The Vampire Armand's Necklines: A Character Analysis
So the joke is that Armand's outfits seem to alternate between "unbuttoned to the waist" and "turtleneck" (it's a little true...) The extremely low-cut shirts are definitely on purpose, and definitely a power move. According to the costume designer:
"one of the things about Armand is that he is so ancient and powerful that he presents himself as very open (...) because he doesn't see anyone as a threat to himself."
and
"He didn't have any predators or any reason to be on guard, or be armored."
So, right off the bat we're set up with a binary. Covered up = on guard, not covered up = comfortable, not on guard. (At least for Armand.) But there's some some interesting variation within that that says a lot about him as a character.
This is what Armand is wearing when he first meets Daniel. It has a lot of Armand's little dressing quirks-- like the two undone buttons (Armand just kind of likes to leave an extra button undone, it's a very 'neutral' move for him.)
BUT, he's also got that knotted scarf/necktie, which is something Armand wears when he's a little on the defensive (he's literally protecting his neck.)
We see the necktie come out when he's first feeling out Louis (doesn't know what his deal is, doesn't know if he's a threat or not)
and again when Santiago/the rest of the coven are kind of putting him on the spot/challenging his authority.
The necktie comes off when Armand breaks up the party on Divisadero Street.
... and Daniel spends the scene being actively tortured (or bleeding passed out in a corner) so yeah, Armand is definitely in a position of uncontested power. But it is interesting that apparently his VERY first reaction to Daniel was... to be a little wary of this guy. He's got good instincts.
Armand is still a little wary of Daniel when he sees him again in Dubai (after all, Daniel starts altering the agreement he signed immediately, and Armand-Rashid is not happy.) This is easily the most covered up Armand's "Rashid" persona ever gets.
He seems to get more comfortable as Daniel and Louis ease into their interview, and everything appears to be going fine.
He's still wearing a coat, but now he's got a deeper neckline that shows off more of his collarbone. But note the three prominent BUTTONS on that top which are in fact BUTTONED. Which is a pretty big contrast from his NEXT look.
This is easily the most skin "Rashid" shows, and also Rashid at his most powerful - very obviously exerting power over Louis, and controlling the interview. Or at least... he thinks he's controlling the interview.
The next thing he wears is this more conservative boat-neck.
And when Daniel catches Louis in a lie (and the interview starts getting unpredictable again)... Armand actively threatens Daniel by bringing out the Hunting Look.
This black, high-necked, structured coat that he puts on over the Rashid outfit... is very, very reminiscent of what Armand wears when he knows he's about to kill somebody.
Black turtleneck, big coat. (And fun sunglasses. I wonder if 1940s Armand stole his shades from a victim too.) Going by this logic... I do think Armand walked into his meeting with Madeleine planning to kill her.
I mean, that's the hunting outfit. After all, you're not supposed to tell humans about the existence of vampires and let them live, thems the rules. The correct "coven master" move probably would have been just kill her. But, Armand develops enough of a rapport with Madeleine to start treating her as an equal, and so the coat comes off. (He also sits down next to her, instead of hovering above.)
Like look at this shot. They're lit identically, and have exactly the same neckline and hairstyle.
Then we go into Season 2, and Armand's opening look is --
He's not even slightly worried.
No buttons! He hasn't even buttoned his sleeves.
Next up is an almost identical (identically unbuttoned) shirt. Only in a color that better matches Louis, to communicate that they're approaching the interview as a duo now.
Next up is the purple shirt Armand wears during his one-on-one with Daniel and this shirt is... interesting.
It's got a pretty deep V, but it IS completely buttoned (which would mean that he's a little warier of Daniel than he was in the previous scene, which yeah, is true.) It's also reading as blousy and oversized, less tight-fitting and structured than what Armand normally goes for.
I think this is accomplishing a few things. One - the dropped shoulder seam and the slightly gathered "pirate" sleeves, are reading as just *slightly* 1700s.
Which makes sense. He's clearly got the 1700s on his mind, and is about to talk to Daniel about the 1700s.
And two - that slightly oversized cut is probably supposed to make him seem more vulnerable and boyish, because at the moment Armand *wants* Daniel to read him as - pitiable, not a threat, nothing to see here.
(it's also a trick he brings out with Louis. The hat and the coat he wears to the park are both slightly too big for him. Note how the shoulder seam doesn't *quite* line up with his shoulder. That's not how his other coats fit.)
