‘The Forsytes’ Season 1 Outfits Are Fit for Intergenerational Soapiness
'The Forsytes' soapiness is woven into its Season 1 costumes.
Something about The Forsytes has surprised me. Beyond the iPhone faces of the two male leads and lightly saucy voiceover narration; beyond the revved-up sibling rivalry between James (Jack Davenport) and Jolyon (Stephen Moyer, aka Vampire Bill from True Blood) over whose son will run the family brokerage house in their own two-person version of Succession; beyond even a few episodes of Soames being an appealing potential husband for Irene Heron (Millie Gibson). Early on, I realized that The Forsytes is a costume drama without much in the way of truly dramatic costuming.
The costumes are good, they’re just not as memorable as I expected. In a TV landscape full of very costume-forward historical series like The Gilded Age, The Buccaneers, Bridgerton, and Wolf Hall, The Forsytes leans into its intergenerational soapiness at the expense of other considerations.
That’s not to say the costumes aren’t worth commenting on! Characters’ clothes always tell us about their frame of mind or where they fit in their family and the broader social hierarchy. Let’s get into some of the nitty-gritty, and what it prompts me to wonder about the next two seasons.
Frances Forsyte & Irene Heron
As I watched The Forsytes, I initially planned to write about Frances’s and Irene’s respective costumes separately; however, as the series unfolded, it became impossible to think of one without the other. Frances’s clearest costuming foil is Louisa, the talented seamstress who turns out to be Young Jolyon’s long-lost first love and mother of his two children. There’s not much to say about the distinctions between the two women, however, since Louisa’s dresses are much of a muchness. She’s not a servant, so she’s not in a housemaid’s uniform, but there is a certain uniformity to her many, mostly calico. dresses, all practical and affordable for a woman of her modest income who works long hours sewing beautiful gowns for high society ladies.
We’re meant to see Irene Heron in comparison with Frances Forsyte (Tuppence Middleton) and, to some degree, with Frances’s daughter, June (Justine Moore). I anticipate discussing Irene-June comparisons in more depth next season, but the Irene-Frances pairing and comparisons make more sense at this point. They both marry into the Forsyte family, and although Irene is closer to June’s age, the fact that she and Frances have married men of the same generation confers on them approximately the same status.
Frances’s style is more consistent over the course of the season, which suits her as a slightly older, more settled young matron. Her marriage to Young Jolyon is her second (and she was a pure and virtuous widow, not a scandalous fallen woman with two love children like Louisa). We’re given to understand that she’s a little bit older than Jolyon, hand-chosen by his father to help his artsy, free-thinking son mature a bit so he’ll be ready to take on leadership of the Forsyte brokerage house when the time comes.
When Frances strolls down the aisle to Young Jolyon, she’s in a gown she could easily wear again. It’s not flashy, just a lovely pale, peachy shell pink, and she doesn’t give a take to the camera to tell us, “and it has pockets!” but that’s the vibe. She looks great, she knows it, and she’s securing a very comfortable future for herself and her daughter. What a pro.
Irene’s wedding gown surprised me by being far less dramatic than I’d expected. In general, everything about Irene (including her relationship with Soames and the way she wears her hair down as a ballet dancer) is bold and italicized. She emerges out of a literal sunbeam as she enters the church, clad in traditional, pristine white. Frances wore no veil; Irene’s is long. Frances’s bouquet was small and featured white flowers; Irene’s is modest, but the roses are a deep wine red. Frances’s neckline was squared off, Irene’s a collared V-neck.
Irene doesn’t always go for a statement look, but when she does, she’s memorable. The dress she wears to her audience with Forsyte matriarch Ann does a lot with its fluttery, gauzy, sheer cap sleeves, lovely, softened square neckline, and all-over botanical embroidery, topped with a pair of opera gloves. Every time she wears something a little over the top, you can see her rising in Ann’s estimation. This is her kind of gal, to the point that I am keen for a throwback episode or two, to see what Ann’s life was like as a young Forsyte wife. At one point, Winifred sniffily describes Irene’s wedding gown as outré; I would just describe her taste at this point as youthful, which is exactly what Irene is. The sophistication of maturity can come later.
