The costume vault

There are many unanswered questions out there. Many, many mysteries that will never be unraveled. But amongst those, the one that keeps me up at night is why was Grace's hair so crappy during the first season of Peaky Blinders ? Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Peaky Blinders . I'm human, believe it or not. I've watched all its five seasons (twice) and I'm impatiently waiting for its sixth season with bated breath. And I can vouch for it: it's a quality show. Good storytelling, good acting, great photography... and for the most part, great character design both in costume design and hair and makeup. That's why I'm still baffled by the decision of having Grace's character sporting what amounts to limp California Beach Waves for the whole of the first season.  Because, while it is true that the first season had a considerably lower budget than its following installments, a shitty approach to historical accuracy wasn't the general tone for the ...

Once every thousand years, the internet, in its infinite wisdom, brings to my attention something so awful and unexpected, that my immediate need to rail at that awfulness is the only thing that will keep me from gouging my eyes out with a teaspoon.  Catherine of Aragon wearing a breastplate molded around her very pregnant belly for Starz's second season of The Spanish Princess is one of those "somethings". And it's been haunting me ever since I first laid eyes on it. For those fortunate souls who have no idea of what I'm talking about, let me explain.  The Spanish Princess is the latest Starz "historical drama" based on Philippa Gregory's awful "historical" novels. It is meant to be a sequel to 2013's The White Queen and 2017's The White Princess , and centers around Catherine of Aragon, the eponymous Spanish Princess who became Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII. The show premiered in May 2019 and its second ...

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn . I could hardly find a more pertinent way to start this review, for that is my general reaction towards historical costuming in the Hollywood Golden age (as I have made amply clear in reviews such as this ). But, despite that general rejection towards classical historical Hollywood movies, it's undeniable that without them our modern notion of the Costume Drama would not exist. And that is, particularly, thanks to a "small" movie that you might have heard about... Ambition, ambition, ambition... that seems like the only way to describe this 1939 "blockbuster" that, to this day (when adjusted for inflation) continues to be the highest-grossing movie of all times (see here ). Gone with the wind , clocking its runtime at almost 4 hours, is a landmark of cinema. With a scope and magnitude that overwhelmed audiences, this movie is, to this day, perhaps most notable for bringing us one of the best female charact...