Carrie Coon’s Costume Corner: 'The Gilded Age' Season 3 Tones Down

Greetings, fellow Gilded Age viewers! (Is there an Internet-approved name for us? Are we Gild Members? Members of the Mamie Fish Appreciation Society? Geegaw Gapers? I’m open to nominations!) HBO’s historical soap is notable for many things – Broadway stars letting it rip every scene they’re in, its ability to sustain interest in overheated conflicts like last season’s Opera War, and an impressive embrace of lavishness – but my favorite since its first season has been the costume design. Designer Kasia Walicka Maimone and her team have provided exuberant, fanciful, and often witty looks for the cast as a whole, and for Carrie Coon, in particular. 

Last season, I wrote a weekly column for Telly Visions exclusively devoted to the costumes Coon wears as the determined and shrewd Bertha Russell. This season, I’ll be taking a more periodic approach, checking in every few episodes with observations, analysis, and questions. 

With a full third of Season 3 behind us, strange things are afoot in Bertha’s wardrobe. After two seasons of increasing sartorial exuberance, we now find our favorite scheming doyenne seeming to pull way back on her style. Where last season, we saw gowns in bold shades and wildly contrasting fabric textures, we are now getting a sustained glimpse of a more muted Bertha. 

Multiple gowns are a single shade, using black flocking or lace for contrast, and we don’t see anything like the built-in cape she wore for a tour of the in-progress Metropolitan Opera House’s construction, or the tiers of knife-pleated powder blue chiffon she chose to host a subscription drive at her home. 

I’m currently interpreting this shift as a reflection of Bertha having successfully consolidated the social power she had been striving for, particularly during the Opera War. She won that entire campaign decisively and is now focusing on ensuring that the next generation of Russells attain even greater heights of significance by making advantageous marriages. She’s re-wearing several of her more conservative looks from Season 2, which suggests that these choices are part of a deliberate, considered strategy.

The one gown the season premiere, “Who’s In Charge Here?”,  that’s reminiscent of Bertha’s previous aesthetic gets short shrift – we only see it for a few minutes as she dines with Larry and Gladys before they convince her to let Gladys accompany Larry to the opera so she can chitty-chat with the wet noodle who is Billy Carlton – so I can only comment on the bodice. It’s a classic Bertha Special: bright white, with a square, medium-depth neckline, and features one of Bertha’s trademark waist-to-shoulder swoops of contrasting fabric and color. This time, it’s a column of poufy organza florets marching in a curve of alternating shades of white, pale pink, and hot pink. 

The real showstopper gown in this episode is Aurora Fain’s Geegaws of Righteous Fury, the cream, silver, and Cinderella-turquoise frock that she’s wearing when her husband Charles arrives home to inform her that he’s met someone else, wishes to marry said someone, and therefore needs Aurora to divorce him. 

Kelli O’Hara looks stunning in this color scheme and is astonishingly good at pulling off the whole lotta look of her bustle’s cascading, sparkly pickups. It’s a signature palette for her, and in the space of this heart-wrenching scene, shifts to a sort of psychological armor. 

Episode 2, “What the Papers Say”, continues in the restrained vein established in the previous episode. When Bertha calls at the Carlton family home to retrieve runaway Gladys, she sails in, sporting a head-to-toe column of royal blue. Close-up, we can discern the use of several fabrics, including a fair amount of lace, but the message couldn’t be clearer: Bertha is the queen, and she has nothing to prove. She can make the minimum effort and still have the maximum impact. 

The most interesting gown Bertha wears in this episode is the one she chooses for the dinner she intends to host, welcoming Hector, the Duke of Buckingham, back to town (and, if she gets her way, into the Russell family as well). It’s pretty subdued, featuring ecru as its primary color, paired with a pink-to-red floral contrast fabric. The most interesting feature is the use of contrasting floral elements to create the look of a Tudor-type gable hood on the bodice. 

Intentional or not, the resemblance suggests a pronounced lean toward a more conservative approach. There’s also a somewhat baffling upper sleeve and shoulder detail in the mix, a textured oval of ecru fabric that matches the gown’s main color. Its volume is provided by its many gathers, which lend it some of the puffiness of a leg o’mutton sleeve, but ultimately it looks more like a small decorative pillow.

By the end of the season’s third episode, “Love is Never Easy”, Bertha has wrangled Gladys out of her proposed engagement to Billy Carlton and into accepting an offer of marriage from Hector (in exchange for Gladys herself and an unspecified but eye-wateringly steep dowry negotiated by George). Her lady’s maid saw Larry and Marian Brook smooching in the parlor and mentioned it to Bertha, who has put a pin in it for now, but will certainly have opinions about it later. Marian is lovely and from a good family, but she’s also not nearly grand enough to suit Bertha’s notions of a good match for her son. As Marian herself has put it, “there’s no reason to marry me, unless the man’s in love.” 

This episode provides a study in contrasts – the gown Bertha is making final touches to, when her maid spills the kissyface beans about Marian and Larry, is regal in its own way, thanks to its emerald and black color scheme, V-neck, and her pearl and diamond accessories. Still, the puffed short sleeves and stark white opera gloves look off to me. It’s too lavish to say it’s frumpy, but it’s another suggestion that she’s pulling back on her public image. 

For the unveiling of John Singer Sargent’s portrait of Gladys and the announcement of her engagement to Hector, Bertha wears a gown that’s among the least formal I’ve seen her in. It’s perfectly nice – faille fabric in a shade of red that really suits Carrie Coon, and gussied up with a black lace overlay at the waist – but it scarcely has a bustle, and she’s not wearing a tiara or statement necklace here, either. She seems to want to cede the spotlight to Gladys’s portrait (which is, sadly, not at all what a Sargent portrait would look like) and engagement.

It looks as though Episode 4 will focus on Gladys and the Duke’s nuptials, so I won’t be surprised if we wind up waiting until later in the season to see how Bertha addresses Larry and Marian’s relationship. It may wind up being a non-issue, since George is over-leveraging himself financially with his aggressive pursuit of land in the Southwest on top of Gladys’s dowry. 

The Gilded Age Season 3 continues with new episodes on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max through mid-August 2025.