Ok, we are back for the increasingly brief recap of the costumes episode 8 of The White Queen (2013). I’m not sure what else I can say about the costumes in this episode, since — you guessed it — it’s 98% rewears from the previous episodes. I’m holding out hope that the final two episodes will show some different looks on the main characters, as Edward is dead, Elizabeth is off the throne, and we have the ascendency of Richard III and Anne Neville. As always, you can revisit previous episodes here.
First up is this twee little dress on Elizabeth of York, who is now a teenager. Princess seams, sweetheart neckline, puffed sleeve heads … I mean, it doesn’t get much more precious than this.
She shows up shortly after that in a ridiculously out of period nightgown with a ruffled collar. It reminds me of the housecoats my grandmother used to wear in the 1980s.
Elizabeth gets a new black dress now that she’s in mourning for Edward. Not much to say about it because it’s really hard to make out any details … I’m just glad she’s finally wearing something new.
The rest of the court is also in mourning, but Anne looks more like she’s decided to join the Dark Side than grieving for her dead brother-in-law.
Marge gets a new dress, which honestly looks like an earlier dress, except worn backwards. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me.
Anne gets a new frock now that she’s about to become the queen. Richard is still in mourning for his brother, who he was admittedly close to.
Richard and Anne are crowned king and queen, and all my hopes of a new outfit for Anne are dashed. She’s wearing her wedding dress.
Oh ffs.
And that is where this post ends, because there’s really nothing we haven’t already talked about. I really hope the next episode gives us some new shit to look at.
Are you still watching The White Queen? Why???
Why watch THE WHITE QUEEN? Mostly my abiding soft spot for Ms. Rebecca Ferguson, with a side of Ms. Freya Mavor and a hash of Ms. Eleanor Tomlinson.
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Also, I have fond memories of watching this with my mother when it first came out (and Lady Margaret is generally entertaining, in a “Grand High Inquisitor” style).
This sucks! Why are the richest people in the land re wearing the same old shit?!
Amen!!! These people had HUGE wardrobes full of lavish costumes in the most precious fabrics – and we’ve got the inventories to prove it!
It’s especially weird to me, considering that the show covers like 20-some years, so it makes no sense that they would be rewearing clothing from years earlier. Not at their level of wealth at least!
My dear fellows, remember that a production may need to evoke such storied wealth without having the tiniest portion thereof with which to work – it also bears pointing out that, unlike those Naughty Tudors, the House of York don’t benefit from being able to tap into a verifiable cottage industry seeking to evoke them (and therefore cannot even borrow what they cannot afford to buy).
Such are the indignities of working with the unfashionable periods of British history, I fear (Just ask Edmund Ironside, Saint Margaret of Scotland or Henry III, amongst others).
As a widow Elizabeth should be wearing a barb, a sort of pleated wimple, and a hair covering headress, like the outfit Margaret Beaufort wears in her portraits.
As real life never ceases to remind us, “Should” need not mean “Will”.
The costumes on “The Tudors” were awful, but at least there was a wide variety of them to make fun of!