So, Season Three of the Tudors is starting. I know this because I saw this ad:

And. Um.

“Bad costumes, and some Fassbender Syndrome.”

Okay, so! From the bottom up:

Mary Tudor: It looks like a prom gown from 2008 (quilting was inexplicably huge last year, I don’t even know what to say) with an upholstery sample stapled to the back. Oookay.

Jane Seymour: Um.

Just saying.

Henry VIII: no puffy breeches, and pirate boots instead of hose, but about 75% accurate.

Ursula, Henry’s mistress: Forgot to take off her outfit during lunch, spilled salsa on her bodice, and made an emergency stop at Hot Topic on the way to the shoot for a corset top, hoping no one would notice.

Okay, I have my own issues with this series, but the costuming is a separate level of hell, here.

I do not understand how simply bad turns into laughably awful (Ursula, I am looking at you!). Even more strangely, there are moments of accuracy that are wildly misguided for reasons I don’t understand, where people try hard!…and get it absolutely wrong.

This is Anne of Cleves. She’s wearing some German Renaissance:

(Her headdress is courtesy of Princess Susan Sarandon from Children of Dune.)

This is a more accurate use of the German Renaissance then the last time I saw it, but only because Anne of Cleves was from Sort-of-Around-There-onia. Mostly it’s like showing up to a Napoleonic gala in your Marie Antoinette costume.

The dress is twenty years old; by the time Anne came to Henry’s court, she was wearing this:

Which is…different!

But hey, they get another shot at it with her wedding dress, right?

Oh man, where do I even start?

1. NO CHEMISE. They have netted, skintight undersleeves on this thing, just to prove to me that there is no chemise under this dress. Well, I hate you too, show, so there.

2. The girl on the left is so half-assedly dressed it might actually be a leftover from The Other Boleyn Girl.

3. The women on the right are sort of Cleves-ian, except that with the low necklines and the lack of sleeve detail, they end up looking like refugees from Renaissance Italy.

So it’s three different countries and/or time periods in a single photo, all executed poorly. I totally get why Anne is crying, you guys.

Though she still made out better than some.

Look, I just. I have no comment, okay? If they don’t understand by now that this is wrong, then there is nothing I can do.

I think they just spent all their costume energy on the dudes.

Before I say anything, let’s just take a look at a portrait of Henry VIII from around this era:

What Henry and company are wearing are either under-armor doublets (check out the leather spiral sleeve on Henry) or middle-class silhouettes in sparkly fabrics. He’s clearly more portrait-accurate in the first promo still, but I know just enough about men’s dress to guess that they probably had more causal stuff in the wardrobe than what they wore for Picture Day. So, I give it a pass, even though Henry was a huge clotheshorse and would probably never dream of wearing something that didn’t have silk tufting out all over.

Also, no hose. I understand this one, since trying to make puffy breeches and hose badass only works if you are Christopher Eccleston in Elizabeth, and even if it might not have been the choice of the upper classes, but at least boots existed. If you must get rid of something, I’d rather it be hose than chemises, PEOPLE WHO MAKE MOVIES.

I also dig the relative austerity of Cromwell’s getup.

Actually, I just dig Cromwell, since they hired one of my imaginary boyfriends, James Frain, to play him, which is the only way I might possibly ever watch this show. HI JAMES! I’ve loved you since Prime Suspect 3! I even watched that horrible movie with Natalie Portman as a Southern teen mother, just to see you. And, uh, that was a mistake, James. I hope rent was due, because seriously.

To conclude: historical costuming is an often-overlooked I LIKE JAMES FRAIN I FEEL HE IS A GOOD ACTOR THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME.