'Wolf Hall' Costume Notes: The "Wreckage" of a Visual Wedding Feast

Our long international literary adaptation nightmare is over. Mark Rylance, Damian Lewis, and Kate Phillips are back on our screens for the next six weeks, and while a great many things are not remotely all right with either the worlds of Tudor England or the present day, at least we have the beauty of Wolf Hall: The Mirror & the Light to sustain us. And it is beautiful. The Wolf Hall that greeted us in 2015 was peak Masterpiece, just about the prestige-iest prestige series imaginable, thanks to its award-winning source material*, A-list cast, nuanced performances, lovely score, and sumptuous visuals. 

Wolf Hall: The Mirror & the Light, based on Mantel’s trilogy-closing novel, builds on the audience’s affection for the original miniseries, sending us down increasingly thorny paths as Thomas Cromwell — a blacksmith’s son from Putney whose knack for business and canny insights into the hearts and minds of royalty have made him indispensable to Henry VIII — enjoys the political and economic fruits of his many years of morally flexible hard work, only to see it all slip through his fingers on the way to the literal chopping block. 

The most significant difference between the first series and the new one is visual. The original Wolf Hall used daylight and candlelight exclusively (£20,000 worth of candles, according to director Peter Kosminsky!) to illuminate its scenes. This season adds studio lighting to the mix, with the happy result that we can see so much more of the action and, most notably for this piece, far more details of the costumes. 

(*A bookworm’s note on the source material: Wolf Hall was adapted from Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, which I worry suffer from the seemingly highfalutin novel’s curse of seeming unapproachable and snoozy. Let me tell you that they’re both juicy reads — those Tudors were so messy and dramatic! — and full of lovely, bracing insight. Wolf Hall, in particular, is a Mary Poppins book, practically perfect in every way. Rarely has the psychological interiority of a man, let alone A Great Man of History, been so appealing. They’re rich, heartbreaking, often funny page-turners.)

My real-time viewing notes are littered with admiring expletives, exclamation points, reminders to look up details about fabric types and embellishment techniques, and musings such as “Is that collar ermine? Maybe textured velvet? Wait for close-up!” (I think it’s ermine.) Everything looks sumptuous and expensive, as it should. These are some of the wealthiest and most important people in Europe. 

If Lewis and Phillips, as Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, are going to wear gold and silver ensembles for their intimate wedding ceremony (shot to look as if it’s taking place as Claire Foy’s Anne Boleyn is put to death), then by George, we are going to get many lingering eyefuls of those looks. Both characters look radiant, of course; between the costumes, makeup, hair design, and lighting, they positively glow. 

These costumes — especially Henry’s gold-and-maroon wedding suit — are my picks for Ensemble Of The Week. Not only is his doublet, including the voluminously puffed sleeves, entirely woven of gold fabric. The fabric also catches and reflects the light, thanks to the alternating matte-and-shininess of its damask weave and an embossed effect at the center of the garment. Today, the feature of two stags rampant would be achieved using either a cloqué or matelassé weaving technique. However, this example may have been accomplished with hand embroidery using gold thread to match the main fabric. 

The long sleeveless robe he wears over the doublet and hose is in matching gold, with a broad band of snowy white trim from top to bottom. The fabric is either ermine or a textured velvet; as noted above, I believe it’s ermine, but if I’m wrong, please let me know! Henry’s doublet, coat, and hose combine to provide the volume and bulk necessary to trick the eye into believing that Lewis (quite svelte in real life) gained weight to more closely resemble the historical Henry VIII of this period. 

A special note on the framing of these alternating shots – both Henry and Anne are positioned at the center of their respective frames, surrounded and fussed over by attendants. This is the end of all similarities between them. Anne is in the final moments of her life, while Henry is full of hope at the prospect of a new marriage, new life, and, perhaps, new and healthy sons with the lovely Jane Seymour. Henry glimmers in the sunlight and the glow of his wedding chapel, while Anne is buffeted by a stiff breeze and resembles a luxurious storm cloud in deep purple-gray velvet. 

This week’s Honorable Mentions are elements of costumes rather than the full ensembles. First up, the Castelvetrano Olive Green Crushed Velvet doublet Henry sports at his and Jane’s day-after-the-wedding celebration. The color and its crushed effect are both surprisingly contemporary-looking. Great stuff, and another reminder that what people wore in the Tudor era was governed by sumptuary laws, which dictated the use of specific fabrics, colors, and trimmings as a visual reminder of social hierarchy. They also had an economic purpose and effect, encouraging people to buy and wear home-grown fabrics. 

As Thomas Wriothesley (aka “Call Me Risley”), Harry Melling sports a coat with a deep, furred lapel. So far, so normal – lots of the male characters favor various furs. Cromwell’s is both very fine and understated in a deep brown with almost maroon undertones. Call Me’s choice of cheetah fur stands out against a sea of what I believe are mink, beaver, and possibly sable. It’s flashy, it’s youthful, and to my eye, it’s a statement piece. Exactly what statement Call Me is making is up for interpretation. This blog on using animal prints in interior design offers a helpful guide to distinguishing cheetah from leopard.  

My final Honorable Mention this week is the restrained yet very fancy gabled hood worn by Lady Mary (Lilit Lesser) when Cromwell visits her to convince her to sign the pledge affirming her father as the head of the Church in England and whatever path he chooses for his line of succession. Mary’s dress style is so conservative, even compared to what Queen Jane and Lady Margaret Pole (Harriet Walter) wear. The square neckline of her lush, dark brown velvet gown is relatively shallow, and even that is covered with a gauzy sort of large-scale dickey. The gown has scarcely any embellishment (recall that Lady Margaret’s neckline was lined with tiny pearls), and she’s wearing a black velvet gabled hood. The hood is lined with deep red faceted stones – garnets, I think, as rubies would be an out-of-character extravagance – they’re such a dark shade that they almost blend into the main fabric, visible only when they catch the light. 

The hood itself is less interesting from a design-and-embellishment standpoint than from Mary’s relationship with it. She hates it. It hurts her scalp so much that she removes it while conversing with Cromwell, rubbing at her head and allowing her beautiful, curly, auburn hair to fall down her back. It’s such an unselfconscious thing for this supremely self-conscious woman to do. She’s so awkward in her own skin! She’s klutzy and stammering! 

Removing her hood in an unchaperoned meeting with the second man in the kingdom seems slightly scandalous. Sure enough, one of the older women of her household bustles in almost immediately to start setting her to rights. This moment is the first of several in the episode that holds the seeds of a rumor that could be a big problem down the line for Cromwell. Lady Mary is devout, conniving, and a bit desperate. She shows flashes of worldliness while seeming to be wholly naive about the potential effects of behavior, such as removing her hood in front of him and proclaiming publicly that Cromwell is her chief friend in the world. This can’t end well. 

Wolf Hall: The Mirror & the Light airs on most local PBS stations and streams on the PBS app weekly on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET. All episodes are available for PBS Passport members and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel to binge before their on-air broadcast.