This morning I dreamt that I was woken by a call from my boss asking me if I ever planned on going to work and when I looked at the clock, it was 13:56. I don't use 24 hour time so this struck the me having the dream as odd. The me in the dream saw nothing strange here and tried to leave for work but when I went outside, I was in the London suburbs. Whoops.
Realizing my mistake, I ran towards the nearest tube station to get to the airport and was stopped on the platform and taken into the station again by a woman who said that I was under arrest for trying to overthrow the monarchy. How did I do this, you ask? Apparently in my dream touching this one statue was such serious business that it was considered treason. Being an American, they decided to convict me of trying to overthrow the monarchy instead because it was equivalent (but I am no Guy Fawkes). I told them I would leave the country quietly and presented my plane ticket to them (which I had also missed and was apparently early that morning). The alternative was that they would take me to the Tower of London and cut off my head. The woman said she would consider letting me just leave but that I would never be able to return and before she decided I would go through the Tower. The Tower had been turned into some amusement thing like the London Dungeon and when the ride/show was over, I saw an open doorway and booked it, thinking the woman never took my information down and that I would probably be able to keep my head and come back to London again.
So the point of all of that was that I clearly need to write about Catherine Howard.
How do I begin to explain Catherine Howard? Catherine Howard is flawless. I hear her hair is insured for £10,000. I hear she poses for portraits . . . in Milan! Her favorite book is one with pictures.
If you don't get my highly intellectual reference, Catherine Howard is pretty much the popular girl in school and being that she's only 17, she really is at that point in life. She's notably dumb but sweet and doesn't really have an ounce of foresight or desire to do anything productive. I don't like her as a character but I have to admit that she made for interesting television.
Her style? Well, when she bothers to wear clothes she's a teenager with a queen's bank account. She wears a lot of floral patterns in mostly pastel, shiny fabrics. I'm not necessarily saying her clothes are unsophisticated (although they are on occasion); she has a lot of dresses I could actually see Anne Boleyn or Jane Seymour wearing. However, she does look like she is playing dress up whenever she is in something that is more sophisticated.
And in spite of the fact that Henry doesn't age much, she really looks like his daughter not his wife. It's creepy.
I would also like to just add as a side note, that in season four a lot of Anne Boleyn outfits end up getting used on side characters and it is odd, the main one being that the dress Jane Boleyn wears the whole season is Anne's Henry dress. Speculations! I guess the budget was starting to get strained (but it actually doesn't seem too ridiculous that she may have gotten it after Anne died).
Anyway, enough nonsense.
Season 3, Episode 8
When we are first introduced to Catherine she is pretty shabby looking. The dowager duchesses house that Sir Bryan pulled her out of really made her look like she was in an orphanage or a brothel and the outfit doesn't really do anything to dispel this idea. There are three different, cheap looking fabrics (possibly four if you look at that sleeve) and her skirt is too short. There is nothing classy about what she is wearing which is why when Brandon says that she looks fit for a king, he means that she looks fit for Henry. Problem is, this is her interior on the outside. She needs to not look so common if he is to notice her in the first place . . .
Presumably, Catherine arrived with nothing so this is what they provide her with. Catherine wears ridiculous amounts of blue throughout the show, especially light blues like this (or light turquoise, the lighting on this show can be difficult). This dress sets that standard. Also the embroidery pattern which is almost floral looking. Also, tiny crown. Foreshadowing.
This must be a new casual dress. It's brown or red-brown with the drooping sleeves and gold detail. You never see her in brown again and you never see her in this dress either. It's kind of a transition dress. Like her first dress it's not a remarkable color with kind of a bland fabric in front but it is still definitely a lady's dress. She's not a ragamuffin but she's not a queen.
Catherine has on a riding habit that actually greatly resembles something Mary Tudor wore in this same episode. Mary wore her outfit when she was getting an offer of courtship. Parallel? Also, red is Catherine's dubious happy color. Generally there is joy in these outfits but with some other layer of something not quite right. This scene is kind of an exception unless you are thinking about how perhaps, this palace was for Jane or that winning the king's favor is actually a bad idea. In a second her clothes are about to get a lot more expensive looking.
Season 4, Episode 1
Catherine doesn't get a wedding dress so this is the closest we get. Maybe this actually was her wedding dress. Catherine wears pale yellow on occasions so maybe a pattern will appear as I go on because I didn't notice anything in particular right away. Her crown is intensely tall though and one thing that is factual is that Henry spoiled the crap out of her. I also can't stop thinking that the design on her dress resembles a fleur-de-lys which is really appropriate since in the next scene she decides that she and her ladies must dress in the latest French fashions.
Catherine does wear puffed sleeves fairly regularly but this is the only dress she has with sleeves of this kind. She is in a queen outfit but it is clear that she is just playing queen. The whole speech to the ladies reads like a six-year-old playing with her friends. The crown is so stereotypical that it looks like what the Burger King paper crown is based off of and she never wears in again. This is a game to her. Also, I said red is kind of a dubious happy color. She is happy but the letter from her friend puts a damper on the mood for a second.
I had talked a bit about this scene in the Mary Tudor post and about how Mary is dressed very mature and seriously with a simple dress that just has white beads around the neck and Catherine is in a dress that is sparkly and detailed all over and in one of her many blues. The funny thing is, their dresses have the same shape and sleeves which only serves to show how different they really are.
This is the same blue dress from when Catherine and Henry first meet. Although this first meeting is not as sexual as the other one, the dress calls one back to that scene and it is hard not to notice Culpeper's attraction to her even if she seems clueless about it. It's also notable that the scene that follows involves Catherine putting on a lewd puppet show for Henry and then sex.
