Examples of Gorgeous Period Dress in live-action TV.
- And the Winner is Love: All over the place, as expected of a Chinese period drama. Highlights include Xue Zhi's red hanfu
◊ and Shangguan Tou's outfits. - Angel whenever it featured a Darla flashback. Julie Benz described her as a character that always dressed to the height of whatever fashion was in at the time. When she first sires Angel, she has an elaborate 18th-century gown and curled hair. When Spike is sired, she's briefly shown in Victorian fashion. And during the Boxer Rebellion, it's fancy kimonos. Even more impressive since, according to Buffy, vampires normally have terrible fashion sense.
- Another Period takes place in upper-crust Providence, RI, circa 1902. So all the high-society ladies are predictably dressed to the nines. Subverted by the central characters (spoiled attention-whore sisters Lillian and Beatrice), who manage to make their elegant gowns look cheap and tacky.
- The 1998 HBO TV-movie Café Society uses this trope extensively to show the actresses in opulent evening dresses appropriate to the time period (the early 1950's) throughout about two-thirds of the film.
- Period pieces in Doctor Who tend to fall under this as it's what The BBC does best. Some notable examples:
- Barbara's Aztec goddess clothes in "The Aztecs" — gold jewellery, flowing robes, and an orange feathered headdress.
- Vicki's gown in "The Crusade".
- "The Massacre" puts Mr. Fanservice Steven in absolutely stunning velvet doublet-and-hose, with even a cape. Peter Purves wished it had become his character's Iconic Outfit rather than the rather tacky striped polo neck he'd worn in "The Celestial Toymaker" — unfortunately for him, even the telesnaps of that particular Missing Episode have been lost and only a few promo pics of him in it remain.
- The Doctor swapping his usual early-Victorian clothes for late Victorian clothes in "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" to magnificent effect — an Inverness cape with a brightly-coloured green paisley lining, a dark red velvet blazer with orange polka dots, a black velvet waistcoat with orange flowers, a butterfly collar shirt, black ankle boots with grey spats and grey silk gloves — and no scarf, for the first and only time. A huge amount of thought went into the outfit as it was originally intended to become his permanent outfit, but the regime change that occurred after that season led to the Doctor returning to his usual clothes.
- An unusual example can be seen in "The Girl in the Fireplace" — gorgeous period dresses on gorgeous period robots.
- And although Changed My Jumper is the usual rule for companions as well as the Doctor, Clara Oswald bustles about in a bustle dress in "Deep Breath" (as does her Victorian London version while posing as a governess in "The Snowmen").
- Madam Vastra and Jenny Flint also wear gorgeous period dresses at times in several of their appearances.
- General and I: It would be easier to list the costumes that aren't this. Highlights include Ping Ting's pink hanfu◊, these costumes◊, Yao Tian's costumes, and Bei Jie and Ping Ting's coronation outfits◊.
- Goodbye My Princess: All over the place, on both men and women. Since it's set during a fictional dynasty, the costumes stand out even among the Gorgeous Period Dress of other historical Chinese dramas. Highlights include Xiao Feng's Xizhou and Li costumes, Xiao Feng's and Cheng Yin's wedding outfits◊, and Cheng Yin's black hanfu.
- In Hart to Hart, Natalie Wood has a cameo as an actress wearing a period dress. She's on a day off and walks around on on movie set.
- Kingdom (2019) has the Queen's outfits, especially the one she wears in her final scene◊, and the plethora of historically-accurate hats.
- The King's Woman: Special mention goes to these costumes◊ and Gongsun Li's armour◊.
- The Legend of Xiao Chuo: All over the place, on both men and women. Take these costumes and Yan Yan's blue and gold costume◊ for example.
- The Longest Day in Chang'an takes advantage of its Tang Dynasty setting to put everyone in gorgeous and mostly historically-accurate costumes.
- Mad Men engages in this at the most recent time when it might be applicable: the early Sixties (really an extension of The '50s). All manner of high-fashion dresses (usually traditionalist, at times frighteningly avant-garde) for the women and impeccable tuxedos for the men appear at high-class functions, and sharp suits for both sexes at work combine with that era's hairstyles (if your hair doesn't have chemicals in it, you're living in the past!) for a picture of '60s New York that makes it clear exactly what 40-50 years can do to a country. Alas, all of it reeks of cigarette smoke (which, admittedly, is Truth in Television).
- See also the 2003 French TV miniseries of Dangerous Liaisons starring Catherine Deneuve and Leelee Sobieski, updating the story to the late 1950s/early 1960s. Deneuve in particular is wearing haute couture which is that period's very definition of Gorgeous Period Dress.
- The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel milks this for all its worth by having Midge and Rose dress in peak '50s and '60s couture, befitting their upper-middle-class Upper-West-Side sensibilities. They tend to draw attention to this in-universe by having Susie remark about how unnecessarily fancy Midge's outfits are (although "fancy" is relative with Susie).
- Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries devotes a lot of attention to Phryne's gorgeous Roaring Twenties outfits (although she doesn't spurn dressing dingy if she needs to go undercover).
- Moon Lovers has many gorgeous Goryeo-era costumes. Take this costume of Ha-jin's◊, for example.
- Murdoch Mysteries is very clean for 1895 Toronto. While many of the characters are middle- or upper-class, they still really shouldn't be that pristine.
- On The Musketeers, which takes place in 17th century Paris (like the novels it's based on), this trope is usually true for high-class women, in particular Queen Anne and Milady de Winter.
- My Country: The New Age has plenty of late-Goryeo/early-Joseon hanbok. Examples: Seon-ho's blue◊ and Hui-jae's pink◊ costumes.
- Nirvana in Fire: Like all Chinese period dramas the series has plenty of beautiful costumes. The Empress takes the cake◊ with her Cool Crown, while Jingyan, Nihuang and Mei Changsu are no slouches in the fashion department either.
- Princess Agents: Yuan Chun's blue◊ and red◊ costumes are just the start of this series' beautiful clothes.
- The Princess Wei Young: And how! Some examples: this red costume◊, this blue costume◊ and Xin Er wearing it◊, the costume Xin Er wears as empress◊, and this blue costume◊.
- Our Flag Means Death: As befits the "gentleman pirate" image he's trying to cultivate, Stede Bonnet◊ has an Unlimited Wardrobe of fancy frock coats and ruffles for days. Naturally, this makes his stick out like a hilarious sore thumb among the grubby band of regular pirates he hangs out with.
- Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story: Charlotte complains that the beautiful Georgian gown she's forced to wear is extremely uncomfortable.Charlotte: I am wearing Lyonnais silk, encrusted with Indian sapphires, working with overlay of 200-year-old lace. Apparently too much movement can cause the sapphires to shred the lace. If that were not enough, the gown sits atop a bespoke underpinning made of whalebone.[...]And because I must arrive on display, I am forced into a ludicrous gown so stylish that if I move too much, I might be sliced and stabbed to death by my undergarments.
- Queen for Seven Days has some very fancy costumes. Special mention goes to Lee Yung's feathered hat.
- Totally averted by Queen Mary and her ladies in waiting in Reign. What are those girls wearing anyway, consignment store prom dresses?note
- The HBO series Rome also combines this with The Dung Ages. The patrician dinner party will be wall-to-wall jeweled dresses and lavishly decorated togas, but if you're a member of the lower classes, prepare for burlap tunics and a generous layer of filth.
- This was historically accurate, if the filth of the poor was a bit over-exaggerated. The Romans believed in daily bathing and clean clothes. Slaves weren't expected to have expensive clothes but house slaves were expected to keep themselves clean, if only so that they wouldn't stink up the house. The average modern would be more comfortable in Caesar's Rome than in Regency England.
- Scholar Who Walks the Night has plenty of gorgeous Joseon-era costumes, especially Gwi's embroidered robe◊.
- The 2003 Italian TV miniseries Soraya, starring Anna Valle and based on the ill-fated romance and marriage of Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari and the Shah of Iran, positively drips this trope. Valle and the other leading actresses are dressed in stunning 1950s haute-couture dresses and gowns by Dior and other leading couturiers of the era.
- A feature of many shows by Bambú Producciones, but Gran Hotel, Velvet, and Alta Mar stand out.
- The Queen's Gambit: When heroine Beth starts making money from her Chess matches, she starts to dress in the most elegant high fashions of The '60s, while surrounded by (mostly) dapper men in tailored suits. This contrasts sharply with her childhood in an orphanage where she and the other girls where identical dour shifts.
