Black Adder I and II were really well done in terms of historical (15th and 16th century) costume - even putting to shame high budget movies in same periods. But few would give a shit.
Who cares about historicity of clothing in a fictional show? Basically the dude in the middle (since I don't watch the show, I'm clueless as to which one he is :) has a very fashionable piece of gear.
The issue here is these a trying to be historic set pieces and they look ridiculous. If you're going to look ridiculous and spend a lot of money, you might as well take 5 minutes to look up how things should look from that period and do that.
it's just that good old trope "colour coded for your convinenience" basically anyone wearing black or dark colours are either the bad guy, or a badass anti hero. it's basically a lazy way for the show's makers to say "this character is a no nonsense badass because he's dressed all in black" while those dressed in period accurate clothing (bright colours, lacy frills, ect) will lean more towards being fopish if not outright gay and will always be well groomed. now I've never seen the show so I can't say how much they use that trope. take the cardiinal for example when not in public he wears black just to look sinister. a good example of this trope is starwars. if you see someone dressed in dark colours carrying a red light saber you instantly think "uh oh bad guy" which is why luke wears black in return of the jedi it shows he hasn't mastered his emotions and is at risk of falling to the dark side (which he almost does until he cuts off vader's hand) the sad thing. if they actually wore period accurate clothing noone would watch it because all the heros look "gay" (just look at how many jokes to that end there were in blackadder)
Guy on the right - switch the smallsword/rapier's handle to the one of the cut-down double-barrel shotgun, and you may immediately expect him to kick on his Harley-Davidson and set out to his path of revenge. Mad Max, Punisher, Blade (ok, here are some subtle details in disagreement) :-) It's like from one joke: "I am either in wrong costume or in a wrong studio"
Mungo When I saw the thumbnail for a video of the theme from that show, I absolutely thought it was some kinda post-apocalypse type of deal. I was surprised when I heard it was supposed to be set in the past.
Shining Darkness Rochefort gets an eyepatch in the most recent episode. Oddly enough Rochefort was never described as wearing an eyepatch in Dumas' novels; the character first was shown with an eyepatch in the 1973 movie version of the 3 Musketeers when Christopher Lee adopted it to go along with his totally red outfit. It has since become almost required. (And the '73 movie probably came closer to showing what people of the different classes actually wore in the historical time period.)
+UnrealVoicebox Yep, with that haircut, certainly. Oh, and NO HATS. Which is impossible in the 17th century. You did not even take off your hat indoors.
What's with the costumes is: 1) They use the leather costumes in order to make the heroes LOOK cool or badassed. 2) Most viewers aren't even remotely interested in historical accuracy. 3) Most TV characters have a "signature" look in order to make them quickly and easily identifiable. (The Skipper and Gilligan from Gilligan's Island are prime examples.) 4) TV shows have fairly strict budgets which means that if they spend more on wardrobe they have to spend less somewhere else. 5) The dingy, grimy, dark appearance comes from the tendency toward Film Noir that seems to be popular at the moment. "Who's that then?" "I dunno, must be a King." "Why?" "He hasn't got shit all over him." - Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Understandable considering that in medieval times they would depict figures from antiquity with full suits of 15th century armour completely inaccurate for the time period, its without a doubt that general art is something that try’s to go beyond historical accuracy and instead try to make something that appeals to the general population and in this case edgy noir dark style is what is most recognised these days so film makers don’t try it otherwise because their artists first and foremost not historians, sucks I know, they should have to consult and actual historian about the setting before misguiding the perception of history with their artistic preference
@@baldrickthedungspreader3107 This is entertainment pal. If I wanted to watch something historical I'd watch the History Channel and not this. No I watch the Musketeers cause I wanted to watch four brotherly Musketeer( supposedly in this story) have thrilling and romantic adventures.
@@xxrabbitsnipezxx5794 your the reason TV and movies suck these days. You're the reason shit like the New Robin Hood movie gets made. Fuck historical accuracy lets have Robin Hood doing Kung-Fu and shooting machine gun style crossbows. It doesnt have to be accurate, just entertaining.....ends up being neither. ANd fuck it, lets do Great Gatsby, have them listening to Jay-Z songs, cause nothing says ROaring 20s like Jay-Z.....I mean fuck...... reading your comments I understand what movie and TV execs are thinking now..... they're dumbing it down for nimrods like you, who dont care......i have more to say, but I think I'm having a heart attack just knowing you exist and are pleased with this shit....... ....you .....stupid......fu.......c....k
I do like how they FINALLY made firearms an integral part of the show, even making Aramis the marksman. Real musketeers relied on their firearms more than their swords, hence the name Musketeers, they were superb shots with the musket. If they could dispatch enemies with the quicker shot, they would do it.
Exactly. It's not a documentary. The costumes aren't for historical accuracy; they're meant to give us - a modern audience that is not, in fact, entirely made up of historians - visual cues about the characters wearing them. "This guy's in black because he's the serious one. This guy's big and strong so he's got bulls, bears, and lions on his outfit."
These guys should use *uniforms* when on service. A tabard, with a christian cross (simbolizing God deference and favor) and the "fleur de lis" (simbolizing his services to the King). The Richilieux "red guard" of musketeers (yes, musketeers, too) uses, obviously, red tabards. Is not so clear what real color of King guards, but Alexandre Dumas talk about black tabards to King´s musketeers on "The Man in The Iron Mask". So far i know, musketeers used no armor, with exception of "gorjal" (gusset, neckpiece) a decorative reminder of past breastplates. Later, this gusset would give rise to a simple scarf around neck, wich, some say, inspired the modern ties.
The tabards of the Musketeers during the reign of Louis XIII were blue. His son, Louis XIV, altered the tabard color to black...he also lessened the Musketeers status in his court, preferring to surround himself with a massive court of lesser nobility.
Gorgets can actually get pretty big even in the 17th century so i wouldn't really call it a ''decorative reminder'' Yes later during the 18th century they got really small but 17th century gorgets do in my opinion offer decent neck protection, enough to be more than just plain decoration.
MyNameIsMud I think that was not about the size, but the material and construction. Gorgets in this age wasn't really an armor piece anymore. Yes, can be even handy against a knife on your throat, but wasn't intended to be.
mousquetaire in the 17th century used big puss in boots style riding boots, big clothes and a cloak, and would wear red and blue. Oh and very long flowing hair and trimmed beards and moustaches.
Zamolxes77 I have seen 3-4 different versions, thus I had no mood to watch this one. Fact is that the musket was their primary weapon in real life but most versions they refused it probably as an unknightly weapon.
edi They refused to use it in towns, being too cumbersome, but they used it often enough, especially in war. This version of three musketeers is the only somewhat lengthy feature, 10 episodes, so is not trying to rush through the motions of the novel. Personally I liked it.
This series actually has them using firearms more than swords - hell, Aramis is supposed to be the regiment's best shot and uses a musket in the first episode (albeit to scare one of the Cardinal's guards rather than to shoot anyone)
This series actually has them with muskets and pistols quite often, and portrays them as the historically excellent marksmen they supposedly were. The swordplay is not the best, but it is on-par with what I expect from theatrical sword fighting - which is to say someone with little knowledge would see it and call it sword fighting.
Well said! Obviously it's the costume designer's idea of something "edgy", modern, and contemporary to try and enhance the appeal to a modern audience, because they have a very low opinion of the tastes of that audience. These guys would've had outfits made out of some of the best fabrics, colourful and richly embroidered with metal thread. They'd have had servants to make sure their clothes were mended and clean. People dressed like this would've been sniggered at and thought of as bumpkins.
The worst part is that the dark edgy look is so overdone at this point that having campy, historic outfits would probably get the show a lot of attention.
@@joestevenson5568 This exactly. They're not standing out when they're just following the crowd. Being historically accurate would please everyone, this just pleases nitwits.
@@planescaped not at all the costumes are one of the best parts about the show. In historical periods colors were a sign of status because they were harder to come by. No one cares about that shit now and strength is valued so the dark edgy look makes them look badass as they should since it's a show for entertainment not historical accuracy
@@blademaster9575 Look badass, you say? Brighter colours would have looked "badass", back in their time. It's not that we don't care about that shit nowadays, it's that we have a different idea about what is cool and what isn't, let's not lie to ourselves and act like we're any different. That being said, if you're going to make a show in a historical setting, you best follow the historical setting. If not, make something else. Simple as that. It is important to represent these periods correctly in media, because the public now has an extremely warped idea of what the past was really like thanks to media like this. Yes, it is just entertainment, but unless you're making a fantasy film, you are misrepresenting the past if you don't abide by at least basic historical accuracy.
It looks like the costume designer went to some online steampunk fantasy costume maker and told them to create leather steampunk versions of Musketeer outfits. Hell, the guy on the far left looks like he's some evil overlord in a sci-fi movie. The brown-toned leather outfit looks like a steampunk version of Sir Francis Drake.
I tried to sit through one of the more recent Musketeer films, when the bloke looks at his sword and declares, in a strong American accent- "The weapon of a Musketeer!" I turned it off. Later it had Orldando Bloom, a woman in a dress defeating armoured Soldiers with a dagger and Airships... That sound you can hear throughout the entire film is Dumas spinning in his grave.
As someone with a very big interest in history, I can understand your points. And yet as a watcher and lover of fantasy/psuedo-historical/historical drama, I feel the need to state that as a viewer of the show I have always loved their outfits. Of course, I haven't thought about whether using leather is realistic or accurate for the time, but it didn't occur to me because I'm too busy enjoying all the details and attachements these guys are rocking and how they swagger about with their swords hanging low haha. Also sometimes don't they wear the blue outfits of the guard? They seem to use black for missions away from the king and guarding etc.
The videos where you goof on the props/costumes in movies and television shows are a nice departure from the usual tone of the channel sometimes. Cheers, Matt!
Well Game of Thrones is a fantasy world so to me it doesn't matter but all these other "sword shows" are being influenced by it. The Tudors, Vikings, Musketeers, The Bible, etc. all have this Game of Thrones look to them.
It seems to me that the Game of Thrones is not really that guilty... They use a lot of leather, sure, but other than that, it is pretty ok. They use fur where fur would be used a lot (The Wall, Winterfell, Beyond the Wall) and they use bright colours where it makes sense (Kings Landing). And it does not look as gritty and sort of dirty as all the other shows do.
Scawking Errol Flynn in 'The Adventures of Robin Hood' from 1938 wore green tights, had a feather in his hat and a jacket with puffy frilled sleeves. *This was in fact not the fashion of 1930's USA where the movie was made.* In spite of this the film was a huge financial success and Errol Flynn was immensly popular with the chicks whether he was wearing silly medieval threads or not. Also, colors have been scientifically proven to increase fun. In modern film not even the *blood* is colorfully red!
