabethan, Rococo, Regency, Victorian, late Victorian, Romanesque, some turn-of-the-century a little bit of the 50s, 70s, and 80s, and it's really what I would call a fustercluck! At any rate, one blogger even mentioned that Markworth-Pollack even kind of incorporated steampunk. I've even noticed there's a little bit of medieval fantasy - it feels a bit like Katniss Everdeen or Arwen from Lord of the Rings sort of type of mashup.

The next thing I want to mention is that some of the construction, like in some of the custom-made gowns, is not always the best construction. Really, a lot of these shows are on people's big screens so you can see every little thing. Two examples of this, where I'd like to see better, is, for instance, the patterns aren't matched up – that's just a really nice design detail and a sign of good quality in construction. Also, the use of modern fasteners is usually a really big giveaway for the quality of a garment, like using zippers instead of hooks.

When they machine hems or machine trims that tends to lower the look of the quality, it tends to look more like medieval fare than medieval drama. I mean it comes down to issues with the budget, issues with the amount of time they have to execute the design – that can be blamed for the reason why they're doing so many shortcuts. Incorporating these contemporary looks into a production is a very difficult thing because you're working with someone else's artwork. Essentially, a stylist is not an artist. A stylist is more of a craft person. You're finding clothes that fit people, you're trying to match jewelry and accessories and shoes, hosiery, that type of thing to work with the look and you're attempting to blend them into with another character. So, it's not the easiest thing to do, especially when you're working in an apparent historical situation. I wouldn’t argue that using an Alexander McQueen gown is probably not the easiest thing to be doing because it's, honestly, going to stick out like a sore thumb against a background of players who were all dressed up in Renaissance costumes.

Little failings in the costume designs

I have just a few more little things that I wanted to point out. One of the things I thought is they were quite well done with the men's costumes, some of them are period, obviously, but I thought they were quite good and the young men looked really good in them.

The only thing that I had a bit of an issue with is Francis's armor from Season I (the Episode “Higher Ground”) and you know, honestly, armor is like a really difficult thing. On Game of Thrones, all of the armor is custom-made. Michelle Clapton designs it, she's got several armorers, she's got several people making weapons and swords and so on. Actually, it's props. It's really difficult to rent some armor and expect it to look decent, so I don't even know what the answer for this would be. In this case, Francis and his group are not even wearing all the armor pieces. They've got a cuirass (they're wearing the chainmail shirt and then a cuirass on top of it), the pauldron (which is sort of the shoulder guards), and some of them have helmets, but they're missing all the rest of the pieces.

Just to give you an example, I'm going to show you what the real-life Francis's actual armor looks like. This is what Francis's armor actually looks like. It's a circa from 1555 to 1560. It's got all the pieces there. This one is only partial, it doesn't even have the leg parts. You can see how elaborate it is. It was pretty small, obviously, because he was kind of a small guy. It's almost impossible for them to even attempt to achieve this look.

On the other hand, I pretty much adore almost everything that Elizabeth I wears in the show. This one though, I'm not crazy about, and I'll explain why. Rachel Skarsten who plays Elizabeth I is beautiful. She's actually a natural blonde and not a redhead, and she's got quite a fair skin. I just feel that, compared to most of her other costumes, this costume is really-really too pale for her. The other thing is the silhouette, so what's going on here: Elizabeth I in real life actually was very small-busted and had a very tiny waist, like Rachel does. And Rachel's actually got quite a long torso. I think that this garment is sort of pancaking her and also giving her a bit of a cylindrical look, almost a bit like a tube. What I would have suggested is, maybe they could have put in some bust cups that would have helped a little bit; also, maybe they could have added some fuller gathers into the hips, just to give a little bit more of a silhouette to the skirt.

Here’s the next dress. It feels a little bit like Disney Princess, like a dress-up style costume, and it just has a lot going on. You've got the silver and the appliques, and you've got the sort of the slash sleeves, and the several tiers of the skirt – it just looks too costumey to me, which I know is a strange thing to say, but just “costumey” as in a costume ball, or costume fair, or costume party. It would have been perfect for that but for a TV show it just doesn't, it looks wrong, and it just feels really at a step for 16th century French Court.

The faves among Reign gowns

Season 4, I just think, looked amazing, like they really had brought the look together finally, found sort of their voice, if that's a possible thing to say for a look for the show. I noticed that they kind of abandoned a lot of the more contemporary costumes, clothing from the designers, so I'm not sure where the decision went into that, but I'm really happy that they did choose to do that. This is a really great example here, just this picture, but I'm going to go over some of my very personal favorites, that I adored.

