Golden Age

Not Chanel. Not Gucci. Not even Halston. The sexiest new-old house to bask in the fashion limelight again first held sway more than 500 years ago. From 1485 to 1603, the house of Tudor ruled with iconoclastic sovereigns Henry VIII and Elizabeth I and an unshakable belief in power dressing. Forget horse bits and camellias; in the Tudors’ heyday, outré looks like the ruff, the codpiece and the farthingale hoopskirt were high-fashion musts.

This fall the Tudor trumpet is being noisily sounded again on the cultural front by the novels of Philippa Gregory, the Showtime series The Tudors and big-screen spectacles like The Golden Age, starring Cate Blanchett, and the forthcoming The Other Boleyn Girl, with Natalie Portman as the doomed Anne Boleyn and Scarlett Johansson as her sister.

In the 21st century remix of 16th century style, the Tudors are more clothing obsessed than the average Teen Vogue reader. As a virile young Henry VIII on The Tudors, Jonathan Rhys Meyers comports himself as the world’s first metrosexual, in taut leather shirts, fur doublets and enormous gems. The Other Boleyn Girl, scheduled for release early next year, is less salacious in its interpretation but no less compelling in the fashion stakes. Before the corpulence and the gout set in, Henry was a strapping King, and it’s this image that inspired Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell, who conceived a wardrobe of fluid ensembles for the youthful monarch played by Eric Bana. For the ambitious Boleyn sisters, Powell designed jewel-toned gowns with tight bodices and hoopskirts. The gowns become increasingly extravagant as the sisters’ position rises. Johansson must have fancied the strict silhouette: she’s reportedly playing Mary, Queen of Scots in another film.

For The Golden Age, the sequel to 1998’s Elizabeth, costume designer Alexandra Byrne has hatched the most lavish and rarefied survey of the period. Elizabeth’s court was, to be sure, far more elaborate than that of her predecessors: she had a handmaiden whose sole purpose was to retrieve errant jewels that detached from the Queen’s gowns. Byrne searched for visual cues in seminal books like Janet Arnold’s Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d, a recent Elizabethan exhibition at London’s National Maritime Museum and Balenciaga’s designs from the 1940s, which referenced 16th century Spanish court painting. The upshot: sumptuous fabrics and rich beading.

As all-powerful Queen, Blanchett dons a succession of costumes: a lavishly embellished yellow dress on her throne, an extraordinary ivory confection with a colossal skirt, and a pale blue frock with an embroidered bolero to entertain in private. Byrne also has a way with beautiful ruffs, those starched and pleated lace collars. Might they resonate in the real world? “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a trend for ruffs or ruffly necks after this film,” ventures Byrne. Says Powell: “Tudor style probably won’t catch on at the High Street level, but elements are always used, even if it’s just a hat, a cuff on a shirt or the shape of a square neckline.”

Then again, model Agyness Deyn was spotted recently in a leather ruff and farthingale by British designer Gareth Pugh. Silhouettes aside, designers this fall are offering a king’s ransom of silk, satin, fur and jewel-like ornamentation that alone evoke the Tudor spirit. Oscar de la Renta showed ermine and chinchilla shrugs atop embroidered tulle. For Burberry Prorsum, Christopher Bailey referenced armor with a collection of austere leather coats, metal-studded dresses and black gauntlets that would not seem out of place in the Tower of London. Rodarte featured shimmering gold dresses fit for a nascent Queen.

“Things are evolving to a period where if you’ve got it, flaunt it,” says Pamela Parmal, curator of textile and fashion arts at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. “We live in a gilded age, not unlike previous centuries when you had an extremely wealthy class that wasn’t afraid to show off that wealth.”