Carrie Coon’s Costume Corner: Bertha Russell, Mastermind

This week, in honor of The Gilded Age’s season finale, "In Terms of Winning and Losing," we salute costume designer Kasia Wailicka Maimone’s wise and strategic choice to keep her powder dry, saving the best, wildest, most exuberant gowns for last. Ten (ten!!) characters’ costumes are of note in the extended scene where the Great Opera War of 1883 concludes in triumph for Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon).

Bertha’s triumph – at the opening performance of Mozart’s Faust, because subtlety is not in Julian Fellowes’ vocabulary – holds within it the seeds of some serious, capital-D Drama for Season 3. I predict that her well-laid plan to pull off a plotline out of The Buccaneers will go awry when Gladys (Taissa Farmiga) balks at marrying the schmancy but cash-strapped Duke of Buckingham (Ben Lamb). In that case, George (Morgan Spector) will support Gladys rather than Bertha, and Bertha will regard it as another betrayal, which she’s already told him she will neither tolerate nor forgive. If this is part of a hoped-for third season, I hope these two crazy kids can work it out. A Gilded Age without super-couple Bertha and George is not a Gilded Age I will enjoy (though obviously I will watch).

On with the show! Naturally, Gown of the Week is Bertha’s ensemble, which includes a dress, matching cape, and another tiara and jewelry from her massive collection.