Historical Correlations in Dishonored

I've seen multiple sources talk about Dishonored as taking place in an industrial society, and I completely agree, but I think that the costumes the characters wear have correlations to historical clothing in other eras as well.

Hiram Burrows Chain of Office

I will admit that I spent the whole torture cutscene freaking out over the fact that it looked like he was wearing a modified version of a chain of office-itself a type of neck order. These served as a formal indicator of the wearer's rank, they are still in (rare) use today, as part of ceremonial wear.

Lady Boyle's Hat
It;s so Edwardian. It has the wide brim that was popular in the early 1900s. False flowers were often part of a hat's decoration, along with feathers, ribbons, and generally anything else they could put on it. I actually quite like the roses on either side of the head, as they remind me of the way the sides of a woman's hair would be visible under the brim of the hat.

Side note here: If you think about it, the Edwardian hat served a similar purpose as the 18th century French pouf hairstyle; it could have almost anything on it, and did express the wearer's sensibilities.

Corvo's Gorget

The big metal looking thing around his neck is called a gorget. This was a collar worn around the neck to protect the space between the helmet and breastplate (aka a person's neck where their head is attached-unfortunately Corvo's is being worn low enough that it isn't doing any good). 

During the 18th century the gorget became a ceremonial/uniform piece. It was commonly a crescent shape with engraving. By the end of the 19th century they were no longer a part of military uniform in most western countries. The only big exception of the 20th century was the Nazis(read into that what you will), the military police wore gorgets as part of their uniform.

Interestingly enough: gorgets-in the original armour function-are coming back into use by modern militaries, with the design being attached and integrated into ballistic protection.

City Watch Officer Helmets

They look like the German Pickelhaube Helmets worn until WWI. The helmets were originally made out of leather, which offered basically no protection against shells, and the spiked finial made the wearer an easy target. In 1916 during the Verdun campaign the Stahlhelm was introduced.

Collars+Cravats on Society men

Using Pendleton because he's easy to find screencaps of

If you look at the collars of the high society male characters they all have the tall starched collars that were common during the regency era. It also looks-to me-like he's wearing a sort of abbreviation or variation of a cravat. Though most were white, there is evidence of other colours being worn.

LET ME PREFACE THIS BY SAYING THAT I AM JEWISH, SO PLEASE DO NOT HASSLE ME FOR "TALKING ABOUT THINGS I DON'T KNOW ABOUT" OR BEING AN ANTI-SEMITE

Sokolov the Stereotypical "evil jew"

I mean just look at him vs Nazi propaganda

It's terrifyingly similar. Also, the other characters in the game are ALWAYS bringing up the fact that he's a foreigner-aka not "one of us." 

I don't know if this was intentional (I really hope it wasn't) but it definitely made me uncomfortable.


Well, that ended on a controversial note. I'd love to hear what anyone actually reading this thinks.
Thanks for visiting.