The White Queen

Hell hath no fury like an armchair historian who's spotted mascara in the court of Edward IV or incorrect kirtle-usage. Yet producers who insist on slavish accuracy risk repelling viewers and sabotaging their chances of selling the rights to anywhere other than a fetish US cable channel. British Teeth are bad enough. Medieval British Teeth are traumatic.
I'm conflicted about those zips - mainly because I'd been so busy admiring the slenderising silhouettes (hand of Sarah Burton at McQueen?) and minimalist aesthetic (Jil Sander?) that I hadn't noticed them.

"That's because there aren't any," a slightly wary-sounding Nic Ede, the veteran costume designer (Bright Young Things, Wilde, Far fthe Madding Crowd, Nanny McPhee) behind those graceful Guinevere frocks, tells me. "Of course we wouldn't use zips. There are hooks and eyes, which are historically correct. But there's a lot of sex in the first episode and if the cameras had honed in on the hooks and eyes it would have taken poor Edward 10 minutes to get Elizabeth Woodville's clothes off."
Did you notice how I conflated 10 centuries when I referred to Guinevere? She's fifth century. The Woodvilles are 15th. That was my homage to the art of successful period costuming. The best designers have always blended various eras to arrive at a distilled essence - preferably a single memorable one which, they hope, is somehow truthful.
For the record, the ermine-trimmed gown Elizabeth wears once she's crowned queen is fairly authentic, with 10 metres of brocade which, Ede estimates, weighed several kilos. After the first day's shoot Rebecca Ferguson, the actress playing Elizabeth, had to go to the osteopath, so he made her a lighter replica. As for the delectable pale pink woollen dress Elizabeth wears, Ede promises he wasn't influenced by the catwalk, even though that pink is the shade for autumn. "I'm not really a follower of fashion," he says. "I'm much more interested in fashion history."
If the linens, silks, laces and ringlets in The White Queen are true to period ("I'm certain they had some form of hot curling tongs," maintains Ede), purists should prepare themselves for disturbing scenes when bras are worn, to "preserve the elongating line". However, wimples and henins - a steepled form of headwear that would probably prove fatally distracting to modern viewers - are conspicuous by their absence. "Directors hate any kind of head pieces because they obscure the face and block light," says Ede.

Plucked foreheads, which were also big in 1465, are another stylistic no-no. And yes, Ede took liberties with the men, dressing them in long boots, padded trousers and longer tunics than were usually worn. The shorter tunics, big breeches and curl-toed slippers of the time wouldn't have provided the same Mr Darcy moment.
The lack of contemporary domestic detail from 1465 allows for both freedom and vociferous disagreement. No clothes survive and portraits, lacking in technical perspective, don't provide a complete story. What we do know is that no one would have looked quite as Timotei-clean as The White Queen cast. "The hems on those trains were filthy by the end of each day's filming," sighs Ede. "But TV has a habit of sanitising everything."
Despite the carping, he and his team of six have come up with some highly enjoyable eye candy - and dressed a cast of 1,000 for £200,000 - a brilliant job. His next project, The Thirteenth Tale , is set from the Forties to early Sixties, with a tiny cast and "no crowd scenes". Even on a rainy day in Leeds, where he's speaking to me from his bed with a head-cold, the relief in his voice is palpable.