Well, there was a from of leather armour in the 17th century, called the Buff Coat. It was made from thick buffalo hide. These were not however black. They were a sort of yellowish brown colour. I would assume that as a royal guard they might be equipped wth them. But I would'nt have thought they'd have been worn when off duty.
To be honest, buff coats seem to me quite a bit more elegant and classy than whatever it is they're wearing in the show. Their clothes have a biker/bdsm vibe that doesn't fit in a historical show...
zednotzee7 Eh, you know how it is, fashion is also a matter of personal taste. Besides, have you seen haute couture fashion shows? Man, I bet I would look more dapper in a buff coat than most male models in their runway attire! ;D
I made a video on that, you can check it in my channel. The buff coat existed, leather gambesons existed, and Matt's obsessive animosity towards leather armour is, in the least, curious.
Apocalyptic Knights Yes, and boiled leather in earlier times, but that's not the point. Matt doesn't hate on leather armor, but rather on how it was portrayed on film, and on leather clothes. The leather clothing is anachronistic, impractical, and unhistorical. The leather "armor" is far too often portrayed as being very thin, and either similar to biker or metalheads jackets in some incarnations (like Vikings, or this show), or as very thin shirts (e.g. some Robin Hood adaptations). Very rarely do you see realistic and/or historically accurate leather armor on film.
I'm going to try to address these points, but before I begin, keep in mind that this is pseudo-historical fiction meant for entertainment, not historical accuracy. Hence, it is very stylized. My approach to this type of stuff is the same as my approach to movie fighting choreography - it's meant to be an abstraction of the real thing, not the real thing itself. Anyway: *Why all the leather?* This is probably just a common trend right now. Plus, leather is associated with adventurous, even dangerous renegade type characters. This is a modern connotation, yes, but again: The show is made for modern people, most of whom don't particularly care about historical accuracy or even whether or not the outfits are comfortable or practical. What matters is the impression it gives. *Why the dark colors?* Well, probably because people these days associate sombre colors with more serious, authoritative people. Policemen, soldiers, even politicians - they all wear dark or muted colors. Characters who wear bright and strong colors, on the other hand, it perceived as less serious and perhaps even a bit clownish. Your average viewer today simply doesn't expect a badass swordsman to dress cheerfully. *Why the grimy shirts?* I never actually noticed that when I watched the show, but I suspect it's related to the color issue - bright white shirts would stand out against all that black, grey and brown leather and that sort of eye-catching detail isn't necessarily a good thing, In general, you don't want the audience to pay too much attention to minor unimportant details, since it distracts from the over-all impression. *What's with the shoulder guards?* I don't think they are supposed to be armor, per se. From what I could tell watching the show, they appear to actually be the musketeer equivalent of a badge or coat of arms. The musketeers on the show don't really have uniforms, so the pauldron with the fleur de lis is how they identify themselves as musketeers. (Note that D'Artanian didn't get to wear one until he officially joined them.) A bit of an odd choice even by modern standards, but I got used to it pretty quickly. *Why don't they ever change their clothes?* This might be partly to save on the costume budget, but I suspect it also has to do with character silhouette - that is to say, giving the characters a consistently distinct look. In character creation, it's considered a major advantage when the audience can instantly identify a character just from a passing glance and keep a clear mental image of what the character looks like at all times. This is probably also the reason they don't have an actual uniform - the more distinct they look the better. So there you go: The show uses very stylized costuming, mostly designed to appeal to a modern audience. Personally, I think it works. My first impression was actually sorta similar to yours, but once I got into the show it didn't bother me since it was at least very consistent. I've certainly seen worse examples of ahistorical costuming.
scholagladiatoria Matt, you forgot to mention the worst piece of historical inaccuracy of costumes in that show: These dudes are supposed to musketeers, king's royal guard, soldiers; but they never ever wear their uniforms!!!! They don't wear them in their garrisons, on duty, in presence of their superiors, even in presence of their king. They don't even wear their uniforms in battlefield! Instead they wear those stupid leather civilian clothes which clearly is NOT 17th century French musketeer uniform. I repeat: SOLİDERS ON DUTY NOT WEARİNG THEİR UNİFORMS!!!! Now I only did 6 months of army duty(obligatory in my country) but even I know you can't just do that.
I think they changed it in this story where the musketeers don't exactly have a uniform but rather they gave those shoulder pads with their markings on it. Those are their uniforms. They also have been shown to wear they're own version of cloaks. So yes while it doesn't follow the historical descriptions of the Musketeers but that wouldn't be interesting to watch now would it?
@@sulla175 No seriously it wouldn't. Why do you think action movies and tv shows would nearly never use bright colours like yellow or orange for their clothing? It's because they become an eye-sore. Bright colours tends to be more attractive thus becoming a distraction to the eye, mix in swordfights and gunfights then it simply wouldn't work. The only bright colours that would work would either be white, blue or red which are more saturated colours that do well towards the eyes and thus why it's the only colour other than black and brown used in fighting scenes. It isn't an issue with how the creators didn't want to make it accurate, it was how the requirements to be accurate simply one of the most hardest aspects to do in filmmaking.
I've tried to watch the show but I really can't get into it. For me nothing beats the two movies with Oliver Reed, Michael York, Richard Chamberlain, Charlton Heston, and Christopher Lee.
A question concering the available colors for clothing: for sure in the late medieval period and the 17th century a lot of colorful and bright clothes were worn by a lot of people. However, I don´t really have a good idea about at which point in time most of the colors for clothing were affordable to the majority of people. Is there any precise documentation on that topic?
These Musketeers look like 17th century Hell's Angesls! Seriously i always imagined the 3 musketeers wearin the typical fancy and colorful clothes that the nobility wore at that times, and if i remember correctly in the novel the character of Portos really liked to wear stylish clothes. I suspect that people dressed like these would have never been admitted to an audience with the king.
It always struck me funny how a lot of the time, "history" channels broadcast stuff with such inaccuracies as these, but in a pure entertainment show like Game of Thrones, they address the vast majority of these problems. If it wasn't for the dragons, magic stuff, and alternate geography, you could say that Game of Thrones is a more accurate depiction or medieval times than most of these "history" shows.
JuliusAkavirius It's more like TLC at least MTV advertises some music lol, but TLC (The Learning Channel). What the hell do you learn from TLC... well I guess you learn how not to treat your child by watching Toddlers & Tiaras xD
I'm inclined to be more forgiving of fantasy tropes in this than something like vikings, after all the original source material is very clearly fiction. I'd also say that the specific choices for the musketeers are reasonably well justified in terms of the characters, all of the actual musketeers are pretty dark and somber people, definitely more death metal than glam rock. In contrast a lot of the other characters do tend to wear more authentic any flamboyant period fabrics. Also, unlike vikings there is relatively little attempt to show ordinary, historic domestic life as part of the story, it's pretty much all some paragraph in an adventure story. While your points, in the sense of a historical drama are perfectly fair, I'm happy to ignore them in the context of a fictional historical fantasy which puts the main character in a more relatable modern context,
Here is the thing that everyone seems to ignore or not mention about this series : This series is actually not a historical series it is a western in the scenery of Alexandre Dumas' Three musketeers. Everything about this series is based on anime/modern fantasy design that was predominant in the last few years in digital artists and that got promoted to mainstream series and movies. The three musketeers are a western in most of the aspects of the series : the intrigue, the plot, the guns on the horses, the hats, the fights.
All your questions and complaints can be answered with: "Because in 21st century movie language: leather+dark colors = badass hero" to me they seem to be kind of... thought like that by whoever designed them: costumes for 17th century ("super")heroes.
I personally love this show. Its refreshing to see a reimagining of the costumes. Im not looking for 100 historical accuracy when theirs swords n guns involved HAHAHA. Im a big fan of the books and im happy with the way they didnt follow what everyone else has done, it can get old after a while, but thats just me. You brought up some very good points. Everyone is gonna have their own views on this show, but i love it.
it's called "production design", "costume design" and "photography". learn how those relate to one another, and you'll understand why all the leatherishness, and why most of the highborns and noblemen of the series wear bright colors, and why Athos wears black despite being a highborn himself. the shoulder pads: I /think/ they're meant to represent those capes you would wear over one arm?, like those blue capes they actually wear in the series, but in a sort of reminiscent way of earlier types of capes..... like, modern 'medals' of officers or generals, they're a simple plastic stripe, with characteristic colors, meant to replace those actual metallic medals of old, which would stack up on the breast of an officer, making it impossible to wear them. they do get the whole medal in addition to the little stripe, but only for ceremonial or decoration purposes, not for practical use. these shoulder pads can also be some sort of 'badge', like police badges.... they are all, in a way, policemen. if you take the 90's movie, with those blue bright capes, and begin iterating over them in order to adapt their desing, it wouldn't be hard to go from "blue bright cape" to "blue half-cape" to "dull short shoulder cape" to "thick shoulder pad" in a few steps. those things do happen during the production design.
The guy on the end with the cool dude "popped collar" really stands out... It simply looks like a modern leather coat with a row of many buttons and those add on shoulder pieces.. Lol. So much effort goes into spectacular sets and scenery, yet relatively little into proper costuming.
From watching the show, (Which I quite enjoy, by the way. ) it is obvious some person or persons in authority suffer from an intense leather fetish. In addition to the Musketeers themselves, the Cardinal sports a black leatherette cassock, and even Milady sometimes wears some pretty weird leather like jewelry. Of the featured cast, really only the King, the Queen, and Constance wear colours and fabrics. I believe that this is done for (somewhat ham-fisted ) dramatic effect. The "strong " characters wear leather, the "weak" ones get pretty fabrics. As further proof of my theory: The Cardinal's Red Guards also wear a bit of leather, Just not as much as their awesome foes, the Musketeers.
The version of the book I read, Aramis wears a vibrant black and silver doublet. But he was also in mourning for his past and his decisions that he'd made. The others though wear bright vibrant colors. Porthos even wears a baldric that is gold on the front.
Do historical advisors ever have a say in anything when historical movies are made? I mean, is there no director or producer who is remotely interested in accuracy and asks before he makes a movie?
BountyFlamor Big money productions generally are formula driven and yes this a big money production. Most people would get that this stuff is translated to modern times otherwise you couldn't understand them. The clothing is done for two reasons. One is they use blue and green screens so you can't have blue or green clothing. The second reason for the clothes is the image translations. Wearing the traditional clothes may make them look like homosexuals when those people that wore those clothes, wore them to look tough. Even in the 1800s to 1900s there was context changes. Girl meant baby, pink clothes were for males and blues were for females. So the expression throw like a girl really meant throw like a baby and not throw like a female. I'm bringing this up because Western cowboy stuff would have a lot of guys wearing pinks and a lot of native Americans wearing hats and shirts made for females (because they were often colorful).
