Costuming in "The Tudors": Anne of Cleves

I like Anne of Cleves. She's really kind, especially to Henry's kids, she's got a good sense of humor about things and she manages to maintain a decent amount of composure after being totally shit on with her arranged marriage. Also I love that scene where she's complaining about Henry's leg: "It smells, yeah?!" And she must be a freaking saint for how nice she is to Catherine Howard.

But I don't like the majority of her clothes. I really don't.

Anne of Cleves I think is supposed to be dressed like a foreigner for a lot of it and that's probably part of the reason. Germans are not exactly known for their fashion sense unlike the French, Italians, and even the English. It's not her fault that foreign is her defining characteristic (unless you are talking to Mary Tudor in which it's "dirty Lutheran heretic").

But even though I personally don't like a lot of her clothes it doesn't mean they aren't interesting to look at or that I don't have things to say about them.


Season 3, Episode 6

When we are first introduced to Anne, there isn't much to take away. She and her sister Amalia are dressed exactly the same with black veils covering their faces. The interesting thing here is that the dress she has on is a lot less strange than some of the things she wears after she arrives in England. This is a fairly normal albeit uninteresting and humble dress.


Season 3, Episode7

The second time we see Anne is even worse really. Now we can't even see what kind of body shape she has because she is essentially a phantom. However, this scene does give us a good look at her personality, especially because we cannot see her at all. She is eager to learn about English food and activities and tells some jokes while she is learning to play cards. And while this is all good, at this point, the amount of security taken to conceal her identity is a red flag that her looks will become a big topic.

At the beginning of this episode, I would like to point out, Henry is presented with a portrait of her and he likes it. The portrait actually does look like her. So what really went wrong here?

The king's first meeting with Anne doesn't go well, to say the least. My theory on how this scene goes is what Henry really found so unattractive about Anne wasn't her face (he already seemed to like that with the picture) but her attitude. She is really startled when he storms in, has no idea what to make of his kiss, and says very little with just the confused expression above on her face the whole time. If she has been smiling, kissed him back happily, and had met him with a "pleased to meet you, your majesty", Henry would have been totally fine with her. She even knew exactly what went wrong after he left. However, Henry blamed her face not looking like the picture because he couldn't really point his finger on why he wasn't attracted to her and it was easier to blame someone he could punish. This actually resembles the historical explanation.

But anyway, to the outfit. Clearly German style is different from English style. She wears a lot of these cropped jackets and there is a common trend also of having a different striped fabric under the bust of the bodice creating a totally different shape than the English's smooth fronted bodices (Anne's looks more comfortable to me). To the English eye this probably looks like a cluster fuck of fabrics put in strange places like the poof at the elbows as well as the shoulders. The red and white combo is her initial color scheme. The hat shows her noble status as it resembles something like an English crown. The most interesting thing here is her necklace which I think is the most perfectly symbolic thing ever. It looks like a chain. It even goes farther than you think because it is secured at her shoulder and looks like it connects to another chain. She is locked into this arrangement.

Anne is presented to the court and Henry's daughters. She loosens up a bit from the last scene and says all the right things albeit, too late for Henry.

Another fabric mess in the same color scheme. I don't even have a picture of the skirt which is this pleated, bell-shaped deal in a tan, sparkly fabric that looks really odd with the rest of the outfit here. Clearly the most notable thing about this outfit is the hat. I find it endlessly fascinating. I wonder if it can be used as a bowl. In truth though, it is not the hat itself that is strange. Later on she wears this hat again and it doesn't look weird at all. What makes it weird is the beaded thing around it with the dangling strands. I'm sure whatever that piece is made of it's expensive and shows her status but it just looks so odd.
Also, chain necklace.

Henry and Anne get married in an insanely awkward ceremony.

They both have on this ice blue-grey shade that pretty much personifies the iciness between them. Anne's dress is of the same style as her other two except with fewer fabrics: cropped jacket, striped under-bust fabric, pleats in the shirt. Here instead of a bunch of fabrics, we just have two kinds of bead detailing that is actually pretty nice looking in my opinion although it still has the effect of the different fabrics of looking like a lot of conflicting things in one dress. Her headpiece looks sharp and her chain necklace has gained a choker portion. She is really chained down now. At least her hair looks good?

Having already gotten Henry's side of the situation, Anne gives hers. Cromwell tells Anne is be more pleasant to the king and she says she doesn't know what she has done to offend him and that it is hard to be pleasing to him when he won't even touch her and goes on a mini-rant in German about his stinky leg.

