in all of the costume reviews that you seem to want me to do

we're going to do a little 2020 year wrap-up

of all the period dramas that have been released this year.

And just to make things a little bit more exciting

I have decided that we are going to be ranking

these period dramas on a scale of historical accuracy.

I have made up a chart.

I have tons of notes,

and we're about to rank these films and TV shows

on a scale of "they tried :/" to *chef's kiss*.

So I guess I should kind of clarify my tiers here.

*Chef's kiss* is obviously like near perfection.

There's a combination of silhouette

that obviously looks convincing to the period.

The materials that they use are appropriate as well as

presence of tiny details, such as seams or stitching details

or embroidery things that you can just

tell that the designer did their research

in order to find out those little things.

Pretty good is the silhouette is probably convincing enough.

There may or may not be a couple of seams

that look a little bit obviously modern

but we can let those pass

because generally the costumes themselves

don't pull us out of the realm

of the historical context of the story.

It was a Design Choice(tm).

This category is sort of reserved

for the element of fantasy.

So I'm not about to allow any of these historical dramas

to sort of cop out on "but this was a directorial vision".

Yes, that's fair,

if this is fantasy and it's not actually dealing with

actual historical events, actual historical figures,

or is meant to have been set in an actual period of history.

If they're going to a fantasy realm,

it's some alternate universe thing,

OK, fair.

It was a Design Choice.

There is a separate category for blasphemous hair and makeup

because the actual bane of my existence

there are several instances in which the costumes

are actually pretty good

but the entire convincing-ness of the world

of the historical film or show is just shattered.

You cannot fully immerse yourself

into the realm of the historical period

because you are constantly being pulled out

by the fact that her lip shade is like not quite right.

And also why is she wearing bronzer?

And then they tried is obviously like

an attempt at history was made,

but like not very successfully.

We're basically just going to be judging the

objective criteria of "is this historically accurate".

So without further ado, we are going in order of US release.

First on our list is "Little Women",

which if you watched my compilation video on

the worst costumes of all time, this film was on that list.

We've discussed the UGGs,

we have discussed the beach waves.

This gets a solid... they tried?

but were they even trying... remains to be seen

but that's gonna live there.

Second on our list is "Emma",

which once again also made it onto

not my worst costume compilation

but my best costume compilation.

we have already discussed the 10 out of 10

near perfection of "Emma", everyone basically looked like

they were out of a fashion plate.

It was beautifully designed.

This gets a chef's kiss.

I put Mulan on this list

because I think it technically is a period drama.

It does take place in fifth or sixth century,

Northern China.

It's based off of the original ballad of Mulan.

So there is historical text to it.

There is also a lot of fantasy.

So this one is a little bit tricky

because my particular realm of studies

centers around English and American pre-World war one

historical dress.

So I can't say that I am very well-educated in the realm

of six century Chinese dress, Northern Chinese dress.

So I put this one on my list and I was like,

I'll do some research.

So three hours later, I had only just got up to

the general overview of the Tang dynasty.

And I was like, oh wow now I understand

why historians choose one very specific little pinpoint

of history and study that for their entire lives.

So personally I am not qualified

to deem this historically accurate or not.

According to the background research that I did do,

I am first and foremost, a little bit disappointed

that they didn't hire an actual Chinese designer.

And I know, I was watching some criticism

from people who actually are more familiar

with the cultural details.

And one of the main criticisms of this

was the fact that they were hiring white designers

to do research into Chinese dress

and not actually hiring Chinese designers

who already have that background knowledge

and who can then focus on building a world

within the context of those historical foundations.

To my untrained eye

just based off of the artwork that I was looking at

within this time period there does seem to be a lot of

bright colorful dress happening, which is so superficial

but they certainly did that within this film.

The fabrics and materials that they use

do seem to be convincing enough in terms of quality.

Obviously, I haven't done the depth of research

to get to the point where I understand

what dyes were available

and therefore what colors would have been available

and what colors can be worn in what circumstances

and with what,

but just based off of the research that I did do

the silhouettes look pretty okay,

the colors look at least having existed within the period.

There is definitely an element of fantasy involved.