Band of Brothers was excellent, so was The Pacific (for dress uniforms in garrison, and even civilian clothes), so too the movies Saving Private Ryan, Apollo 13, and The Right Stuff. Clint Eastwood is such a director. One of the things I liked best about the movie American Sniper was they depicted the way the uniforms changed during his different deployments (and the vehicles too).
*Triumphant French Trumpet Fanfare* HISTORY TO THE RESCUE! From the founding of the Musketeers in 1622, until they were disbanded by Cardinal Mazarin in 1646, they wore a red and blue tabard with a white cross emblazoned on the front. It was standard issue for the Musketeers at the time. In 1657, Mazarin reformed the Musketeers with 150 men, with no change to the uniform. In 1660, the uniform was changed to the more flamboyant Musketeer uniform that most of us are familiar with; a cream or yellow tabard with gold trim, dark brown trousers, red silk-lined blue cloak with a white cross emblazoned on the back and another split in half by the front, and a short blue cavalier's chapeau with red feather trim. In 1664, three years after Mazarin's death lead to the transfer of the Musketeers back to King Louis XIV, they were reorganized once more, into two companies, each taking their name from the color of their horses (Grey Musketeers and Black Musketeers), and their number doubled from 150 to 300. Very little changed for the Musketeers until 1727, when they reverted the uniform back to a military style, blue and white tabard with white cross, red shirt and trousers, and the cavalier chapeau exchanged for a blue tri-corn with gold silk and white lace trim. In 1772, the uniform was changed again, with the same color schemes, but the tabard was exchanged for a steel breastplate, and trim color was changed between the two companies in order to reflect which unit they belonged to (gold for the black musketeers, white for the grey). In 1776, the Musketeers were disbanded for budgetary reasons, reformed in 1789, and disbanded again during the French Revolution. They were reformed a final time in 1814, and given a generally standard Napoleonic-style uniform in their own colors (which remained the same from 1772 until the end of the Musketeers), and disbanded forever in 1816. Fun Facts!: Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and d'Artagnan all are based on actual musketeers, although Dumas' story of their valiant fight against the evil cardinal Richelieu is entirely fabricated. Additionally, Porthos being portrayed by black actors is hardly new, although he was most certainly white. However, there are two reasons why the BBC may have chosen *other* than political correctness. Option 1) Isaac de Porthau, the *actual* man behind Dumas' Porthos character, was a member of the Black Musketeers (I prefer this idea to political correctness, although knowing the BBC, PC is most assuredly their rationale). Option 2) Dumas, himself, was black. Why not throw a nod to the author's heritage by including a black actor as part of the cast (massively unlikely, as I doubt that anyone working for the show has any idea that Dumas was a black Frenchman with a famous father who grew up in the Carribean).
I think there are some scenes with the King where they have pale blue, more ceremonial looking uniforms? The shoulder things are also meant to be a badge of honour for the Musketeers (in series) as I recall - at the end of season one when D'artagnan is made a full member of the musketeers by the King they give him one of those shoulder things
They did have a type of leather armor that was popular in the 17th century, called a buff coat, but they were YELLOW and usually worn by cavalry officers.
Probably Excalibur, where only the female characters and the villains wear bright colours. Even the armour is blackish until the Round Table is formed, then everyone gets a shiny silver suit of plate (that they eat at the dinner table while wearing). Also Conan the Barbarian, which is full of leather and earth tones, and inspired a lot of 80s sword & sorcery films. Those films it's maybe forgivable, since they're depicting myth or fantasy, but the historical films seem to have taken a cue from them.
I suspect a large part of it came about in reaction to early Holywood colour films like Robin Hood in which everyone is brightly dressed in riots of colours - later film-makers decided they wanted to move away from the campy look of that period and indulge in "gritty realism", little realising that the costumes were probably the most accurate things in those older films
I can explain the whole series here.... It a "show based on the book, The Three Muskateers... Which was based on actual people". Therefore, they are allowed take creative license to make the show "look" more heroic. Think of any period movie... For the most part in the last 60 years heroes have been rough, rugged and "dark" so to speak. The bad guys have been the guys that are wearing the bright colors and are "frilly" like in The Patriot for example. Gone are the days of White hats and Black hats. If The Musketeers actually stayed historically accurate to costume it would come off looking like a movie from the 40's. And on a final note, lets not forget about hygiene practices back then was minimal. These characters were soldiers and their costumes were uniforms as theybwere referred to in the show a few times. So I would assume that these soldiers clothes especially whites would look drab in colour.
Now I'm going back to the memories of my reading of Dumas, so don't take too seriously, but Matt is quite right that they would have something a bit more cheerful, especially Porthos, who was a bit of a dandy. They might have the great honour of being in the King's militia, but that doesn't mean they're rich. They certainly didn't pay their servants. On one occasion, they had to SELL their doublets, and were sitting around in their singlets.
Dumas is anything but historical accuracy, he is spinning a swashbuckling yarn. Something to adapt if you do want historical accuracy with your swash would be the Captain Alatriste books (yes there is a movie with Viggo Mortensen but it isn't good)
You will notice if course that the Enlightenment era is XVIII th century. I would also mention that (on the colour side of things) it is common knowledge that musketeers (french royal musketeer regiments) wore a kind of blue uniform (although it wasn't really a uniform since well, Cromie)
I like your comment about the 200 yard pistol shot. With 13+1 shots from a 4.8 inch barrel Glock using 230 grain FMJ, having never attempted this before, I tried to hit from standing a steel plate the size of a human head at 180 yards. I hit it on my final shot. I don't rule out a 200 yard pistol shot (especially with time to aim), even with the technology of those days (American Revolution and Civil War sharpshooter requirements!) but it's certainly VERY difficult, a remarkable feat of skill - the story better justify it.
Correct dressing is visible here : fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mousquetaire#/media/File:Mousquetaires_du_roi.jpg In 17th century, each musketeer has only the musket in common (only piece of equipment provided to them), then at the end they add the blue cape/tabard, but mainly for King's reviews (or when guarding Kings quarters), not for everyday tasks.
I challenge your assertion that nobody wore black in the 17th century - though it is highly unlikely that the musketeers would be wearing it (as I understand it it was pretty much the only colour that was acceptable within the more extreme protestant groups) look at 17th century Dutch portraits for instance.
scholagladiatoria I don't doubt it (I don't the muskateers being in france and working for the royal family in the 17th century would want to be mistaken for protestants for a start). My point only is that there are some places in Europe in the 17th century where just about everybody did wear black.
kayosiiii Dark does not mean black. Black was a color, but a lot of supposedly black clothing is actually just dark shades of brown or other more natural colors. Paintings have a bad habit of being dirty & so misleading when it comes to color. So yes, you are right that there was black clothing, but the point still stands that it is not right for musketeers.
Eustace Stritchers - Totally in agreement that the Musketeers wouldn't have worn black. If you look at pictures of black looking clothes from France or Britain from the 16th or 17th centuries then you are probably looking at a dark shade of another colour. If you are looking at somebody who was a member of a protestant sect (other than anglican) in Britain or somebody from Holland (not sure about other parts of Europe) there is a good chance that what you are looking at is actually black. We know this from historical sources other than paintings.
Ag Za. I think all still are forgetting the main point which is that black is a popular color for movies and television to put on people, despite its relatively lack of popularity outside of certain groups. We are not talking about Dutch religious fanatics but French aristocrats. Black was a color with specific social implications for the French in the 17th century. Thus, the show is being naughty viz historical accuracy.
I really got the idea from the book that Musketeers were often very clothes conscious. Especially Porthos. He liked to show of. I don't see him wearing clothes like these. In fact he might have even chosen style over practicality.
Quick question about other versions of the Musketeers, specifically the tabards worn to differentiate between the King's guard and the Cardinal's men. Are these historically accurate? I like the look, but I have no idea if they were real. Thanks!
I have worked with professional costumers, and I have seen their often impressive libraries of books on period clothing. Most of them know what people SHOULD be wearing in their period pieces. The problem is that the viewer does not. People have been told that real is brown and black and leather for so long now that they accept it as absolute truth. "Those old, early technicolor period pieces with men were wearing tights and bright colors all over everyone are utterly preposterous!" they say. Nowadays, even if a costumer loves the clothing of the period and wants to put it on the actors, their designs will be rejected and they will probably lose their job if they don't load up the screen with black, brown, and of course, leather. Unfortunately, the only way to stop this would be to get people to stop watching films made with this sort of costuming, which I find unlikely. The average modern viewer has been so inundated with this garbage that they would think of what people REALLY wore at any period of history before about 1850 as being corny, flamboyant, and ridiculous. Hell, 1850 is me being generous. Did you know it was perfectly acceptable for a gentleman to wear a cape in public as recently as the 1940s? That's right: a cape.
Now imagine a historical serie about the late 20th century in, say, the equivalent of the BBC in 2415. We would all be driving 1500 hbp cars, dual-weilding .50 caliber laser-guided machine-guns while sniffing ludicrous amounts of cocaine or metamphetamin and listening to the famous heavy metal hip-hop rap band call the Beach Boyz'n the Hood. And they will find experts to swear that it is historically accurate : )
Game of Thrones and Vikings both annoyed me slightly because of this. I can still enjoy the show, but there's always a nagging in the back of my head. Great video, Matt. Keep it up.
At least Game of Thrones is high fantasy so it's easy to just say that it's the kind of fashion they have in that world. Although in King's Landing, people often wear colorful clothes and the Lannister soldiers wear red and gold. Vikings is different since it has real-life locations and characters that did exist, yet they wear really stupid clothes and armour a lot of the time.
The reason they wear the same clothes all the time is probably character recognition; If they wore anything else they could be recognized as if they came from Dr Who or something. ( Ex.: Morgan Freeman in white clothing = Bruce Almighty, Morgan Freeman in hobo clothing = Shawshank Redemption ) They wear low-saturation clothing just because it's "Medieval" and "Dark age", that kind of way of thought. Kind of sad really... :/
Somewhat related question. We know that the reasons rapiers came into existence are numerous: fashion, ideology, use of the off hand, full plate armour becoming less prominent etc. etc. But every now and then the argument of advancements in metallurgy pops up. It is even on wikipedia. I am having trouble buying into this. Was it really factor? Was it really nigh on impossible to make a rapier before the 16th century?
