#tbh this series makes me want to shift my academic focus in design to costume design out of sheer spite

[gayregis]

Ok i love fashion. I dk fashion. I love doing fantady historical fusions and the fashion on the show deadass kills me SO hard. It doesnt. like. nothing feels good. Theres no clear cultural influence on clothes. In TW3 at least the clothes felt like.. like I could see art and go 'oh i know what influenced that' but it feels so vague and generic in the show???

LEGIT! and it’s such a shame too because they missed so many opportunities through visuals:

it’s definitely beautiful enough. medieval/renaissance (i say renaissance as well, because the continent is more advanced than earth’s europe in the 13th century) has such great beautiful examples of design that can even be quite whimsical to an audience that is unfamiliar with it. 

re: the “it doesn’t feel slavic” argument that i’ve seen on reddit. specifically in regards to the art direction, costume design, and set design, i agree, because there is a lot of beautiful cultures that could serve as wells of inspiration for the art team, but they seemed to ignore it. i’m not anything of an expert or even an amateur, but just googling “medieval polish fashion” gives some good results. there are a lot of beautiful motifs on this page that could easily be incorporated into the witcher’s designs. (in regards to casting, i don’t agree so much with this argument, bc a lot of the arguing about it lacks nuance and voices from poc, but that’s an entirely different post to make!)

they could connect characters. the main issue in MY opinion is that the dressing felt individual to characters and random, meant to just look good or intriguing but not help in telling the story. visuals tell narratives, and outfit and dress are a large aspect of this. if there is not overall motifs that can connect characters to one another, then you’re missing a great opportunity. for an example of what they did right with this, i loved how everyone in cintra had those blue sashes with their three lions on them. (also, it even made me realize as a books fan that the three lions could represent calanthe, pavetta, and ciri… lol). but i do not see any connection between ciri, pavetta, or calanthe’s outfits. this is missing an opportunity to draw a connection between them.

they could create factions and visually represent being “other.” keeping with the previous bullet point, they could extend this opportunity to whole factions. as a base example, the cintrian and nilfgaardian conflict is represented by how they have different armors… but since nilfgaard is a rich and powerful empire, their armor should have reflected this. in more peaceful scenes, they could use historical influences from different regions/nations of europe to demonstrate a difference between different witcher nations. also they could easily represent an “other” by using this faction mentality, kind of like what they did with the dryads’ outfits, because they seem so different than those in human civilizations, but they could have pushed this contrast by making the humans’ outfits to be stylized and man-made with bright colors, decorations, etc.

they could demonstrate character qualities and contrast between characters. geralt dresses in a worn black leather jerkin in the first short story in the books, and carries his sword on his back. dressing in all black (with his white hair and shining eyes) creates this image of a man similar to ideas of death, in my mind - he’s intimidating. he’s also strange for even a swordsman or mercenary, he doesn’t carry his sword like every other man in vizima. and his equipment is worn, yet he does not look old… he obviously has been in many fights. compare this to jaskier, who dresses fancifully and elegantly, with colorful jerkins and lace shirts and a plum bonnet with a feather in it. he obviously is a performer (and also kind of looks like a noble with these fancy get ups, which hints at his backstory that’s only revealed later on!) compare this with yennefer, who although she dresses extremely elegantly and nobly, dresses in all black and white. she is refined, but not gaudy and looking for attention (no offense jaskier… that’s your job!).

they could demonstrate character transitions. ciri dresses like a princess in cintra, but when her life goes up in flames along with the city and everyone she’s known and she goes to train at kaer morhen, she dresses in a shoddily-made leather jerkin sewn together quite shittily. not only does this demonstrate how she has fallen a long way on the social status ladder, but it demonstrates how very much the witchers at kaer morhen want to take care of this child, even if they’re not very good at understanding her and her needs at first. and how much she in turn wants to be like them.

but instead we just got some outlandish bullshit where yennefer wears a cage on her shoulders and a lace mask that she immediately takes off, and nilfgaardian armor that doesn’t look like any kind of armor ever made in history or in the present. costume design is not just meant to draw your eye and have you say, “oh that looks weird,” but to help the story! this is part of the entire reason that a visual adaptation to a book series was wanted!