This Queen Mary gown from Season 4 Episode 6 is one of my favorites. For her, it's very regal in this blue, green, and gold brocade with the lovely gold embellishments on the collar and the cuffs. It's got a sack back gown feature, otherwise known as a robe à la française which is sort of an 18th-century French style of gown. While it's a little bit early here, for that half didn't come into fashion, it still feels very anchored in the Renaissance period.

I really like this sweet storybook style for Mary in the Season 3 Episode “the Hound of the Hare”. What's really, really lovely about it, it's got this cute embroidered detail in the center front bodice panel that's trimmed with beaded cartridge pleating. I particularly love the gold lattice mesh sleeve inserts in the crisscross pattern. It really reminds me of Tudor windows, if you know what those are. They've got these sort of panels that have sort of inlay cross patches in them. And the only thing that I might suggest is, because it's black, which feels kind of old for Mary (I know it's her signature color), I think it would have been much nicer to use, say, a forest green or something of that color, maybe even a deep purple.

I love this look for Mary, unfortunately, I couldn't find a good picture of it. I found this one on Pinterest but it's so great I had to show it. The bodice is a richly textured brocade and the sleeves are constructed from a really unique style of fabric, I couldn't quite tell what it is, almost like it's crushed or something. It appears to have fur cuffs – it might be a muff, I'm not sure. The neckline is actually what's called a partlet collar, although in this case, it is a mock-neck. It creates that sort of triangle opening there. It's very Elizabethan looking with a lovely tapered waist and the full gathers at the side. I even love the cloak with it. It's good and not too matchy-matchy.

Here's another really awesome look for Mary. It's this purple and gold brocade gown. It was used in three episodes, which is awesome because this gown is, by far, one of her finest. I love the lines that give it that Renaissance feel without actually being Renaissance. It's got this really nice contrasting black with gold printed silk yoke collar that looks again like a partlet but it's actually part of the dress, and they piped the princess seams, which is a nice little detail. It's got the pleating in the skirt at the waist that creates that bell silhouette that's sort of that farthingale shape. My only complaint is it's a little bit tight across the bust or the chest, but I understand that sometimes from fitting to the final wear things change, so that could be what it is.

Here is a custom empire waist gown that Mary wore in Season 3, and it's a little bit more contemporary than Renaissance but not to the extent that I find it distracting. It's a beautiful pea-green silk and gold lace fabric which are both gorgeous and, which are, of course, the best features of the whole thing, these beautiful appliques on the bodice and cuffs that are made from a fabric and embroidered & beaded illusion fabric from B&J Fabrics in New York.

I know if you're a fan of the show, you would have definitely seen this Season 4 Episode “Pulling Strings” where Mary gets married for the second time. She wears this custom gold lace dress and veil. The fabrics were supplied by Fabriluxe and the gorgeous embellishments on the bodice were hand embroidered by Laurie Lemelin of Abrash Embroidery, and that's a Toronto-based wearable art company. This gown sort of stands in stark contrast to her former contemporary wedding gown which was actually purchased off the rack from a wedding supplier – and that one, honestly, it was like something from the 1950's. The costumes in this episode really show how much the costume designer has grown through the four seasons.

Here is a close-up detail of the beading by Abrash Embroidery.

This is probably my favorite costume for the entire show. I just adore it. It's from the Season 3 Episode 18 “Spiders in a Jar” and it's worn by the character Catherine de' Medici. The gown is made from a beautifully embroidered black silk fabric with a contrasting red silk underskirt. I find that the neckline is especially flattering on Megan Follows, who, if you don't know that, is Canada's sweetheart. She's like Anne of Green Gables, for gosh sakes! She looks exquisite here, and I'm also glad that they forgot the necklace because it just looks so beautiful and clean having it open like that and really letting the dress just be the main attraction.

Here is a lovely Elizabethan costume worn by Queen Catherine in the Season 3 Episodes “Safe Passage” and “Spiders in a Jar”. The Fabriluxe supplied fabric – this gorgeous greeny-grey and bronze brocade. The gown is cut typically Elizabethan with the fitted sleeves and false hanging sleeves. They would have been attached with laces at the armhole of the bodice. And the shoulder wings, which is an embellishment here, were added to hide the lacing and to give the shoulders additional width. I did prefer the underskirt worn in “Safe Passage”. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of it compared to this one, which looks like it's got tucking, pin tucking. The other issue I had also is that the pattern isn't matched in the back. I did mention that earlier and as well I said that that is sometimes the shortcut that's taken to save on time.