Rim Andries It seems that high quality high carbon steel, without so many impurities and less slag did become much more available at affordable prices in the 16th century, yes. Many medieval blades have slag and other flaws in their blades, which in a narrow rapier-like blade would result in a lot of breakages. Less of a problem with a broader blade.
Rim Andries Sword smiths in the 14th and 15th centuries did makes estocs and rapier blades are no more difficult to make than medieval styles of blade, but the steel-makers seem to have improved their skill/knowledge/technology in the 16th century (there had been a technology improvement in the 14th century as well, which seems to have contributed to a greater availability of affordable steel and reduction in sword prices).
It was a few reasons, as armour became more advanced and all covering hacking and slashing went out the window and fell way to can openers like axes and crows beaks, but since the sword is awesome people wanted to keep it around. So the best way to sword a man in plate is to "half hand" (grab the sword mid way up the blade) a skinnier blade and drive it between the plate, most likely around the armpit. So the swords of the time made a step towards being skinny. So then at that point with the can openers being seen about more and more we see the rise of what would kill the armoured age (for a time) the musket, hence the name Musketeers. Mail is no longer any good and the wound you get from wearing plate and taking a musket ball is just... awful, so armour left the shop and you had a new style of fight, fire the rifle, pop the pistol and then stab the bloody beggar that's still standing (debatabley), so you would want a quick skinny blade to fit the roll of the mostly unarmoured combat... and that's my 2 or 33 cents worth. Oh last thought about the slag thing, I don't know if I buy that, the slag is still manageable even in medieval smithing, it's just how it's worked, like the Viking Ulfberht, it was kicking about from the 8th to the 11th century and experts say it's steel is comparable in quality to modern metals
The fighting style changed when muskets were made readily avible and improved in terms of quality, accuracy and handling. The armour changed to heavy iron breastplates and helmets that could defeat a musketball..or no armour at all. This happened all over europe to all branches of the military with few exeptions. Reiters and notably swedish heavy infantry and cavalry used some plate for a decade or two ( plus minus) in the beginning of the 17:th century.
While the leather on the shoulders of the guy on the left may have helped protect him, the "wings" on the guy in brown look like they would guide a high strike right up to his neck. Kinda like the shot trap on the Porsche turreted Henschel Tigers. (Slightly different era)
You forget that those are meant to be uniforms and when in a military force, some version of the uniform is required to be worn daily. Besides, they likely have several pairs of the same clothes, therefore there would hopefully be a clean uniform to wear in the king's presence.
The leather was chosen for durability of the actors who are going to be doing a lot of action of the course of several episodes. In the movies, the actors are only gonna have their costumes for the few weeks they will be shooting, only doing a few actions sequences. In tv, it would be insanely expensive for the production crew to have to make several costumes using fabric, rather than using tough leather than can last the course of months long shoots and several actions sequences.
Hello Matt! I've watched the series and agree with your take on it. I have one question. In two cases, I've seen the musketeers use some sort of disarming move against another rapier-fighter. Are those just made up by the programme armourers, or are they based on the sort of works you have studied? Thanks, Chris
I feel like if I wanted leather (or any material) armor for my shoulder to deflect some percentage of rapier thrusts, I would want the layering to go the other way. As it is there, you're just helping to guide the sword's tip right into your skin! As far as the costuming goes, though, the question for a TV producer is: do you want historical accuracy, or do you want something that looks cool to us today? So I don't mind it too much.
Its not Historical just entertainment (and I agree on most of what you say) But for the most part It looks cool and mostly so you can quickly identified who is who.
I remember the costume designer saying that she designed the costumes that way because the historical version weren't "masculine" I disagree. And yes, I know this is an old video, but do you have any thoughts on that?
To most people leather and dark colors = badass, and actual traditional clothing to most people would look silly. I think that is really the problem. I would prefer it to be historical, but that is to much to ask really, because they are trying to appeal to the masses as apposed to creating something historically accurate. All you would have to do is dress the same actors in historically accurate clothing and a have a picture of them in that and one of them in what they wear in the show and walk down a busy street and ask everyone you can what they like more and you will see what the general populace relate too. I think the reason for them wearing the same clothing all the time is two fold. Firstly it makes it very easy to identify who is who because they dress the same all the time and lets be honest the attention span of many people has declined, especially with the rise of the internet. Secondly it saves money. I love this series keep it coming.
Yeah, in the books, Porthos was described as quite flamboyant, always on with the newest fashion. I wish there could be a historically correct adaptation, also faithful to the literature..
Technically the period of time with the most usage of leather armour was the 17th century... the buff coat was a common leather armour used in this time period, but that looks different to this armour (or at least the examples I’ve seen do)
I have belatedly realised that the costume designer must have watched Ghostbusters 2 quite a lot. The dark brown "World of Leather" look is very Vigo the Carpathian.
Though I completely agree that costume designers often sacrifice historical accuracy for artistic licence, and that to an extent this has been done within The Musketeers, such as with the pauldrons, there are a number of points made within the video that I disagree with. Though I support your points regarding colour, the silhouettes, especially in regards to the doublets are actually fairly accurate, as can be see within books such as Janet Arnold’s ‘Patterns of Fashion 3’. Most notable is the 1567 Doublet worn by Nils Sture, which resembles Athos’s doublet remarkably and is described as ‘a leather doublet...an example of hardwearing clothing suitable for traveling or hunting... The doublet is made of leather with a suede finish... it may originally have been black’. Granted this is slightly prior to the timeframe of The Musketeers, yet it is a real historical artefact: proof that the use of leather in periods close to or contemporary to The Musketeers isn’t completely fictitious. The book also mentions an article by historian C.H. Spiers regarding the use of leather, titled ‘Deer Skin leathers and their use for costume’, which I have not read. As for Porthos’ scaled neckpiece, I agree that with the design artistic liberties have been heavily played upon, however it is possible to find contemporary paintings depicting such pieces. Two examples of note can be found within James Laver’s ‘Le Costume des Tudor a Louis XIII’, the first a portrait of ‘Sir Phillip Sidney’, painted 1576, and the second a portrait of ‘François de l’Aubespine’, an army general in France under Louis XIII, painted 1630. (Both are easy to find through google.) Within both pieces simple black leather neck guards of a similar shape to Porthos’ are visible, the latter most notable in its existence contemporary to the setting of the BBC’s Musketeers. Either way, such sources display the diverse nature of 17th fashions and prove that (just as it is today) it is impossible to generalise style! EDIT: The doublets (Treville’s especially) are also highly reminiscent of millinery ‘buff-coats’, which were made of leather, so are probably designed to connote to their military positions. Thanks for the video!
There is some really low ambient "humming" going around in your videos. I'm not sure where it's coming from but I suspect it's from your recording equipment., as it doesn't seem to matter where in (I assume) your house the video has been shot. I have to watch your videos with a very low volume and even then it is barely tolerable, as it feels like the the "noise" coming through my headphones is hurting my ears. Has anyone else had this problem or is it just a weird interaction with my headphones or something?
I understand hes looking at this from a practical/historical point of view. He needs to look at it from a ratings point of view. It's fairly easy to see the shows director is trying to draw in the Game of Thrones fan base. This series looks in style very similar to Game of Thrones.
When Black Adder looks more historically accurate, you've got a problem.
Black Adder I and II were really well done in terms of historical (15th and 16th century) costume - even putting to shame high budget movies in same periods. But few would give a shit.
Who cares about historicity of clothing in a fictional show?
Basically the dude in the middle (since I don't watch the show, I'm clueless as to which one he is :) has a very fashionable piece of gear.
The issue here is these a trying to be historic set pieces and they look ridiculous. If you're going to look ridiculous and spend a lot of money, you might as well take 5 minutes to look up how things should look from that period and do that.
phileas007 Its a fictional show set in a historical time period.
it's just that good old trope "colour coded for your convinenience" basically anyone wearing black or dark colours are either the bad guy, or a badass anti hero.
it's basically a lazy way for the show's makers to say "this character is a no nonsense badass because he's dressed all in black" while those dressed in period accurate clothing (bright colours, lacy frills, ect) will lean more towards being fopish if not outright gay and will always be well groomed.
now I've never seen the show so I can't say how much they use that trope.
take the cardiinal for example when not in public he wears black just to look sinister.
a good example of this trope is starwars. if you see someone dressed in dark colours carrying a red light saber you instantly think "uh oh bad guy" which is why luke wears black in return of the jedi it shows he hasn't mastered his emotions and is at risk of falling to the dark side (which he almost does until he cuts off vader's hand)
the sad thing. if they actually wore period accurate clothing noone would watch it because all the heros look "gay" (just look at how many jokes to that end there were in blackadder)
Everyone loves historical heavy metal/biker gang costumes.
Guy on the right - switch the smallsword/rapier's handle to the one of the cut-down double-barrel shotgun, and you may immediately expect him to kick on his Harley-Davidson and set out to his path of revenge. Mad Max, Punisher, Blade (ok, here are some subtle details in disagreement) :-)
It's like from one joke: "I am either in wrong costume or in a wrong studio"
Mungo When I saw the thumbnail for a video of the theme from that show, I absolutely thought it was some kinda post-apocalypse type of deal. I was surprised when I heard it was supposed to be set in the past.
Not me. I think it's overcompensating for the viewers' "Low T. " lol ;)
They need black bandanas (some with skull or flag motifs) and the leader needs an eyepatch.
Shining Darkness Rochefort gets an eyepatch in the most recent episode. Oddly enough Rochefort was never described as wearing an eyepatch in Dumas' novels; the character first was shown with an eyepatch in the 1973 movie version of the 3 Musketeers when Christopher Lee adopted it to go along with his totally red outfit. It has since become almost required. (And the '73 movie probably came closer to showing what people of the different classes actually wore in the historical time period.)
I keep looking at the man in the middle and wondering what WWI plane he flew.
+UnrealVoicebox Yep, with that haircut, certainly. Oh, and NO HATS. Which is impossible in the 17th century. You did not even take off your hat indoors.
Sopwith Camel, old chap.
Nah, he's a Frog, probably flew a Bleriot or a Spad.
Badly.
You win the best youtube comment of the day! I laughed outloud thanks for that!!! :-D
He just needs some white scarf and some goggles haha!
What's with the costumes is:
1) They use the leather costumes in order to make the heroes LOOK cool or badassed.
2) Most viewers aren't even remotely interested in historical accuracy.
3) Most TV characters have a "signature" look in order to make them quickly and easily identifiable. (The Skipper and Gilligan from Gilligan's Island are prime examples.)
4) TV shows have fairly strict budgets which means that if they spend more on wardrobe they have to spend less somewhere else.
5) The dingy, grimy, dark appearance comes from the tendency toward Film Noir that seems to be popular at the moment.
"Who's that then?"
"I dunno, must be a King."
"Why?"
"He hasn't got shit all over him." - Monty Python and the Holy Grail
They LOOK like shit. Where is the feathers and the felt and the gayness? 17th century was camp as shit!
Understandable considering that in medieval times they would depict figures from antiquity with full suits of 15th century armour completely inaccurate for the time period, its without a doubt that general art is something that try’s to go beyond historical accuracy and instead try to make something that appeals to the general population and in this case edgy noir dark style is what is most recognised these days so film makers don’t try it otherwise because their artists first and foremost not historians, sucks I know, they should have to consult and actual historian about the setting before misguiding the perception of history with their artistic preference
@@baldrickthedungspreader3107 This is entertainment pal. If I wanted to watch something historical I'd watch the History Channel and not this. No I watch the Musketeers cause I wanted to watch four brotherly Musketeer( supposedly in this story) have thrilling and romantic adventures.
@@xxrabbitsnipezxx5794 your the reason TV and movies suck these days. You're the reason shit like the New Robin Hood movie gets made. Fuck historical accuracy lets have Robin Hood doing Kung-Fu and shooting machine gun style crossbows. It doesnt have to be accurate, just entertaining.....ends up being neither. ANd fuck it, lets do Great Gatsby, have them listening to Jay-Z songs, cause nothing says ROaring 20s like Jay-Z.....I mean fuck...... reading your comments I understand what movie and TV execs are thinking now..... they're dumbing it down for nimrods like you, who dont care......i have more to say, but I think I'm having a heart attack just knowing you exist and are pleased with this shit....... ....you .....stupid......fu.......c....k
Well said, TAsatorT and Eberhardt Schantz (but maybe Eberhardt shall, some day?). Great name, by the way. Sounds like it's right out of Dumas.
it may not be historicly acurate but it looks frickin' awesome
I do like how they FINALLY made firearms an integral part of the show, even making Aramis the marksman. Real musketeers relied on their firearms more than their swords, hence the name Musketeers, they were superb shots with the musket. If they could dispatch enemies with the quicker shot, they would do it.
Though they were also master swordsmen. Many young nobles died after challenging Musketeers to duels.
You are an idiot who knows jackshit about musketeers or muskets
Perhaps the pistol in question fired a leather-seeking projectile. They had those in the 17th century, right? Guys??
Daniel Thompson X-DDD
Yea
🤣😂😂😂
The explanation is actually quite simple; they're not Musketeers, they're superheroes. These are their costumes.
Exactly. It's not a documentary. The costumes aren't for historical accuracy; they're meant to give us - a modern audience that is not, in fact, entirely made up of historians - visual cues about the characters wearing them. "This guy's in black because he's the serious one. This guy's big and strong so he's got bulls, bears, and lions on his outfit."
@@alarin612 That is incredibly patronizing and lazy.
These guys should use *uniforms* when on service. A tabard, with a christian cross (simbolizing God deference and favor) and the "fleur de lis" (simbolizing his services to the King).
The Richilieux "red guard" of musketeers (yes, musketeers, too) uses, obviously, red tabards. Is not so clear what real color of King guards, but Alexandre Dumas talk about black tabards to King´s musketeers on "The Man in The Iron Mask".
So far i know, musketeers used no armor, with exception of "gorjal" (gusset, neckpiece) a decorative reminder of past breastplates. Later, this gusset would give rise to a simple scarf around neck, wich, some say, inspired the modern ties.
I didn't see your comment when I posted mine, but that's what I thought. :)
The tabards of the Musketeers during the reign of Louis XIII were blue. His son, Louis XIV, altered the tabard color to black...he also lessened the Musketeers status in his court, preferring to surround himself with a massive court of lesser nobility.
Gorgets can actually get pretty big even in the 17th century so i wouldn't really call it a ''decorative reminder'' Yes later during the 18th century they got really small but 17th century gorgets do in my opinion offer decent neck protection, enough to be more than just plain decoration.
MyNameIsMud I think that was not about the size, but the material and construction.
Gorgets in this age wasn't really an armor piece anymore. Yes, can be even handy against a knife on your throat, but wasn't intended to be.
mousquetaire in the 17th century used big puss in boots style riding boots, big clothes and a cloak, and would wear red and blue. Oh and very long flowing hair and trimmed beards and moustaches.
In the book by Alexander Dumas they brag about their clothes and how fancy and expensive they were
Have you ever seen a version of the 3 musketeers where they actually had a musket at some point?
yes, plenty, including this series. The episode in which they defend the queen in a covenant comes to mind.
Zamolxes77 I have seen 3-4 different versions, thus I had no mood to watch this one. Fact is that the musket was their primary weapon in real life but most versions they refused it probably as an unknightly weapon.
edi
They refused to use it in towns, being too cumbersome, but they used it often enough, especially in war.
This version of three musketeers is the only somewhat lengthy feature, 10 episodes, so is not trying to rush through the motions of the novel. Personally I liked it.
This series actually has them using firearms more than swords - hell, Aramis is supposed to be the regiment's best shot and uses a musket in the first episode (albeit to scare one of the Cardinal's guards rather than to shoot anyone)
This series actually has them with muskets and pistols quite often, and portrays them as the historically excellent marksmen they supposedly were. The swordplay is not the best, but it is on-par with what I expect from theatrical sword fighting - which is to say someone with little knowledge would see it and call it sword fighting.
Well said! Obviously it's the costume designer's idea of something "edgy", modern, and contemporary to try and enhance the appeal to a modern audience, because they have a very low opinion of the tastes of that audience.
These guys would've had outfits made out of some of the best fabrics, colourful and richly embroidered with metal thread. They'd have had servants to make sure their clothes were mended and clean. People dressed like this would've been sniggered at and thought of as bumpkins.
The worst part is that the dark edgy look is so overdone at this point that having campy, historic outfits would probably get the show a lot of attention.
@@joestevenson5568 This exactly.
They're not standing out when they're just following the crowd. Being historically accurate would please everyone, this just pleases nitwits.
@@planescaped not at all the costumes are one of the best parts about the show. In historical periods colors were a sign of status because they were harder to come by. No one cares about that shit now and strength is valued so the dark edgy look makes them look badass as they should since it's a show for entertainment not historical accuracy
@@blademaster9575 Look badass, you say? Brighter colours would have looked "badass", back in their time. It's not that we don't care about that shit nowadays, it's that we have a different idea about what is cool and what isn't, let's not lie to ourselves and act like we're any different. That being said, if you're going to make a show in a historical setting, you best follow the historical setting. If not, make something else. Simple as that. It is important to represent these periods correctly in media, because the public now has an extremely warped idea of what the past was really like thanks to media like this. Yes, it is just entertainment, but unless you're making a fantasy film, you are misrepresenting the past if you don't abide by at least basic historical accuracy.
The most important question of all: If they belong to the King's Musketeers, why aren't they in uniform?
Musketeers, as gentlemen, would wear a regimental tabard over their regular clothing.
It looks like the costume designer went to some online steampunk fantasy costume maker and told them to create leather steampunk versions of Musketeer outfits. Hell, the guy on the far left looks like he's some evil overlord in a sci-fi movie. The brown-toned leather outfit looks like a steampunk version of Sir Francis Drake.
they look like someone seen old leather books and thought....
wouldn't it be great if people dressed like that?
I tried to sit through one of the more recent Musketeer films, when the bloke looks at his sword and declares, in a strong American accent-
"The weapon of a Musketeer!" I turned it off.
Later it had Orldando Bloom, a woman in a dress defeating armoured Soldiers with a dagger and Airships...
That sound you can hear throughout the entire film is Dumas spinning in his grave.
As someone with a very big interest in history, I can understand your points. And yet as a watcher and lover of fantasy/psuedo-historical/historical drama, I feel the need to state that as a viewer of the show I have always loved their outfits. Of course, I haven't thought about whether using leather is realistic or accurate for the time, but it didn't occur to me because I'm too busy enjoying all the details and attachements these guys are rocking and how they swagger about with their swords hanging low haha. Also sometimes don't they wear the blue outfits of the guard? They seem to use black for missions away from the king and guarding etc.
The videos where you goof on the props/costumes in movies and television shows are a nice departure from the usual tone of the channel sometimes. Cheers, Matt!
"... I think they should ditch those, I think they look stupid."
Damn straight, Mr. Easton.
They have to stop this phony "gritty realism" look. It's fucking up the watchability of shows and films. Game of Thrones is guilty of it too.
game of thrones is pioneering it.
Well theres a difference between a game set in a fantasy world and one set in a supposed historical setting. Imo anyway
Well Game of Thrones is a fantasy world so to me it doesn't matter but all these other "sword shows" are being influenced by it. The Tudors, Vikings, Musketeers, The Bible, etc. all have this Game of Thrones look to them.
It seems to me that the Game of Thrones is not really that guilty... They use a lot of leather, sure, but other than that, it is pretty ok. They use fur where fur would be used a lot (The Wall, Winterfell, Beyond the Wall) and they use bright colours where it makes sense (Kings Landing). And it does not look as gritty and sort of dirty as all the other shows do.
Scawking Errol Flynn in 'The Adventures of Robin Hood' from 1938 wore green tights, had a feather in his hat and a jacket with puffy frilled sleeves. *This was in fact not the fashion of 1930's USA where the movie was made.* In spite of this the film was a huge financial success and Errol Flynn was immensly popular with the chicks whether he was wearing silly medieval threads or not.
Also, colors have been scientifically proven to increase fun. In modern film not even the *blood* is colorfully red!
Well, there was a from of leather armour in the 17th century, called the Buff Coat. It was made from thick buffalo hide. These were not however black. They were a sort of yellowish brown colour. I would assume that as a royal guard they might be equipped wth them. But I would'nt have thought they'd have been worn when off duty.
To be honest, buff coats seem to me quite a bit more elegant and classy than whatever it is they're wearing in the show. Their clothes have a biker/bdsm vibe that doesn't fit in a historical show...
JustGrowingUp Well no, they certainly did'nt look like those on the show. I dont think I'd call them elegant exactly though, lol.
zednotzee7
Eh, you know how it is, fashion is also a matter of personal taste. Besides, have you seen haute couture fashion shows? Man, I bet I would look more dapper in a buff coat than most male models in their runway attire! ;D
I made a video on that, you can check it in my channel. The buff coat existed, leather gambesons existed, and Matt's obsessive animosity towards leather armour is, in the least, curious.
Apocalyptic Knights
Yes, and boiled leather in earlier times, but that's not the point. Matt doesn't hate on leather armor, but rather on how it was portrayed on film, and on leather clothes.
The leather clothing is anachronistic, impractical, and unhistorical. The leather "armor" is far too often portrayed as being very thin, and either similar to biker or metalheads jackets in some incarnations (like Vikings, or this show), or as very thin shirts (e.g. some Robin Hood adaptations).
Very rarely do you see realistic and/or historically accurate leather armor on film.
I'm going to try to address these points, but before I begin, keep in mind that this is pseudo-historical fiction meant for entertainment, not historical accuracy. Hence, it is very stylized. My approach to this type of stuff is the same as my approach to movie fighting choreography - it's meant to be an abstraction of the real thing, not the real thing itself. Anyway:
*Why all the leather?* This is probably just a common trend right now. Plus, leather is associated with adventurous, even dangerous renegade type characters. This is a modern connotation, yes, but again: The show is made for modern people, most of whom don't particularly care about historical accuracy or even whether or not the outfits are comfortable or practical. What matters is the impression it gives.
*Why the dark colors?* Well, probably because people these days associate sombre colors with more serious, authoritative people. Policemen, soldiers, even politicians - they all wear dark or muted colors. Characters who wear bright and strong colors, on the other hand, it perceived as less serious and perhaps even a bit clownish. Your average viewer today simply doesn't expect a badass swordsman to dress cheerfully.
*Why the grimy shirts?* I never actually noticed that when I watched the show, but I suspect it's related to the color issue - bright white shirts would stand out against all that black, grey and brown leather and that sort of eye-catching detail isn't necessarily a good thing, In general, you don't want the audience to pay too much attention to minor unimportant details, since it distracts from the over-all impression.
*What's with the shoulder guards?* I don't think they are supposed to be armor, per se. From what I could tell watching the show, they appear to actually be the musketeer equivalent of a badge or coat of arms. The musketeers on the show don't really have uniforms, so the pauldron with the fleur de lis is how they identify themselves as musketeers. (Note that D'Artanian didn't get to wear one until he officially joined them.) A bit of an odd choice even by modern standards, but I got used to it pretty quickly.
*Why don't they ever change their clothes?* This might be partly to save on the costume budget, but I suspect it also has to do with character silhouette - that is to say, giving the characters a consistently distinct look. In character creation, it's considered a major advantage when the audience can instantly identify a character just from a passing glance and keep a clear mental image of what the character looks like at all times. This is probably also the reason they don't have an actual uniform - the more distinct they look the better.
So there you go: The show uses very stylized costuming, mostly designed to appeal to a modern audience. Personally, I think it works. My first impression was actually sorta similar to yours, but once I got into the show it didn't bother me since it was at least very consistent. I've certainly seen worse examples of ahistorical costuming.
I'm glad someone brought this up. I would had loved to see some authentic musketeer uniforms.
scholagladiatoria Matt, you forgot to mention the worst piece of historical inaccuracy of costumes in that show: These dudes are supposed to musketeers, king's royal guard, soldiers; but they never ever wear their uniforms!!!! They don't wear them in their garrisons, on duty, in presence of their superiors, even in presence of their king. They don't even wear their uniforms in battlefield! Instead they wear those stupid leather civilian clothes which clearly is NOT 17th century French musketeer uniform.
I repeat: SOLİDERS ON DUTY NOT WEARİNG THEİR UNİFORMS!!!!
Now I only did 6 months of army duty(obligatory in my country) but even I know you can't just do that.
I think they changed it in this story where the musketeers don't exactly have a uniform but rather they gave those shoulder pads with their markings on it. Those are their uniforms. They also have been shown to wear they're own version of cloaks. So yes while it doesn't follow the historical descriptions of the Musketeers but that wouldn't be interesting to watch now would it?
@@xxrabbitsnipezxx5794 Yes it would. What are you babbling on about?
Not to mention.............half the point of doing the Muskateers, is to get the costumes right.....
@@sulla175 No seriously it wouldn't. Why do you think action movies and tv shows would nearly never use bright colours like yellow or orange for their clothing? It's because they become an eye-sore. Bright colours tends to be more attractive thus becoming a distraction to the eye, mix in swordfights and gunfights then it simply wouldn't work. The only bright colours that would work would either be white, blue or red which are more saturated colours that do well towards the eyes and thus why it's the only colour other than black and brown used in fighting scenes. It isn't an issue with how the creators didn't want to make it accurate, it was how the requirements to be accurate simply one of the most hardest aspects to do in filmmaking.
@@androlibre9661 really now? Not the adventure or the romance or drama? Clothing...that's all?
"They must stink to high heaven!" Well, they are french.
Soviet movie dresses them in a fancy blue colour. And I think costumes were very well done in it overall.
I've tried to watch the show but I really can't get into it.
For me nothing beats the two movies with Oliver Reed, Michael York, Richard Chamberlain, Charlton Heston, and Christopher Lee.
when a black musketeer is the most historically accurate thing in the frame, you´ve got a problem.
liskran well ya see his brother's cousin's sister's mother had a moorish grandfather....so yeah.
Alexandre Dumas (half-black) even was the general of the French army. France, unlike the US, never had a problem with non-white people.
Maxi Muster Yeah, it worked great in Haiti.
Maxi Muster
That was Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, his father.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas-Alexandre_Dumas
I feel obligated to make everyone aware of my idol chevallier st George.
Another fencer of hue is jean thomas.
Yes....we existed.. Thanks
i love your clothing/costumes videos man! i find them really entertaining and educative
you know, from an entertainer point of view. they are excellently done.
i like the shoulder pad with the fleur des lis, its a nice change from the typical musketeer tunic/tabbard
They had cloaks at this period, the tabbard was later. What do you mean, a nice change? they wore what they wore!
A question concering the available colors for clothing: for sure in the late medieval period and the 17th century a lot of colorful and bright clothes were worn by a lot of people. However, I don´t really have a good idea about at which point in time most of the colors for clothing were affordable to the majority of people. Is there any precise documentation on that topic?
These Musketeers look like 17th century Hell's Angesls!
Seriously i always imagined the 3 musketeers wearin the typical fancy and colorful clothes that the nobility wore at that times, and if i remember correctly in the novel the character of Portos really liked to wear stylish clothes. I suspect that people dressed like these would have never been admitted to an audience with the king.
I love these videos Matt, thanks for them
It always struck me funny how a lot of the time, "history" channels broadcast stuff with such inaccuracies as these, but in a pure entertainment show like Game of Thrones, they address the vast majority of these problems. If it wasn't for the dragons, magic stuff, and alternate geography, you could say that Game of Thrones is a more accurate depiction or medieval times than most of these "history" shows.
History channel is like MTV: It doesn't have anything to do with its name anymore.
I would argue it's still more accurate most of the time.
JuliusAkavirius It's more like TLC at least MTV advertises some music lol, but TLC (The Learning Channel). What the hell do you learn from TLC... well I guess you learn how not to treat your child by watching Toddlers & Tiaras xD
Rollo Redwolf TLC has the same problem MTV did. Used to air shows that cater to its name, now they just show a bunch of "reality" shows.
CraigNW Pretty much, that's also the History Channel as well. 90% of the shit has little to nothing to do with history.
I'm inclined to be more forgiving of fantasy tropes in this than something like vikings, after all the original source material is very clearly fiction. I'd also say that the specific choices for the musketeers are reasonably well justified in terms of the characters, all of the actual musketeers are pretty dark and somber people, definitely more death metal than glam rock. In contrast a lot of the other characters do tend to wear more authentic any flamboyant period fabrics. Also, unlike vikings there is relatively little attempt to show ordinary, historic domestic life as part of the story, it's pretty much all some paragraph in an adventure story.
While your points, in the sense of a historical drama are perfectly fair, I'm happy to ignore them in the context of a fictional historical fantasy which puts the main character in a more relatable modern context,
Here is the thing that everyone seems to ignore or not mention about this series : This series is actually not a historical series it is a western in the scenery of Alexandre Dumas' Three musketeers. Everything about this series is based on anime/modern fantasy design that was predominant in the last few years in digital artists and that got promoted to mainstream series and movies. The three musketeers are a western in most of the aspects of the series : the intrigue, the plot, the guns on the horses, the hats, the fights.
All your questions and complaints can be answered with:
"Because in 21st century movie language:
leather+dark colors = badass hero"
to me they seem to be kind of... thought like that by whoever designed them: costumes for 17th century ("super")heroes.
I still want one of those outfits.
I personally love this show. Its refreshing to see a reimagining of the costumes. Im not looking for 100 historical accuracy when theirs swords n guns involved HAHAHA. Im a big fan of the books and im happy with the way they didnt follow what everyone else has done, it can get old after a while, but thats just me. You brought up some very good points. Everyone is gonna have their own views on this show, but i love it.
There is, not theirs, sorry
They are asking if the roadies have set up the stage yet so they can do their soundcheck
it's called "production design", "costume design" and "photography".
learn how those relate to one another, and you'll understand why all the leatherishness, and why most of the highborns and noblemen of the series wear bright colors, and why Athos wears black despite being a highborn himself.
the shoulder pads:
I /think/ they're meant to represent those capes you would wear over one arm?, like those blue capes they actually wear in the series, but in a sort of reminiscent way of earlier types of capes..... like, modern 'medals' of officers or generals, they're a simple plastic stripe, with characteristic colors, meant to replace those actual metallic medals of old, which would stack up on the breast of an officer, making it impossible to wear them.
they do get the whole medal in addition to the little stripe, but only for ceremonial or decoration purposes, not for practical use.
these shoulder pads can also be some sort of 'badge', like police badges.... they are all, in a way, policemen.
if you take the 90's movie, with those blue bright capes, and begin iterating over them in order to adapt their desing, it wouldn't be hard to go from "blue bright cape" to "blue half-cape" to "dull short shoulder cape" to "thick shoulder pad" in a few steps.
those things do happen during the production design.
The guy on the end with the cool dude "popped collar" really stands out... It simply looks like a modern leather coat with a row of many buttons and those add on shoulder pieces.. Lol. So much effort goes into spectacular sets and scenery, yet relatively little into proper costuming.
From watching the show, (Which I quite enjoy, by the way. ) it is obvious some person or persons in authority suffer from an intense leather fetish. In addition to the Musketeers themselves, the Cardinal sports a black leatherette cassock, and even Milady sometimes wears some pretty weird leather like jewelry. Of the featured cast, really only the King, the Queen, and Constance wear colours and fabrics. I believe that this is done for (somewhat ham-fisted ) dramatic effect. The "strong " characters wear leather, the "weak" ones get pretty fabrics. As further proof of my theory: The Cardinal's Red Guards also wear a bit of leather, Just not as much as their awesome foes, the Musketeers.