EDIT - @sassy-cass-16 makes the really good point that Armand puts on a *purple* shirt right after Daniel says he liked seeing Alice in *purple.* @doctordaemon is absolutely right that the combination of silky fabric + thin lapel makes it read as kind of a pyjama top. Both of these read as a soft-seduction move to me. Armand is wearing this shirt so that Daniel sees him a certain way (romantic, attractive, benign.)
But Daniel puts him back on the defensive, at which point he covers up with one of the cardigans he wore as Rashid.
And then we get Armand EXTREMELY on edge and defensive, when he has to talk about losing control of the coven and failing to turn Madeleine.
This is the highest neckline we ever see Armand wear (with the exception of the Hunting Turtleneck.) It is also almost identical to the top Louis is wearing. Armand has a lot of struggles with his own identity - "I do not know [who I am], anymore. No one has painted me in over 400 years." He got into theatre because Lestat was into theater, he got into art collecting because Louis is into art collecting. It makes sense to me that... if he's unsure exactly how to play a particular encounter... then he might as well just literally mirror Louis.
This is his final look. Very similar to the last one, but with a slightly lower collar, because he's just that little bit more relaxed. He thinks he's gotten away with it. But he's still just matching Louis. Or -- if you want to look at it another way -- talking to Daniel has stripped away all his costumes. He's not dressed like an actor anymore, he's dressed like a stagehand, and Daniel suddenly has the ability to see the stage directions.
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if its the one im thinking of then its not billy's. steve bought that jacket in s4 when they bought supplies at that store
No, it's the same jacket that the show used for Billy in s2. They just used it again as the jacket Steve finds in the store in s4 (sourcing pieces for s4 was particularly hard because of COVID, so reusing a piece that was only on the show briefly would make sense). Someone did a pretty detailed comparison post a long time ago. I'll repost it if I can find it.
Those bts pictures of Ryan have me excited! Because the thing is - Ryan could be half in turnout costume or about to get into his turnouts- the boots go on first and he could always have an LAFD tee under the hoodie!
It’s not uncommon for actors to wear lightweight comfortable clothes under costumes such as turnout gear when it’s not going to be seen (as in taking off or putting it on) because it can get hot and sweaty so it protects the costume a bit better!
Wardrobe wouldn’t just let him wander around in them without purpose - they’ll have a super strict check out and I system - costumes are an expensive and important commodity and items going missing has implications on the wardrobe crew (there have been examples of wardrobe peeps being charged with theft etc) so they’ll know where every item is at all times which means if Ryan has those boots he’ll be wearing them in scenes he’s filming today so Eddie back in full firefighter mode is a very real possibility
Okay I love the Witcher show BUT…omg what is going on with the costuming. S2 downgraded somehow from S1, I can’t even forgive the contacts because Twilight had better contacts more than a decade ago. And the wigs?? They did Geralt dirty with that grey dish rag they put on his head. Compared to say the lace front wigs on the LOTR Elves, like Thranduil, also from YEARS AGO, all of the wigs are horrid. Ciri’s looks like her scalp is half falling off of her head skksks it’s way too big.
Yeah, the costuming took a nosedive in S2. 😬 I swear to god, nothing looks like it was made for this show, more like they were digging around in Netflix's costume closet and pulling shit out and going, shrug, "meh, good enough."
In S1 you see a clear progression in Geralt's armor: kind of shitty in Blaviken, REALLY SHITTY in Posada (after ten years of being a social pariah), and then considerably better later in the season after Jaskier's rehabbed his reputation and he can afford to kit himself out properly. One understated-but-seriously-neat detail-that-I-loved was that the cut of his armor doesn't change at all -- this man clearly knows what he likes, and so even when he upgrades, he replaces it with "this, but not falling apart.”
And then there's season 2. 😐
Likewise with Jaskier, his style is largely consistent throughout season 1 -- he favors high-waisted, slightly baggy pants, and cropped, closely-fitted jackets over lacy linen undershirts. His outfit du jour will be plainer or fancier depending on how flush he is, but they all look like they belong in the same era, chosen by a man with a consistent sense of style.
And then there's season 2. 😐
***
But even putting aside the objective quality (or lack thereof) of the wigs/contacts/clothes, what I find unforgivable is how little thought went into dressing the characters in a way that made sense for who they are as individuals, and what their current circumstances are. So many of their costume choices in S2 fail on both an aesthetic and a storytelling level.
Like Yen's garishly purple cloak -- which not only looks like some cheap renfaire shit (aesthetic fail) but is also WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE for someone trying to evade the authorities (storytelling fail). Like, okay, even if that's what she was wearing when she escaped, then ffs, show her stealing something less obtrusive off a clothesline, or bullying a beggar into trading with her! She is a blinding pop of purple in a sea of neutrals, and what are we supposed to make of that? Is she too stupid to realize how conspicuous she is? Or is literally everyone else in the world color-blind? Because the show sure-as-fuck ignored any ramifications of their undercover heroes running around with the equivalent of a target painted on them. This is a brain-breaking amount of suspension-of-disbelief they’re asking of us.
