https://www.tumblr.com/veryintricaterituals/819516035767189504?source=share
I really really love this outfit, he looks so good and just perfect for Armand in that section. I wanted to ask you, I see some people claiming that this season looks cheaper, but I don't think it does? Are people confusing a less romantic aesthetic on Lestat's part, like his somewhat dirty version of the Wolfkiller coat versus Armand's swashbuckling prince version (which they could have used again if they'd wanted...), or the bus versus 1910s New Orleans, with cheapness?
Saw this tweet and I think it's true:
Seeing ppl say that the decline in quality for iwtv s3 is bc they lost the production designer and costume designer from s1 to s2 and i rly want to ask “where specifically do u think the drop in quality for the costumes and prod design is” bc idt they’d have an answer
(they clarified that they don't mean wigs, which is hair and makeup, just costumes. I wish the wigs were better, but on the other hand this is by far the best everyone's natural hair has ever looked. I did not love Louis and sometimes Armand's hair in most of season 2, and Lestat looked beautiful but was frizzled up the wazoo in season 1, then weird flat Brad Pitt hair in one pivotal season in season 2 lol)
I'm obsessed with that Armand costume, anon, and I'm honestly kind of tickled, because I've had a similar, real outfit from 1790s France saved in my Courtesan AU inspo folder for ages:
Period-accurate costumes, my beloved!!!
But no, I don't think the production values have gone down at all in either sets or costume, it's just that we're getting a lot of different lighting which does have a significant impact on how a show looks and feels, and how costumes and sets appear on camera. The combination of having the contemporary scenes frequently highly lit between stage lights and the sterile fluorescent lighting of most modern hotels, and us having multiple natural light scenes in a way that we haven't had since 1.01 for all of the human!stat sequences does inevitably change the look and feel of the show.
People have asked me multiple times on this blog why so many modern shows and films are so dark, and this is literally why. It's in-fashion, associated with prestige television, and also the use of shadow can conceal any multitude of perceived sins in a way full lighting just can't really. This season having highly lit sequences for both thematic and narrative purposes both drops that cover a little, but also is, generally speaking, unfashionable on modern television. That's why I think a lot of people are perceiving it as 'cheap' - it's not, the use of brighter lighting for some sequences is just not a part of trends people currently associate with prestige TV, and it's not how lighting was used at all in season 2.