Those shoulder things identify them as King's Musketeers in the show. Those outfits are their uniforms.
In the show: yes, but in reality: no. Their TV shows uniforms are historically inaccurate.
@@kristofantal8801 - I know. I was answering an observation in the video.
Don’t diss the musketeers.
It is the best historical drama ever !!
In my opinion
My problem with the clothes is that we know what the Musketeer uniforms looked like!
They are in museums and paintings. And look nothing like that!
The version of the book I read, Aramis wears a vibrant black and silver doublet. But he was also in mourning for his past and his decisions that he'd made. The others though wear bright vibrant colors. Porthos even wears a baldric that is gold on the front.
Damn right, though it may be because they're in the matrix, thats why they have the leather.
I can actually picture Trinity and Morpheus standing in the background and totally blending in.
Do historical advisors ever have a say in anything when historical movies are made? I mean, is there no director or producer who is remotely interested in accuracy and asks before he makes a movie?
BountyFlamor Big money productions generally are formula driven and yes this a big money production. Most people would get that this stuff is translated to modern times otherwise you couldn't understand them. The clothing is done for two reasons. One is they use blue and green screens so you can't have blue or green clothing. The second reason for the clothes is the image translations. Wearing the traditional clothes may make them look like homosexuals when those people that wore those clothes, wore them to look tough.
Even in the 1800s to 1900s there was context changes. Girl meant baby, pink clothes were for males and blues were for females. So the expression throw like a girl really meant throw like a baby and not throw like a female. I'm bringing this up because Western cowboy stuff would have a lot of guys wearing pinks and a lot of native Americans wearing hats and shirts made for females (because they were often colorful).
Band of Brothers was excellent, so was The Pacific (for dress uniforms in garrison, and even civilian clothes), so too the movies Saving Private Ryan, Apollo 13, and The Right Stuff.
Clint Eastwood is such a director. One of the things I liked best about the movie American Sniper was they depicted the way the uniforms changed during his different deployments (and the vehicles too).
Yeah, and then they say “well, forget that.”
*Triumphant French Trumpet Fanfare*
HISTORY TO THE RESCUE!
From the founding of the Musketeers in 1622, until they were disbanded by Cardinal Mazarin in 1646, they wore a red and blue tabard with a white cross emblazoned on the front. It was standard issue for the Musketeers at the time.
In 1657, Mazarin reformed the Musketeers with 150 men, with no change to the uniform.
In 1660, the uniform was changed to the more flamboyant Musketeer uniform that most of us are familiar with; a cream or yellow tabard with gold trim, dark brown trousers, red silk-lined blue cloak with a white cross emblazoned on the back and another split in half by the front, and a short blue cavalier's chapeau with red feather trim.
In 1664, three years after Mazarin's death lead to the transfer of the Musketeers back to King Louis XIV, they were reorganized once more, into two companies, each taking their name from the color of their horses (Grey Musketeers and Black Musketeers), and their number doubled from 150 to 300.
Very little changed for the Musketeers until 1727, when they reverted the uniform back to a military style, blue and white tabard with white cross, red shirt and trousers, and the cavalier chapeau exchanged for a blue tri-corn with gold silk and white lace trim.
In 1772, the uniform was changed again, with the same color schemes, but the tabard was exchanged for a steel breastplate, and trim color was changed between the two companies in order to reflect which unit they belonged to (gold for the black musketeers, white for the grey).
In 1776, the Musketeers were disbanded for budgetary reasons, reformed in 1789, and disbanded again during the French Revolution. They were reformed a final time in 1814, and given a generally standard Napoleonic-style uniform in their own colors (which remained the same from 1772 until the end of the Musketeers), and disbanded forever in 1816.
Fun Facts!: Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and d'Artagnan all are based on actual musketeers, although Dumas' story of their valiant fight against the evil cardinal Richelieu is entirely fabricated.
Additionally, Porthos being portrayed by black actors is hardly new, although he was most certainly white. However, there are two reasons why the BBC may have chosen *other* than political correctness. Option 1) Isaac de Porthau, the *actual* man behind Dumas' Porthos character, was a member of the Black Musketeers (I prefer this idea to political correctness, although knowing the BBC, PC is most assuredly their rationale). Option 2) Dumas, himself, was black. Why not throw a nod to the author's heritage by including a black actor as part of the cast (massively unlikely, as I doubt that anyone working for the show has any idea that Dumas was a black Frenchman with a famous father who grew up in the Carribean).
I think there are some scenes with the King where they have pale blue, more ceremonial looking uniforms?
The shoulder things are also meant to be a badge of honour for the Musketeers (in series) as I recall - at the end of season one when D'artagnan is made a full member of the musketeers by the King they give him one of those shoulder things
By the time you have finished watching this video "leather" doesn't even sound like a word any more.
They did have a type of leather armor that was popular in the 17th century, called a buff coat, but they were YELLOW and usually worn by cavalry officers.
I am quite curious about where the "brown/black = past clothes" came from? The 80s sword and sorcery films seemed to be the earliest that I remember.
and damned near all leather. not the sort of dress young men aspiring to upward mobility at that time would affect.
Ye Angels of Hell
Probably Excalibur, where only the female characters and the villains wear bright colours. Even the armour is blackish until the Round Table is formed, then everyone gets a shiny silver suit of plate (that they eat at the dinner table while wearing). Also Conan the Barbarian, which is full of leather and earth tones, and inspired a lot of 80s sword & sorcery films. Those films it's maybe forgivable, since they're depicting myth or fantasy, but the historical films seem to have taken a cue from them.
I suspect a large part of it came about in reaction to early Holywood colour films like Robin Hood in which everyone is brightly dressed in riots of colours - later film-makers decided they wanted to move away from the campy look of that period and indulge in "gritty realism", little realising that the costumes were probably the most accurate things in those older films
that's probably true
I can explain the whole series here.... It a "show based on the book, The Three Muskateers... Which was based on actual people". Therefore, they are allowed take creative license to make the show "look" more heroic.
Think of any period movie... For the most part in the last 60 years heroes have been rough, rugged and "dark" so to speak. The bad guys have been the guys that are wearing the bright colors and are "frilly" like in The Patriot for example. Gone are the days of White hats and Black hats.
If The Musketeers actually stayed historically accurate to costume it would come off looking like a movie from the 40's.
And on a final note, lets not forget about hygiene practices back then was minimal. These characters were soldiers and their costumes were uniforms as theybwere referred to in the show a few times. So I would assume that these soldiers clothes especially whites would look drab in colour.
Now I'm going back to the memories of my reading of Dumas, so don't take too seriously, but Matt is quite right that they would have something a bit more cheerful, especially Porthos, who was a bit of a dandy.
They might have the great honour of being in the King's militia, but that doesn't mean they're rich. They certainly didn't pay their servants. On one occasion, they had to SELL their doublets, and were sitting around in their singlets.
Dumas is anything but historical accuracy, he is spinning a swashbuckling yarn. Something to adapt if you do want historical accuracy with your swash would be the Captain Alatriste books (yes there is a movie with Viggo Mortensen but it isn't good)
You will notice if course that the Enlightenment era is XVIII th century. I would also mention that (on the colour side of things) it is common knowledge that musketeers (french royal musketeer regiments) wore a kind of blue uniform (although it wasn't really a uniform since well, Cromie)
What is good literature for educating myself about clothing in european history?
I like your comment about the 200 yard pistol shot. With 13+1 shots from a 4.8 inch barrel Glock using 230 grain FMJ, having never attempted this before, I tried to hit from standing a steel plate the size of a human head at 180 yards. I hit it on my final shot. I don't rule out a 200 yard pistol shot (especially with time to aim), even with the technology of those days (American Revolution and Civil War sharpshooter requirements!) but it's certainly VERY difficult, a remarkable feat of skill - the story better justify it.
I would be interested on your opinion about (the fencing and the costumes of) the movie "Alatriste" (2006).
Correct dressing is visible here : fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mousquetaire#/media/File:Mousquetaires_du_roi.jpg
In 17th century, each musketeer has only the musket in common (only piece of equipment provided to them), then at the end they add the blue cape/tabard, but mainly for King's reviews (or when guarding Kings quarters), not for everyday tasks.
I challenge your assertion that nobody wore black in the 17th century - though it is highly unlikely that the musketeers would be wearing it (as I understand it it was pretty much the only colour that was acceptable within the more extreme protestant groups) look at 17th century Dutch portraits for instance.
kayosiiii The Musketeers had a uniform, which was blue. Bright blue with white bits.
scholagladiatoria I don't doubt it (I don't the muskateers being in france and working for the royal family in the 17th century would want to be mistaken for protestants for a start). My point only is that there are some places in Europe in the 17th century where just about everybody did wear black.
kayosiiii Dark does not mean black. Black was a color, but a lot of supposedly black clothing is actually just dark shades of brown or other more natural colors. Paintings have a bad habit of being dirty & so misleading when it comes to color. So yes, you are right that there was black clothing, but the point still stands that it is not right for musketeers.
Eustace Stritchers - Totally in agreement that the Musketeers wouldn't have worn black.
If you look at pictures of black looking clothes from France or Britain from the 16th or 17th centuries then you are probably looking at a dark shade of another colour.
If you are looking at somebody who was a member of a protestant sect (other than anglican) in Britain or somebody from Holland (not sure about other parts of Europe) there is a good chance that what you are looking at is actually black. We know this from historical sources other than paintings.
Ag Za. I think all still are forgetting the main point which is that black is a popular color for movies and television to put on people, despite its relatively lack of popularity outside of certain groups. We are not talking about Dutch religious fanatics but French aristocrats. Black was a color with specific social implications for the French in the 17th century. Thus, the show is being naughty viz historical accuracy.
I really got the idea from the book that Musketeers were often very clothes conscious. Especially Porthos. He liked to show of. I don't see him wearing clothes like these. In fact he might have even chosen style over practicality.
Historically accurate no but entertaining at least for me I loved the show
Quick question about other versions of the Musketeers, specifically the tabards worn to differentiate between the King's guard and the Cardinal's men. Are these historically accurate? I like the look, but I have no idea if they were real. Thanks!
What are some movies or tv series that you would say are historically accurate in terms of armor, clothing, weapons, etc?
Do you have a list anywhere of Shows, and Movies ranked from more Historically Accurate, to Less Historically Accurate?
The Oliver Reed,Michael York version is the most accurate.This BBC version stated they wouldn't use the historical Blue tabard
I have worked with professional costumers, and I have seen their often impressive libraries of books on period clothing. Most of them know what people SHOULD be wearing in their period pieces. The problem is that the viewer does not. People have been told that real is brown and black and leather for so long now that they accept it as absolute truth. "Those old, early technicolor period pieces with men were wearing tights and bright colors all over everyone are utterly preposterous!" they say.