I mean, we are dealing with the realm of witches

and people running up vertical walls,

which is not... you know... reality.

This is also a Disney film.

And I know one of the main criticisms

of trying to make Disney films historically accurate

is that they are Disney films and they are fairytales

and they are not historically accurate.

Anyway, that is a very long-winded way of saying that.

I do think the costume design was--

to my very unspecialized eye--

the costumes did look pretty okay to me,

I'm going to put this in it was a Design Choice.

(sigh)

I think that is the best that I can do.

So next on our list, we have Belgravia, it's a TV series.

The beginning is set in 1815,

and it sort of goes up through the 1840s.

Initially from looking at the promo images of this,

I was like, "oh my God". I was actually so excited

for the show because

obviously the book came out several years ago

and I was like, oh yay Julian Fellowes wrote the book.

I was like, oh, it's Downton Abbey.

So it will maybe be good,

but then I saw some promo pics and I was like, wow,

this looks extremely modern.

I guess the costumes are going to be

a Little Bit Questionable,

but the costumes were pretty good (sigh).

I realized the thing that was throwing me off

in the promo images that unfortunately,

because sometimes the promo images are done up and shot

before the actual thing is shot

or they're done separately offset,

not within the context of the actual shooting environment.

So the promo images don't always reflect

the actual costumes. Unfortunately, these kinds of did.

The Appallingly modern hair and makeup

did carry over into the actual series

to the point where like, I can tell that you are definitely

from the 21st century

and you're putting on a bonnet and a soap frog.

So unfortunately this one has to be classified in

blasphemous hair and makeup.

Next we have the English Game,

which is a new Netflix TV series.

This one is set in 1879 I believe is when the show begins.

Once again, I have not studied the realm of sporting

uniforms, so I cannot speak to the accuracy

of the football uniforms.

So here's the thing within period dramas, there tends to be

this overarching phenomenon where the men's wear

tends to be pretty much ok.

It doesn't change a whole lot from

mmh kind of from the beginning of the regency period

up to the modern times.

The women are overly made up again, the hair and makeup

is just... frustrating.

But then again, the women in the show are used as props

and on flowers anyway.

So does it really matter? Probably not!

One thing that I did enjoy on this show is that

because a lot of the story is spent in uniform

on the football field, everyone is kind of dressed the same.

They did capitalize on that late Victorian trend

of EPIC men's facial hair

and sort of extreme and varied men's facial hair,

which was extremely clever because I was a bit worried

just watching the show

that I would not be able to distinguish one white man

from the other white man, but they do

"Oh yeah, okay, this is the guy with a large beard.

This is the guy with a small beard.

This is the guy with the little mustache."

So I thought that was clever.

I have nothing like serious again

to complain about these clothes.

I'm gonna put this in pretty good.

So next we have another Netflix series.

This one is called Self-Made.

I have to go a little bit hard on this one

because this is actually about a real historical figure,

Madame CJ Walker,

who if you don't know who she is, go Google her.

She's like one of my favorite historical figures.

She's the first self-made female millionaire

in the United States.

The show itself is entertaining,

it's good.

Unfortunately, the clothes are not good.

It's supposed to be 1908 but you kind of can't really tell.

They're using all sorts of materials,

all sorts of laces and weird trimmings.

They did not really look period at all.

And I have to be a little bit more rigid

with the historical accuracy judgment on this

because it is not only dealing with actual specific years

within history, but also about a specific person.

Like the research is out there.

I think it may have been deliberate

because the way that the editing is done, it is very modern.

When I was watching it, I was like, you know what?

The only way that I can sort of describe this editing style

is TikTok.

It feels like TikToK or like YouTube editing

not in a bad way

because obviously we all find that entertaining, right?

But it was definitely different to see that in a TV show.

I will say the background characters,

a couple of the background characters

were actually really good.

I presume this is because they made

all of the principal characters and those were ~Designed~

but the background folk were rented or pulled from stock

or something.

And therefore there were existing costumes

that are a bit closer to history.

I will say though, that this show is unique

in that though the clothes were not the best,

the hair was really good, which obviously it should be

because the show is about hair and hair styling.