(Ditto to Ciri prancing around the forest with her gown and flowing hair -- this is not conducive to being on the run. Who is doing her braids? Her brows? The visuals are completely at odds with the exigencies of the plot.)
And I know a lot of people liked Yen’s off-the-shoulders dress in episode 3, but to me it looked like an ill-fitting prom dress and it was so bizarrely at odds with the tone of that episode. Yennefer has lost her magic, a loss that cuts to the absolute core of her self-identity -- she has more important shit to worry about than slouching around being ~sexy.~
Moreover, it was implied that the reason sorceresses always look so flawless is because they're cheating by using magic, and Yen doesn't have her magic anymore. It wouldn’t have been so jarring, re: tone, if I could believe that she’d hand-waved it into existence so that she could fake being okay, but she can’t. So either have her appearance reflect her magic-less state, or else show her desperately trying to make herself up by hand, to keep people from realizing that she’s powerless. Either one of those options could have been a character-making choice -- but ignoring how she came to look like that, under those circumstances, is lazy and immersion-breaking.
(Also that dress just did not fit her. She’s having to keep her elbows pinned to her sides just to hold it up, and that, in turn, constrained Anya’s acting and made everything Yennefer did in that episode feel extremely passive.)
***
The costumers also seriously missed a trick by not giving the elves a visually distinctive fashion tradition. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Francesca’s outfit, it’s very pretty, but she and Filavandrel are spearheading a resurgence of elven pride and culture, and I would expect their clothing choices to reflect that. Clothing is political; hair is political. I would expect them to be embracing an elven aesthetic (resurrecting an extinct one, if necessary) that is an intentional contrast to what the humans around them are wearing.
They were kind of maybe doing that with the braids? Fans were headcanoning that Dara’s glow-up was the result of him finally having people to do his braids for him, something he hadn’t had since his parents were killed. And I love that idea, but I’m not sure it was a deliberate piece of world-building/characterization, or if they just chose that hairstyle for him because the actor is Black. (Because Fringilla also has braids, and those would appear to be completely unrelated to any elven penchant for braids. I should add here that I loved Fringilla’s white dress. She should just get, y’know. More dresses.)
***
The one costume choice I did like in S2 was Vilgefortz’s outfit. I couldn’t find any pictures of it (and we have the very cheapest netflix tier, so my screencaps ain’t worth shit 😓), but he wears a three-quarter length, mustard-colored silk coat over robes, in a style that is noticeably distinct from anyone else in the show. And I have no idea what Vilgefortz’s backstory is supposed to be, but visually, it was incredibly striking as someone who is both foreign and owning it.
He’s not trying to assimilate. He’s not decking himself out in the fine doublets and fancy menswear of the northern kingdoms. He’s not trying to make himself acceptable/respected by taking on their trappings of wealth and power -- he’s wearing his own signifiers, and expecting you to recognize their worth.
And that is a choice that potentially says so much -- about the relative cultural cachet between Vilgefortz’s homeland and the northern kingdoms, about his own patriotism, about his own confidence.
***
...That said, Vilgefortz and Fringilla and Francesca don’t change outfits all season, a season that (I think?) is supposed to take place over a span of months, or at least weeks.
So. That’s a fuckin’ oversight, and it’s part of what contributed to this season feeling so completely unmoored in terms of timeline.
***
And I could keep going, but those were the worst offenders.
And I’m not even taking joy in their fuckups the way so many content-mills do, because this genuinely makes me frustrated and angry and despairing. That people who give so few fucks can have a job in industry, when people who know more, and care more, are somehow just not positioned to break into it.
idk. This entire season was an exercise in laziness and contempt for the viewers, and I’m too drunk to censor that into something more fandom-friendly.
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i love how in cql, wei wuxian’s burial mounds outfit is the softest look he wears on the show, like look at him — the clothes are thick and worn and snuggly, like those sleeves are almost sweater paws, he looks bloody adorable
we get to see him being all domestic and it’s just, peal softness
whereas in the donghua (and presumably manhwa though it hasn’t caught up to this point yet), he’s still in his yiling laozu outfit, which is by far wei wuxians sluttiest look
dramatic cloak with exposed forearms, hair scandalously loose, tits all the way out
i didn’t have a point to make with this i just wanted to appreciate the two wildly contrasting energies going on here