Here is a jacket that we see in the Season 4 Episodes 1 and 2 worn by Elizabeth I, and it's a custom-embellished silk brocade coat made by Susan Dixon company, a Toronto-based costume business. The fabric and appliques were sourced by Fabriluxe and, I have to say, this costume is pretty much perfection. The fabric and term choices are gorgeous and the execution of the design is flawless. Compared to some of the stuff we've seen in earlier seasons, there's no comparison. There's a lot of attention to detail. For instance, the pattern is matched up at the princess seams, which is a really difficult thing to do, so that's something that the cutter would have done. And they put piping into the seams which is a lovely design detail.

Here's another exquisite example for Elizabeth I, and, sadly, I can't find another picture of it. The best I could come up with is a good close-up event of the bodice and a little bit of the skirt. It's made from a brocade fabric and the appliques, both supplied by Fabriluxe. You can see again that the construction is very well executed and the pattern is matched nicely. The collar is piped, the appliques are hand sewn, and the bodice is closed at the center front with bars and tacks – yay, no zippers.

Unlike that soft green gown that we saw earlier (sort of that seafoam-green gown), this is a much better color for Elizabeth. It's this gorgeous green embroidered silk shantung gown and it has a contrasting pea green underskirt. And it's a great color for redheads. So, she's wearing a part light at the neck and, if I didn't mention this earlier, it's a 16th century covering of the neck and shoulders. It's sometimes used to fill in a low neckline and, for upper-class ladies, like royalty, it would be oftentimes made of lawn and attached to the undergarments before the gown was put on.

She also has these little shoulder rolls at the shoulder seams which was a decoration to create height. Elizabeth's gowns are all very sweet and dainty and decorated, but oftentimes they would have been really overstuffed in exaggerated proportions.

Here's another fantastic floral embroidered silk gown. I'm not sure which color is correct: the one on the left is sort of more orange and pea green, while the one of the right looks redder. So, possibly, the one on the right is outdoors and the one on the left is interior. The one on the right is probably more accurate though. And again a great silhouette – she's got the shoulder rolls, nice fitted tapered waist, corseted bodice, a little bit of gathers at the side and back that gives it fullness, a really nice detail with the belt which just kind of gives that nice little detail at the front, almost like a cross. And I think it's just a really flattering silhouette to the actor.

Elizabeth wears this really amazing sort of outfit in the Season 3 Episode 9. And you know, honestly, green is always a great color for redheads. The overrobe – I don't think it actually was built, it looks like it's vintage, like something from 1950's. Like the coat by Spanish couturier Cristobal Valencia Balenciaga, which I've actually provided you a sample. He termed the oversized sleeves “melon sleeves”, so that's what these big puffy sleeves would have been called. But you know, honestly, I don't mind that it's not the period. I think it kind of works – the designer has sort of anchored it a bit with the belt and the jewelry, and it just comes together really nicely.

In Season 4 Episode 4, Elizabeth wears this sort of manly style jerkin. It's like a lady's jerkin, which is a sleeveless vest of sorts, again I can't find any other photos of this. There’s the only one I could come up with, and I really love it. I love the way they used the trim to create the texture, and it looks so good in this outdoor setting. It's sort of a slightly sporty setting, so I think it works really, really well for her.

This gown is so simple but just stunning. It's an office shoulder style gold brocade. It's got sort of a slightly fitted upper sleeve, but then it goes into these beautiful bell sleeves. You can see a little bit of the outline of her corset underneath, which is giving her that really rigid sort of structure and also keeping those seems really nice and flat and in place. And this looks like something Cersei Lannister could have worn in a couple of the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones.

Here is another great garment. I think it's totally Elizabethan looking. They've used a contemporary fabric but that's okay – it looks stunning. She's definitely got the silhouette down, the bodice is very rigid, the corset underneath is definitely emphasizing her décolletage (as you can see on the left). And it's got these really great full gathers that they've used instead of a cartridge pleating to create that width. And I love, of course, that beautiful soft F-crew lace ruff at the neck – it's just a lovely little detail.

In general, we consider that the costume designer of the series Reign did pretty good job with the images of the characters. If you have your own ideas of the best and the worst costumes used in this show, we’ll gladly hear you out in the comments.

(c) Costume Cinematographico

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyJDBQeHKSA