Gladys wants to Live Her Own Life – Her Mother has Other Grand Plans
Gladys Russell: Taissa Farmiga
Costume Designer: Kasia Walicka-Maimone
The third season of “The Gilded Age” premiered summer 2025. It picks up six months after season two closes, roughly in early spring of 1884.
Season three finds Gladys in an extensional battle with her mother, Bertha. Gladys wants to marry for love and her father, George, and her brother, Larry, are on her side. However Bertha is determined for her to marry Hector Vere, The Duke of Buckingham.
This dynamic of Gladys’ marriage is the cause for much of the drama for the members of The Russell’s family as both Larry and George feel betrayed by Bertha’s ruthless at the cost of her family’s happiness and their desires for their lives and well-being over social standings.
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Gladys’s Season Three Costumes
As Gladys has matured so have her fashions. While she doesn’t dress like doll anymore her fashion sense is still being dressed by people who think they know best. However Gladys does favors florals, unusual color combinations, lace, and even plaids. She is trying to step-up to become the woman that she knows she can be and tries to take charge of her life despite being managed.
This is a ranked list of Gladys’ 10 Best Costumes from Season Three of “The Gilded Age.” The costumes were ranked by aesthetics, memorability and how well they reflect Gladys as a character. Also there is an honorable mention.
This ranked list tries to be as objective as possible but subjective opinions can get in the way.
List Subject to Change
Spoilers through Season Three
10. Burgundy and Floral Outfit
A big spoiler yet that was very much expected from the end of season two was Gladys’ marriage to Hector Vere the Duke of Buckingham. For an American gaining an aristocratic title was the one thing they couldn’t get without get without a marriage. So Bertha arranging Gladys to marry a Duke was the ultimate social checkmate. However she also wants Gladys to be a leading figure of her times and to be allowed to use her intelligences as more than just a another New York City banker’s wife.
While Gladys is very unhappy with this union by the end of the season she is happy with her husband and her life as a Duchess. Despite the fiction her marriage causes her parents at the very end of season three Gladys happily announces that she is expecting a baby.
Her final outfit of season three features a purplish dark red bodice layered over a white floral dress. The bodice has silk pleated collar with pleated sleeves. The floral dress has peonies and other smaller blooms.
It’s a striking look that combines her love of purple tones and florals but it’s more refined and elegant reflecting the ease the Newport setting and her station as a The Duchess of Buckingham.
9. Blue and Ivory Lace Evening Gown
Gladys trades one opinionated matriarch for another in her new sister-in-law Sarah. Sarah has been running things at Sidmouth for a long while and doesn’t want to relinquish her position as the lady of the house. At dinner when Sarah tries to decide when the women goes through Gladys makes it clear that she now outranks Sarah as the Duchess and Sarah must wait for her to call the shots.
While only the top of this gown is seen its lovey combination of dark blue and white lace. Some of the discourse surrounding the costumes in The Gilded Age is the fabric quality. However the lace of this gown is looks pretty good. The color combination is also very chic.
Gladys looks elegant and commanding which is perfect for one of the standout scenes in the show. This scene feels like throwback to Downton Abbey which is great.
8. Blue Opera Gown
At the end of season two Gladys meets a young banker named Billy Carlton. By the beginning of season three Gladys is in love with Billy and wants to marry him. Bertha however is conspiring a match with the Duke. The marriage negotiations fall apart when the Duke tries to get more money which George is not willing to grant so teh deal falls apart much to Bertha’s dismay and Gladys’ delight. While at the opera it seems like the Duke is on the hunt for a new heiress, much to the relief of Gladys.
Gladys’ opera dress is blue with a ruffled collar and short sleeves with a lighter sheer blue ruffled sleeves. It might be consider a frothy girlish dress but it suits Gladys and is cohesive in its design. Demure yet charming and the blue color suits her very nicely.
7. Newport Ball Gown
As scandal engulfs Mrs. Astor’s daughter, she pulls out of hosting the end of the season Newport Ball. Thus the hosting of the Ball falls to Bertha. Despite raising issues in the Russell household, Bertha is determined to showcase her family as a strong united front.
The season three finale has two balls, Bertha’s end of season ball and The Newport Black community’s Ball hosted by the prominent Kirkland family. For Bertha’s Newport Ball she illuminates it with electricity. The thought behind the ball is that the guests wear more saturated colors like jewel tones. Whereas the Kirkland ball is softer and the guest wear pastles as it’s lit with candles.
Gladys and Hector travel from England to attend. At this point in their marriage Gladys is happy is either starting to or is already in love with her husband. Despite finding happiness in her marriage, the marriage has caused a rift between George and Larry against Bertha.
Gladys’ ball gown is shades of blue. It has muted blue lace sleeves and bustle. The bodice is more a shock of bright teal. The combination is an intriguing yet pretty. The colors work for Gladys and the style of the ball.
She wears an impressive pearl necklace.
She looks every bit a young charming duchess.
6. Floral Evening Gown
In an effort to ruin Gladys’ chances with Billy, Bertha threatens their future together. Billy ends with Gladys right when Hector visits the Russells.
When Billy breaks things off with Gladys, she is dressed for dinner in an evening gown. Her gown is combination of white and purple floral material with lace yoke, sleeves and ruffle at the shoulders. The neck collar is made from the floral material.
It’s pretty and very much to Gladys’ style as it’s charming, demure, floral and with hints of purple.
5. Newport Striped Dress
Gladys and Hector arrive in Newport for Bertha’s ball. As Gladys arrives at the Russell’s “Newport Cottage” she looks very nautical and fashionable, perfect for the setting. Her outfit is a blue toned striped dress with a dark navy blue cropped jacket and a white lace ascot and bustle like drape.
It’s very chic and perfect for Newport. Gotta love the Newport fashions of The Gilded Age.
4. The Portrait Gown
Unbeknownst to Gladys, Bertha commissions a wedding portrait of Gladys. The portrait is painted by John Singer Sargent. Bertha’s intent is for the portrait to capture Gladys’ youth as pretty yet complicated, as dark and light with hint of what’s to come in her future.
For her portrait she wears white lace gown with come pleated gathers on the bodice. A green sash gives the look a pop of color.
She also wears a pearl chocker that family is not knotted like a traditional pearl necklace should be but it breaking was for drama and reflecting how Gladys feels that she has no control over her own life.
The costume design was inspired by the dress that Emiliana Concha de Ossa wore in a portrait by Giovanni Boldini.
It’s a very pretty gown that balances Gladys’ youth with her future status as a duchess despite how Gladys feels about the match.
3. Floral Garden Dress
While Gladys and Bertha are based on Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt in terms of an over-bearing mother who forces her daughter to marry a member of the British aristocracy against her wishes, Gladys also take inspiration from another “Dollar Princess.” According to show creator, Julian Fellows, Gladys also takes inspiration from Mary Goelet, the Duchess of Roxburghe who had a happy marriage.
Gladys and Hector do enjoy a happy marriage. It also should be noted that Hector was smitten with Gladys when he first met her back in season 2 at Bertha’s Newport dinner in his honor. Gladys and Hector are in effect the reverse of Downton Abbey’s Robert and Cora where Cora, the dollar princess, first fell in love with Robert, the noble, and he fell in love with her after they were married.
This is all to say that Gladys more or less first becomes of aware that Hector felt more for her prior to their wedding when they are out walking in the garden and he makes mention of the color of her the flowers on her dress being similar to the color of her gown that she wore to the opening of MET Opera house.
Her dress in this scene is gorgeous. It was based on a fashion plate. This dress is a long sleeved, high necked white day dress with a sheer floral pattern fabric layered over a while material. It has ruffle tulle trim at the shoulders and hemline. The bodice is softly draped adding to the romance of the outfit. Also adding to overall romance of the look is a swag of the floral fabric which is sheer that is draped off the back of the dress adding a hint of neoclassical drama.
She styles it with a matching hat and white lace parasol.
It’s a lovely combination of youth and elegance, with colors suiting Gladys so well to the point where Hector calls back to previous costumes of her which strength their relationship a little bit more.
2. Winter Walking Outfit
Season three opens with snow in early spring in New York. Gladys uses the snow as an excuse to see Billy Carlton unbeknownst to her mother.
Her winter outfit is teal floral pattern with a gray base coat-dress. The waist sashes also gray only slightly darker and shiner than the coat-dress material. She wears it with a white fur caplet with a standing collar. She has a matching muff.
She wears a matching white hat with teal flowers.
This entire ensemble looks soft and romantic as if she step out of an oil painting.
1. The Wedding Gown
A key scene in season three is Gladys’ wedding to The Duke of Buckingham, Hector Vere. Bertha arranged the marriage leveraging Hector’s need for money to maintain his estate and properties with the clout Gladys would gain from being a Duchess. Bertha rationalizes the match as being for Gladys’ benefit as the mate would grant Gladys an interesting life as more than the wife of a New York banker ever could and Bertha thinks that they are well suited to each other.
While Gladys is not enthusiastic about the union her wedding gown is very impressive and opulent. It was inspired by Consuelo Vanderbilt’s wedding gown however Consuelo’s wedding gown was decade later than the time period of this series so Gladys’ wedding favors the style of the 1880s though through a modern lens. Though perhaps the sheer neckline and sleeves are more reflective of Bertha’s nouveau riche garish sense of style that she pushes on the Gladys’ wardrobe.
Gładys’ gown is a formal day dress. Canonically it was made by Madame Donovan, a real-life American dressmaker of the period. The gown is made from a n ivory silk brocade. The bodice and hips has chevron pleated. The high neckline and the long sleeves are made from a lace appliqué tulle which gives it more modern look. The neckline also has flowers sewn at one side.
There are many flowers sewn on at the hip, the skirt and the very long train. Her veil is also quite long and very impressive.
She wears a tiara, pearl earring and necklace. While she looks lovely and ever the picture of a rich debutante about to be an influential duchess the whole affair has an air sadness which is reflect in the ephemeral nature of the gown.
This costume was by Tirelli Trappetti.
It’s also impressive that canonically Gladys and her maids get this gown on in ten minutes.
Honorable Mention : Blue Plaid Dress
After Gladys marries Hector she move to England. As she arrive at her home at Sidmouth Castle she wears a cute blue plaid outfit which includes a matching coat. This costume was inspired by a fashion plate.
More Gladys Russell Costume Rankings
- Gladys’ 7 Best Costumes from Season 1 of The Gilded Age
- Gladys’ 5 Best Costumes from Season 2 of The Gilded Age