Nowadays, even if a costumer loves the clothing of the period and wants to put it on the actors, their designs will be rejected and they will probably lose their job if they don't load up the screen with black, brown, and of course, leather. Unfortunately, the only way to stop this would be to get people to stop watching films made with this sort of costuming, which I find unlikely. The average modern viewer has been so inundated with this garbage that they would think of what people REALLY wore at any period of history before about 1850 as being corny, flamboyant, and ridiculous. Hell, 1850 is me being generous. Did you know it was perfectly acceptable for a gentleman to wear a cape in public as recently as the 1940s?
That's right: a cape.
Britt Gardner I wanna see a landshnekt on film. With enough pimpin clothing for the whole series.
Britt Gardner Capes are ballin'.
Now imagine a historical serie about the late 20th century in, say, the equivalent of the BBC in 2415. We would all be driving 1500 hbp cars, dual-weilding .50 caliber laser-guided machine-guns while sniffing ludicrous amounts of cocaine or metamphetamin and listening to the famous heavy metal hip-hop rap band call the Beach Boyz'n the Hood. And they will find experts to swear that it is historically accurate : )
Game of Thrones and Vikings both annoyed me slightly because of this. I can still enjoy the show, but there's always a nagging in the back of my head.
Great video, Matt. Keep it up.
At least Game of Thrones is high fantasy so it's easy to just say that it's the kind of fashion they have in that world. Although in King's Landing, people often wear colorful clothes and the Lannister soldiers wear red and gold. Vikings is different since it has real-life locations and characters that did exist, yet they wear really stupid clothes and armour a lot of the time.
The reason they wear the same clothes all the time is probably character recognition; If they wore anything else they could be recognized as if they came from Dr Who or something. ( Ex.: Morgan Freeman in white clothing = Bruce Almighty, Morgan Freeman in hobo clothing = Shawshank Redemption )
They wear low-saturation clothing just because it's "Medieval" and "Dark age", that kind of way of thought.
Kind of sad really... :/
Somewhat related question. We know that the reasons rapiers came into existence are numerous: fashion, ideology, use of the off hand, full plate armour becoming less prominent etc. etc. But every now and then the argument of advancements in metallurgy pops up. It is even on wikipedia. I am having trouble buying into this. Was it really factor? Was it really nigh on impossible to make a rapier before the 16th century?
Rim Andries It seems that high quality high carbon steel, without so many impurities and less slag did become much more available at affordable prices in the 16th century, yes. Many medieval blades have slag and other flaws in their blades, which in a narrow rapier-like blade would result in a lot of breakages. Less of a problem with a broader blade.
scholagladiatoria thanks. So it was most likely a matter of resources and availability rather than skill?
Rim Andries Sword smiths in the 14th and 15th centuries did makes estocs and rapier blades are no more difficult to make than medieval styles of blade, but the steel-makers seem to have improved their skill/knowledge/technology in the 16th century (there had been a technology improvement in the 14th century as well, which seems to have contributed to a greater availability of affordable steel and reduction in sword prices).
It was a few reasons, as armour became more advanced and all covering hacking and slashing went out the window and fell way to can openers like axes and crows beaks, but since the sword is awesome people wanted to keep it around. So the best way to sword a man in plate is to "half hand" (grab the sword mid way up the blade) a skinnier blade and drive it between the plate, most likely around the armpit. So the swords of the time made a step towards being skinny. So then at that point with the can openers being seen about more and more we see the rise of what would kill the armoured age (for a time) the musket, hence the name Musketeers. Mail is no longer any good and the wound you get from wearing plate and taking a musket ball is just... awful, so armour left the shop and you had a new style of fight, fire the rifle, pop the pistol and then stab the bloody beggar that's still standing (debatabley), so you would want a quick skinny blade to fit the roll of the mostly unarmoured combat... and that's my 2 or 33 cents worth. Oh last thought about the slag thing, I don't know if I buy that, the slag is still manageable even in medieval smithing, it's just how it's worked, like the Viking Ulfberht, it was kicking about from the 8th to the 11th century and experts say it's steel is comparable in quality to modern metals
The fighting style changed when muskets were made readily avible and improved in terms of quality, accuracy and handling. The armour changed to heavy iron breastplates and helmets that could defeat a musketball..or no armour at all. This happened all over europe to all branches of the military with few exeptions. Reiters and notably swedish heavy infantry and cavalry used some plate for a decade or two ( plus minus) in the beginning of the 17:th century.
While the leather on the shoulders of the guy on the left may have helped protect him, the "wings" on the guy in brown look like they would guide a high strike right up to his neck. Kinda like the shot trap on the Porsche turreted Henschel Tigers. (Slightly different era)
Thank you for making this!
You forget that those are meant to be uniforms and when in a military force, some version of the uniform is required to be worn daily. Besides, they likely have several pairs of the same clothes, therefore there would hopefully be a clean uniform to wear in the king's presence.
The leather was chosen for durability of the actors who are going to be doing a lot of action of the course of several episodes. In the movies, the actors are only gonna have their costumes for the few weeks they will be shooting, only doing a few actions sequences. In tv, it would be insanely expensive for the production crew to have to make several costumes using fabric, rather than using tough leather than can last the course of months long shoots and several actions sequences.
Hello Matt!
I've watched the series and agree with your take on it. I have one question. In two cases, I've seen the musketeers use some sort of disarming move against another rapier-fighter. Are those just made up by the programme armourers, or are they based on the sort of works you have studied? Thanks, Chris
I feel like if I wanted leather (or any material) armor for my shoulder to deflect some percentage of rapier thrusts, I would want the layering to go the other way. As it is there, you're just helping to guide the sword's tip right into your skin!
As far as the costuming goes, though, the question for a TV producer is: do you want historical accuracy, or do you want something that looks cool to us today? So I don't mind it too much.
It would be great if you could do a video highlighting a few movies and/or TV shows that actually have good historical costumes.
is this series otherwise good. i think musketeers are interesting and would like to check it out.
I think the guy with the black beard and the black coat looks very cool. At least they were creative with their character designs.
Its not Historical just entertainment (and I agree on most of what you say) But for the most part It looks cool and mostly so you can quickly identified who is who.
So - considering all the films about the Musketeers, which one do you like the best?
So i was watching Gopher's skyrim vid a while back, he mention Skallagrim, and he mentioned you.
I'm so glad that i found this channel :D
I remember the costume designer saying that she designed the costumes that way because the historical version weren't "masculine" I disagree. And yes, I know this is an old video, but do you have any thoughts on that?
People from 200 years from now, "well, a guy like Steve Jobs surely have a wide range of clothing for him to choose from."
Can someone link me Matt's video about the vikings series?
To most people leather and dark colors = badass, and actual traditional clothing to most people would look silly. I think that is really the problem. I would prefer it to be historical, but that is to much to ask really, because they are trying to appeal to the masses as apposed to creating something historically accurate. All you would have to do is dress the same actors in historically accurate clothing and a have a picture of them in that and one of them in what they wear in the show and walk down a busy street and ask everyone you can what they like more and you will see what the general populace relate too. I think the reason for them wearing the same clothing all the time is two fold. Firstly it makes it very easy to identify who is who because they dress the same all the time and lets be honest the attention span of many people has declined, especially with the rise of the internet. Secondly it saves money. I love this series keep it coming.
Yeah, in the books, Porthos was described as quite flamboyant, always on with the newest fashion. I wish there could be a historically correct adaptation, also faithful to the literature..
Technically the period of time with the most usage of leather armour was the 17th century... the buff coat was a common leather armour used in this time period, but that looks different to this armour (or at least the examples I’ve seen do)
I have belatedly realised that the costume designer must have watched Ghostbusters 2 quite a lot. The dark brown "World of Leather" look is very Vigo the Carpathian.
I'm not sure if you've seen it/mentioned it but the Rome was a pretty decent show, you could probably do a video or two about it in this style :)
3:00 your never going to win on this one. Shows make characters wear the same cloths all the time to make them iconic/so people remember who they are.
Though I completely agree that costume designers often sacrifice historical accuracy for artistic licence, and that to an extent this has been done within The Musketeers, such as with the pauldrons, there are a number of points made within the video that I disagree with. Though I support your points regarding colour, the silhouettes, especially in regards to the doublets are actually fairly accurate, as can be see within books such as Janet Arnold’s ‘Patterns of Fashion 3’. Most notable is the 1567 Doublet worn by Nils Sture, which resembles Athos’s doublet remarkably and is described as ‘a leather doublet...an example of hardwearing clothing suitable for traveling or hunting... The doublet is made of leather with a suede finish... it may originally have been black’.
Granted this is slightly prior to the timeframe of The Musketeers, yet it is a real historical artefact: proof that the use of leather in periods close to or contemporary to The Musketeers isn’t completely fictitious.
The book also mentions an article by historian C.H. Spiers regarding the use of leather, titled ‘Deer Skin leathers and their use for costume’, which I have not read.
As for Porthos’ scaled neckpiece, I agree that with the design artistic liberties have been heavily played upon, however it is possible to find contemporary paintings depicting such pieces. Two examples of note can be found within James Laver’s ‘Le Costume des Tudor a Louis XIII’, the first a portrait of ‘Sir Phillip Sidney’, painted 1576, and the second a portrait of ‘François de l’Aubespine’, an army general in France under Louis XIII, painted 1630. (Both are easy to find through google.) Within both pieces simple black leather neck guards of a similar shape to Porthos’ are visible, the latter most notable in its existence contemporary to the setting of the BBC’s Musketeers. Either way, such sources display the diverse nature of 17th fashions and prove that (just as it is today) it is impossible to generalise style!
EDIT: The doublets (Treville’s especially) are also highly reminiscent of millinery ‘buff-coats’, which were made of leather, so are probably designed to connote to their military positions.
Thanks for the video!
There is some really low ambient "humming" going around in your videos. I'm not sure where it's coming from but I suspect it's from your recording equipment., as it doesn't seem to matter where in (I assume) your house the video has been shot.
I have to watch your videos with a very low volume and even then it is barely tolerable, as it feels like the the "noise" coming through my headphones is hurting my ears.
Has anyone else had this problem or is it just a weird interaction with my headphones or something?
Aside from the implied badassery, might the leather shoulder-pieces be reminiscent of plate pauldrons?
I understand hes looking at this from a practical/historical point of view. He needs to look at it from a ratings point of view. It's fairly easy to see the shows director is trying to draw in the Game of Thrones fan base. This series looks in style very similar to Game of Thrones.