I'm pretty sure the outside of this dress is a really light blue, unsurprisingly, and she still has that fan from last scene. I think she's still playing a lady. Hence the headdress. Also, now that I see this outfit, it is clear to me that when Catherine met Mary she was trying hard to be her friend which was why she was wearing a more standard shaped dress without any of the silly accessories here like the headpiece and the fan. She wants to be a queen to these children but she thought she might find a friend in Mary.
Another blue dress (I know from another scene). There's more too. That's all.
She's a child. Period.
Season 4, Episode 2
Catherine and her ladies watch the snow on Christmas and she is presented with her gifts from the king. He gives her more outside, two horses, that were a gifts from Anne of Cleves, a fact which makes her face fall instantly.
Red is her dubious happiness color. She's happy for the gifts of course but obviously the mention of Henry's ex makes her nervous.
This is Catherine's nervous dress. She wears it whenever she thinks her world is falling apart (but ironically not when it does). It's still shiny and has got blue and some kind of gold or bronze in it like a lot of her clothes but something about it reads as darker colored than her usual dress or busy somehow.
A dark blue gown and this spiky star headband. She looks like the mistress of the night and the scenes with this outfit seems to capitalize on the night. Culpepper enters a room where she is bathed in moonlight, looking at the sky as Henry is shown doing the same from his sick bed. This outfit was more about a theme than about character or plot.
Season 4, Episode 3
Catherine's first time in purple. The dress is clearly designed for dance with its large but loose skirt and sleeves.
In the same way that Catherine had worn this dress to meet Mary, expecting a friend but getting an enemy, she wears this dress expecting to hear a lame excuse and feel okay about what she did with Culpeper and instead finds that he was sick and she feels bad. Both meetings leave her quite cold.
Here Catherine interrupts one of Henry's meetings to tell him that she's pregnant.
She's in purple again because she is really feeling like a queen to think that she may be carrying the king's child. She's also got big shoulders like at the Christmas party to show her child-like excitement.
Another blue although this time with a hat and cape for walking outside.
Jeez, Catherine. Give me more to work off here.
After that whole, "not pregnant" thing Catherine is back to just playing queen like she was in the beginning of the season. She is in her dubious happiness color while reading the book dedicated to her and possibly thinking about Culpepper but the news that Mary will be coming with them on their trip that she was so excited about dampens her mood.
MORE BLUE. Although note how much richer this blue is than the usual light or pastel shades? I think her new clothes are supposed to look more mature for her trip and possibly to make her stick out more. As I pointed out in the Mary Tudor post, Mary would dwarf her anyway because people already like her.
In her second church outfit she is in a muted purple-pink and a dark robe, actually looking less bright than Mary who is in dark red and gold. By that point she has realized who the people want to see.
Season 4, Episode 4
I'm not sure this means much except when she last waited for Culpeper she was in a green gown with a lot of detail. This gown is kind of plain by comparison.
The meeting Henry dress, the meeting Culpepper dress, and now the meeting Dereham dress. See the pattern. Also note how these are all men she has slept with or will sleep with and the mood goes from sexual, to under the surface attraction, to using her sexual experience against her.
This was the dress and crown Catherine wore when she was presented as the queen to the court. The same thing happens over this dinner but her attitude is totally different. Once happy to be queen and wanting to dance and now quiet and only thinking of her lover.
Catherine is in her nervous dress as she bites her nails and then has to tell Culpeper about Francis Dereham even though he already knows. Then when he judges her for it, she flips out at him.
Catherine wore this dress once before but I forgot to screencap it. The scene when she last wore this she was talking nervously about how it was a full moon and they will all act like lunatics and then asked to see Culpeper. Here she is nervous again so this is another nervous dress, I guess. Plus, I think we found the lunatic she was talking about.
Wow, um, anyone kind of missing the blue? She's been in this pale yellow or other sad shades for a while now. This dress is really similar to the last one. It's like all her enthusiasm is gone and the dresses just kind of blend into her coloring.
The last dress in this episode that I couldn't get a good picture of for the life of me was a black dress with gold detail that she wore in church while the preacher was talking about how Catherine is such a perfect companion. The last moment of the episode shows someone putting a letter on Henry's chair that clearly tells off all of Catherine's sins. This is obvious because even in church, Catherine is never in black. This is the end for her.
Season 4, Episode 5
This dress looks like a lot of her usual dresses from before all the problems in the north. It's got the light blue and the more muted bronze shade only this is kind of the opposite dress of the one Catherine wears when she challenges Mary or even like matte versions of the colors you find in her nervous dress. She did not see this coming by any means but it is notable how the blue is on the inside and the muted color is on the outside. The problems have surfaced.
She's wearing what she was wearing the last time she was notably disgraced, when her replies to Dereham's rudeness towards her ended up leading to this point.
Catherine's death dress is black like the dress when her fate is sealed in a letter. Although she does not wear black, the detail in the dress really makes it look like her dress although a lot more plainly than her usual clothes. In fact, it is more like the dress she first appeared in than anything she wears as queen. This is her dress, not the ghost of Jane Seymour's.
Also, it is hard not to compare this dress to how Anne Boleyn dressed to die. Anne went out like a queen with a cape and nice details recently added to the dress she was arrested in and jewels and she gave a speech about how she accepts her fate and asks that everyone praise the king. Catherine went out like herself, the original person she arrived as without title and, unknowingly until she was being taken to the block, in mourning for her dead lover. She dies with regret and numb shock.
Also, I have to point out how before she gives her final speech she looks up into the sky and sees the moon during the day. Theme finding its way home.
That was depressing. Being a dumb skank is not something to kill someone for.
Anyway, my next post will be my last on "Tudors" costumes as I talk about Catherine Parr, a less sad fate but kind of a less interesting figure aside from the whole heresy thing.
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