Here’s How Designers Brought Victorian New York City to Opulent, Over-the-Top Life
The latest episode of HGTV’s behind-the-scenes YouTube series HGTV On Set With just might be its splashiest yet. We sat down with production designer Bob Shaw and set decorator Lisa Scoppa of HBO’s The Gilded Age — which launched into its all-new second season on Oct. 29 — to learn how they immerse audiences in the more-is-more spaces and historic design vocabulary of wealthy New York society in the 1800s. Their work includes everything from emptying and redecorating landmarked spaces to communicating via ultra-specific decor cues since, for the Victorians, flowers, fringes and even fork placement could speak volumes about the people that shared space with them. Those design elements showcase wealth and influence, hint at where it comes from and reveal what characters are trying to accomplish with it.
Working with that visual vocabulary doesn’t always mean replicating how well-heeled Victorians decorated their homes, mind you. “We have to give the impression of the period and not get in the way,” Bob explains. “I say that about wallpaper all the time: ‘It pops out too much, and you need to pull it back and always keep actors the main event.’” It does mean that Bob and Lisa are always trying to outdo themselves. “Generally the marching orders for Season Two were to top Season One,” he says. “Partially it makes sense because that’s what Bertha [Russell, a character whose family represents “new money”] would be doing. She got her foot in the door [of fashionable society] and now she has to make sure that people know that she’s a force to be reckoned with.”
