www.townandcountrymag.com: Reality dating television shows have started coming up with even more absurd premises to break through in the saturated landscape. Not that we're complaining: The Courtship, billed as a Regency-era take on the Bachelorette, is a dating show in Regency cosplay, and it's as delightful as it sounds.
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THIS SHOW SOUNDS SO COOL. I don’t know how interesting it would be to me because I don’t really like reality matchmaking shows, but I will honestly give it a try. I think the spin on classic Bachelorette tropes is really fun. This is also really exciting for me as I consider career paths and think about what I want to study. I think the idea of working in a mixture of set and costumes as well as theatre and TV is really exciting to me, but I definitely have to put in the work first. I think in these shows people are far too focused on the accuracy and specificity of a certain element and don’t pay attention to how the whole production and design vision come together. I like that Tom Rogers went into the project with the idea of creating the suggestion of regency to support the show’s premise and other design elements. His consideration of the genre, as well as the “setting”, is really important and a thing I think that many designers miss. Designers are too focused on creating a marvel that shows off their own prowess, so they miss chances to support other design elements and bring out the magic that live theatre collaboration creates. If the costumes had been hyper-accurate spectacles, it would distract from the other design elements and the other design elements, in turn, would make the costumes look confusing and out of place.
This has to be one of the funniest reality TV show ideas I’ve ever seen, yet I think it’s absolutely genius and I might have to watch it. Normally I hate reality TV as it has an incredibly toxic culture that surrounds it, and I also simply just feel a little bit stupider after watching most reality TV shows. That being said, this show looks absolutely hilarious and I genuinely think it might be at least semi-educational. While the costumes are quite historically incorrect, they're really not as bad as I would expect from a reality TV show, and especially a dating show. In fact, they're actually pretty good in comparison to shows like Bridgeton which, for the hype it got, in my opinion, did not have amazing costumes. The addition of forcing people to send each other handwritten notes makes this whole show even more fun. I love that the costume designer also forced the men to wear breeches. During this period trousers were finally coming into style and were beginning to be as common as breaches, but the designer clearly wanted to add to the dorkiness of the show. All in all, I love the idea and will for sure make this show my secret pass time.
I’ve seen ads for this show and it looked absolutely terrible. I felt like I had to read this article because I always like period costumes, and truth be told I was just a little bit curious. However, after reading, I might have to try watching it when I’m in the mood for some trashy TV. I can not believe they made all the costumes before even meeting any of the people or knowing who they would be. From the pictures in the article, the clothes all look fantastic. It is a bit odd in the sense that the hair and makeup all look so modern, it feels as though they are as is stated, not trying to put them out of their time, just dressing them up in different clothes. It reminds me of the 1900’s house. I found it quite funny at the end when he mentioned game of thrones crossed with love island.
While the premise of this show sounds absolutely hilarious, the costuming sounds really interesting and kinda fun. I love the challenge of having to do everything last minute and not being able to fix things while they are being filmed in. The delicate balance of trying to keep a modern audience who is used to the fashion of the Bachelorette engaged and interested seems like an added challenge on top of the short timeline. Although from the pictures I think they seem to be doing a pretty good job of blending the two eras to keep people happy. I personally am not a huge fan of the exceedingly bright color scheme and super over the top accessories. But, as the designer described, they did a good job at keeping fabrics in the same family when they were planning on changing the outline of one of the dresses. I may have to give the show a little bit of a watch just for the costumes, although I doubt that the actual content is very engaging.
Reality TV? Absolutely not my thing. Would I watch this show? Absolutely I would. The premise of mixing Bridgerton (yes, I binge watched season 2 last weekend) and The Bachelor (which I have never watched before) sounds fascinating and honestly hilarious and fun. This article was obviously focused on the costume aspect, which I found really interesting! I love that Tom Rogers describes his designs as a “riff” on Regency Era clothing. There was an article recently that did a deep dive into historical inaccuracies in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women that I was reminded of, because here the historical inaccuracies are purposeful. This isn’t a historical drama, so Rogers could mix modern silhouettes with Regency pattern types or vice versa or whatever combination that worked aesthetically, for the comfort of the cast, and fit the activities of that episode. I think I might need to see if I can watch an episode or 2 of this!
"Making fake Regency dating look sexy, one gown at a time." This is a fantastic tag line to the article and I think it encompasses the almost camp nature that reality dating shows have, especially if the contestants are wearing Regency gowns. The fact that the contestants have to learn period dances, write notes, and participate in Regency-era activities only heightens the experience. The costume designer, Tom Rogers, has an extremely versatile and diverse background in terms of costuming, and in a medium which blends the old and the new, he seems to be the right choice for this kind of show. His point about the show and designs being a "riff" on the Regency period seems to be the key to why all of this works. It's not trying to imitate historical gowns, it's being inspired by historical gowns and blending that with the modern. That seems to be the general intent of the show anyways from a conceptual standpoint and the cohesion of it all makes this reality dating show goofy and a different kind of entertaining, compared to the sense of schadenfreude that comes with trashy TV.
I’m not sure why, but I find the idea of a reality dating TV show set in Regency-era hilarious yet intriguing. Tom Rogers’ description of “Bridgerton meets The Bachelor” sets the tone of the show really well. Roger’s idea of blending and balancing period costumes with modern dresses brings out a funky vibe of the show. It reminds the audience that it’s not a historical drama and that it’s meant to be fun and exciting. I think this conscious design choice of not being historically accurate is exciting and challenging. As Rogers has pointed out himself, finding a way to make everything look uniform and fitting rather out-of-place means playing with fabric choices. Rogers also talks about the schedule for TV series versus one for film or theatre, and this is something I didn’t realise before. The fast-paced and see-as-it-goes nature of TV shows really challenges designers because you never know how things will go. This really shows the skills and talent of Tom Rogers additionally to his designs.
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