Our series highlighting something we love this week is called Thanks, I Love It.
Bridgerton is a great show. It is romantic and sexy, with great costumes and plots that zip along until each season ends with a happily ever after. The Bridgerton teams carefully weave historical fact into dreamy fiction, augmenting its appeal as fun streaming entertainment.
The Regency period of English history is known for the works of Jane Austen, the end of the Napoleonic wars, and the eponymous Regency of King George III. The show gives viewers a feast for the senses even if the gowns, balls, and plots are anachronistic. Some of the show's most impressive costume, makeup, and hair styling moments can be traced back to one character's odd fashion sense.
We talk about Queen Charlotte. Charlotte, played by Golda Rosheuvel, rules the ton with a diamond fist, appearing most often in a series of towering wigs and massive, hoop-skirted gowns that embody the wealth and privilege of her royal status. For a very good reason, she is dressed entirely differently from the rest of the cast.
Credit: Liam Daniels/Netflix
By the early 1800s, the stylish members of the upper class had moved on from the hoops and ruffled sleeves of the queen. The new look was inspired by classical statuary, with high-waisted gowns that showed little of a woman's shape but could be dressed up to evoke the casual, dreamy vibe of a Greek goddess. In Season 1 and 2, the outfits worn by the Sharma sisters are often in pink, blue, and purple.
If flowy, high-waisted gowns were the fashion of the time, why does the Queen still wear them? The answer to that question comes from history and the real-life Queen Charlotte. She was considered stuck-in-the-past grump even in her own time.
[Charlotte] was considered an unfashionable, stuck-in-the-past grump even in her own time.
Some of Charlotte's problems have been explored in Bridgerton so far. She wasn't well educated despite being the daughter of a Duke and her husband's declining mental health. The English court assumed that a woman with little interest in power would be a political nonentity because of her lack of education. They were mostly correct.
The mandate of courtly dress was one area in which Charlotte had influence. She wanted her Regency-era ladies to wear hoop skirts regardless of what was happening on the streets of London. She was considered an un fashionable monarch because of her rules that lasted through most of her reign.
Bridgerton's Queen Charlotte isn't as hard on her visitors as she could be, but her uniquely old-school dresses and huge wigs are a shout-out to the historical Queen's refusal to move along with the times. Thankfully, her hoop skirts and lacy sleeves offer the costume designers the chance to design elaborate gowns for an entirely different era, and the Bridgerton audience the chance to look at whatever massive dress Queen Charlotte decides to turn up in next.
The second season of Bridgerton is available on the internet.
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