Irene’s style is a little bit all over the place once she and Soames move back to London from Paris, reflecting her unsettled frame of mind. If I suspected the husband I hastily married of being an insecure, possessive control freak who would not hesitate to lie his face off to keep me under his thumb, I might make some inconsistent sartorial choices, too. Meanwhile, Frances’s style is that of a more mature woman, a veteran of the Forsyte way of doing things. During their carriage ride home from a lavish day of shopping, Frances describes the family’s expectations: “as a Forsyte woman, you’re expected to shine, to be a perfect hostess, to forge useful connections, to profess no controversial opinions, to pursue no scandalous habits.” Of course Irene can have a mind of her own, “but be aware, the men like to think everything is their idea, and it’s so much easier to let them.” Unsaid, but clearly understood, is that all those pills are easier to swallow with the most magnificent wardrobe imaginable.
Ann Forsyte: Still Queen of All She Surveys
The matriarch of the Forsyte clan is a grande dame who knows who she is and carries herself through the world accordingly. Ann is the character who is most reliably going for a purposefully over-the-top look. Why? Because she can. She is the 1870s version of Deborah Vance in Hacks. Her motto is more, more, more (and she’d probably have loved that song, too).
My favorite Ann ensembles of this season are all statement moments. Nothing will top her ensemble at Young Jolyon and Frances’s wedding, a shimmering silk brocade in dove gray, festooned with red bows, white lace, and various drapings and pickups on the skirt.
The gown she wears when she sails into the brokerage house for a big board meeting in Episode 3 is similarly grand and loud. There’s gilt embroidery on the upper bodice, and a large, black lace stand collar around the back of the neck. This detail is extra-memorable to me because it’s reminiscent of the extra-dramatic collar that the Snow White animation team used to such good effect in their design for the Evil Queen.
The Lads: A Study In I Don’t Even Know What
The costuming for the male characters of The Forsytes is as baffling as the casting. As Young Jolyon and Soames, Danny Griffin and Joshua Orpin are giving strong performances, but their faces are too contemporary-looking to take seriously. These are the faces of guys who should be romcom protagonists or starring in sports dramas about winning games through the power of friendship, not late Victorian first cousins fighting for supremacy at their family’s brokerage house.
My lone quibble with Stephen Moyer as Old Jolyon is that his chemistry with Tuppence Middleton is so incandescent that I spent at least a few minutes in every episode actively wondering if they were being written with a romance of their own in mind. (That’s not the case so far, but since The Forsytes has already been renewed for another two seasons, and the series does take liberties with some aspects of the novels and previous adaptations, who knows what romantic intrigue awaits us?!)
As if Young Jolyon’s looks and grooming were not puzzling enough, he spends most of this season openly taunting the audience with a game of will he or won’t he…wear a collar and tie? I couldn’t identify a consistent motivation for his decisions at all. Work, home, out riding, visiting Louisa, meeting Bosinney (Jamie Flatters) at his club? There’s no through-line, and he’s way too unpredictable! If it were a case of “I can tell you jerks all think I’m betraying my wedding vows; well, I’m not, but I’ll give you something to talk about, all right!” I’d get it, but he’s so inconsistent that I can’t explain it at all.
Weirder still, nobody seems to comment on it, even though it would have been a big faux pas at work. I hope we’ll learn in the second season that Young Jolyon has sensory sensitivity to collars, ties, and cravats, and is leveraging his high status at the firm to set a positive example and start healthy conversations about how the fashion of the day may not suit everyone. Orrrr maybe it’s just an unsubtle reminder that The Forsytes is about how The Old Ways or The Way Things Have Always Been, As Far As We Know actually do have to change for humanity to grow and thrive. Either way, I’m keen to know!
Philip Bosinney: What If Hats, But Too Much?
Young Jolyon’s whimsicality is nothing, however, when compared with Bosinney’s choice of hat, and we must discuss it. What in the Ben Franklin and/or Davy Crockett-alluding nonsense is this? Whether it’s raccoon or marten fur, it is a bizarre choice, even for a young iconoclast. He seems to wear it during totally unsuitable-for-fur-accessories weather – it’s clearly warm enough that he doesn’t need a coat, so he’s just…out here, strolling around London in his one suit and Davy Crockett hat? I love free thinking, but this is more like unhinged thinking.
Now that I think of it, though, that makes Bossinney’s hat perfect.
The Forsytes Season 2 will premiere in 2027. Season 1 is currently streaming on the PBS app, PBS Passport, and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel. Season 3 is already greenlit.
