CMU School of Drama


Friday, March 05, 2021

'The Bold and the Beautiful': Fans Say the Costuming Makes It Hard to Believe Anyone Works In the Fashion Industry

www.cheatsheet.com: The Bold and the Beautiful first premiered in the late 1980s, making it one of the longest-running soap operas on television right now. Set in the same universe as CBS’ other popular soap opera, The Young and the Restless, the show follows the fictional Forrester family as they run their fashion empire and navigate the typical dramas of daytime television.

5 comments:

Rhiannnon said...

I have never watched The Bold and The Beautiful so I did not understand what the article was talking about near the end but I think it is unacceptable that a show about high fashion does not have good wardrobe. They designer puts them in ready to wear clothes from department stores like Macys. Meanwhile the WHOLE show is about haute couture. That must be so frustratingly distracting. Even if they didn't have a huge budget, there are ways to fake high quality clothes for a show. You can alter store bought clothes to have a more high fashion fit or use cheaper materials on custom dresses. This is a huge fail on the part of the designer , but I wish they mentioned why she made those design choices. The questions she answered were just about where she bought the clothes.

Unknown said...

I think it is really unfortunate that ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ can not get their costume design right, because in my opinion a bad costume can instantly take you out of an otherwise great performance. While I can only imagine the logistical and budgetary issues that would come with styling these characters in haute couture, at least some effort could be put into making the characters at least dressed in some fancier, designer-like fashion. It is interesting to compare this to the costuming on Schitt’s Creek, where in order to remain true to the lifestyle of the main character, the wardrobe department would scour EBay, CraigsList, and other websites to search for designer clothing being sold second hand at discounted prices. This goes to show that styling with high level fashion is absolutely possible, it is just a matter of spending the time to find the items to keep within the budget.

Hadley Holcomb said...

I would be really interested to hear from the designer of this show about why she made the choices she did when it came to the more every day style of the characters. It does seem a bit unrealistic for the owners of a haute couture brand to be wearing something that I could pick up at Macy's on a daily basis. However even in reality I wouldn't expect anyone to wear custom made designer clothes every single day. You have to have a comfy casual day every once in a while. The article did seem to be one sided in that regard, only focusing on the fans opinions of the show rather than the choices mede my the designers or any opinions of TV critics. I did find it ironic that the show has been put up for and won so many costume awards like "Outstanding Costume Design for a Drama or Digital Drama Series" when the audience clearly has such an issue with what they are seeing on screen.

Unknown said...

I have never watched this TV show, nor have a watched any soap opera. I think that the genre of this media is telling to the other areas of design. I mean not to discredit any of the people who work on this project but we know that soap operas are heightened reality meant to be overdramatic. Although the setting may be in a couture house, the budget for the series obviously would not allow the characters to wear high fashion garments. But one thing to consider here is how the audience may relate to these characters. Having them dress more casually makes their lives easier relate to and understand. Having them in only designer brand costumes may alienate the audience. The target audience for most soap operas are middle aged females. I also think the scale of the production wouldn't allow them to track down second hand designer outfits to have in the show.- Evan Riley

Jonas Harrison said...

First, I have a criticism about this article. I hate when articles claim that fans are in an uproar about something, or that the public opinion is a certain way, and then use one tweet with nearly no likes as supporting evidence. If the public opinion actually is that way, and the source they are using to support that claim is Twitter, articles should use popular tweets, or a bunch of tweets, rather than just one. This poor use of evidence causes me to question the credibility of the entire article. It is interesting to me that this show won an award for its costume design. Like the article points out, the outfits look ordinary and not special to me, but that must be the appeal. They most likely wanted the show to be relatable, or more grounded in reality, so having the characters wear everyday brands supports immersion an average viewer would have in this show.