This is kind of a bad news dress for Anne. It is a lot less showy than the other things and a bit easier to look at although the colors are not very nice. It has the same cropped jacket detail but the rest of it is a bit more like the English dresses although we do get a collection of fabric and detail. The color is the key here. After the hopeful red and white of the first few times she was in court, she retreats into these muted, puke colors and brown that show things are not going well for her.


Season 3, Episode 8

Anne meets with Mary to tell her that her hot cousin is interested in courting her.

You have to look really closely at this dress to see the detail. It is actually a really dark purple with dark red puffed sleeves and there is some kind of lace (or something) detail on the front of the dress and the sleeves to make them striped. She really does like those horizontal stripes and the strip of fabric across the front of the dress really looks like German detail but it leans more towards English style overall. The purple of course, shows her status.

Anne asks Mary what she thinks of her cousin and she pretty much says that they have nothing in common and "how can he like me when he doesn't even know me?" Then Mary hides while Anne and Phillip talk about her and Phillip voices how much he truly likes her.

Anne is back to her really foreign looking clothes with her hat (sans beaded thing) and jacket but with a different dress. The dress is also fairly unlike anything seen before with a flat front but a large brown checkered back portion like it's two different halves of a skirt sewn together. The foreign clothes are probably because she is meeting with her cousin so she is in her element. The colors of the clothes imply a sort of joy she is getting from playing matchmaker as red and yellow are happy colors for her. The brown is probably her bad marriage, currently behind her and not even visible from the front.

While Henry is off screwing Catherine Howard, Anne is sitting around in a brown housecoat, sewing and sighing. It's a rather detailed coat and a very detail and foreign-y headpiece but it's still a picture of sadness.

Anne meets with Mary to tell her the bad news that Henry has sent Phillip away.

Bad news = bad news dress. Except this time she is delivering it instead of receiving it. In a way, it is bad news for her too. Getting them together seemed to be giving her some joy she wasn't getting in her own life and a marriage between them could have strengthen the connection between her and Henry. The fact that Henry sent him away is clear that he has given up on their marriage by trying to prevent this match as well.

Anne has dinner with Henry and when she tries to muster up the courage to say something about their situation, he says he is sending her away for a while for her "health and pleasure." Later, she is wearing this dress when she gets the news that their marriage is declared invalid.

Anne is dressed like an English queen here with none of her German heritage showing through. She seems to really be accepting this role and trying to fit into what the king wants but it ends up being useless. This might also be seen as foreshadowing that she will not be leaving England even after the annulment. The yellow and white combo implies that she was hoping for something good to happen but alas, nothing did.


Season 4, Episode 2

When Anne makes her return to court at Christmas, she looks every bit an English noble. You may remember that Anne Boleyn wore this dress for a split second in season one and I told you to forget about it because it all honesty, this isn't an Anne Boleyn dress. It is an Anne of Cleves dress and it was actually this scene that prompted me to start writing this posts.

This dress is perfect for the scene in so many ways. First of all, the red and gold combination is ideal for the holidays. The fabric is very reminiscent of the clothes she wore when she initially got to England but the style of the dress is pure English style. The dress really represents how she has managed to adapt to the culture that she now sees as her own without losing her own identity unlike the previous dress which looked like she was trying to be something she wasn't.

The other great thing about this dress is how well it contrasts with Catherine Howard's dress. Howard's dress is so immature looking and "pretty, pretty princess" with its giant sleeves and large sparkles and flower detail around the neck but this may not be obvious when you first see it. When Anne enters however and the two are next to each other, Anne looks so mature and comfortable with her rich red velvet and fabric with smaller but more plentiful sparkle while Catherine looks like a kid playing dress up at a grown up party.

Anne has dinner with Henry and Catherine. Henry gives Anne some gifts including two puppies (same breed of dog as the one he gives Jane might I add) and Catherine gives one of the puppies to Anne.

Anne has on a new, happy yellow dress without the brown sadness in the back. Again, there's some of her strange style with the shoulder detail and the muddled color but she looks like she fits right in.


Season 4, Episode 3

The last time we see Anne is when Henry goes to visit her and Elizabeth at Hever Castle for dinner. Anne speaks highly of Henry's daughters and then returns her wedding ring to Henry, requesting that he break it into pieces. Henry thanks her for not objecting to the annulment. Later on she wears this on another visit when they play cards (and sleep together; note: probably not historically accurate).

Another dress with the usual silhouette but with Anne details like the gold patch on the front. Her headpiece looks very sunny; even though her clothes are dark, she is not unhappy. Anne has found her place.


Well, I feel good. Finally a wife whose story ends happy.


Next week (or sooner since I seem to be cranking these out now): the not so lucky Catherine Howard.