Violet’s Makeover, Pirate Penelope & A Madcap Masked Ball: Bridgerton’s Costume Designer Answers Our Burning Season 4 Questions

Bridgerton’s glorious fourth season opens with a spectacular masked ball. In a goosebump-inducing montage, we see all our favourite characters putting the finishing touches to their costumes: Claudia Jessie’s Eloise Bridgerton as a shimmering Joan of Arc; Ruth Gemmell as her mother, Lady Violet Bridgerton, dressed as an enchanting Titania, the queen of the fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream; her son, Luke Newton’s Colin, in his pirate gear; his new wife, Nicola Coughlan’s Penelope, in her matching get-up; and Adjoa Andoh’s Lady Danbury as a gilded Zeus. Then, we catch a glimpse of a captivating stranger in a bejewelled silver mask. She looks quietly excited, but also incredibly nervous.

This is Sophie Baek (the luminous Yerin Ha), this new instalment’s leading lady – a maid to the steely widow Lady Araminta Gun (Katie Leung), who also happens to be her stepmother. When the latter and her daughters, the snarky Rosamund (Michelle Mao) and hapless Posy (Isabella Wei), slink off to the ball, Sophie borrows a sparkly dress, puts on a mask she had been sewing for one of her stepsisters, and follows them in secret. There, while admiring the general splendour, she catches the eye of Luke Thompson’s Benedict Bridgerton, the second son who is still yet to be married. But, at midnight, she rushes off – and Benedict, swept off his feet, becomes determined to track down this mysterious beauty.

Later in the season, when he is aided by a resourceful maid – one who, out of necessity, borrows some of his sisters’ dresses while staying at his country house – he doesn’t realise that she and the Lady in Silver are one and the same.

Costuming it all – from Sophie’s unforgettable showstopper and her reserved uniforms, to Benedict’s rakish suiting, Araminta, Rosamund and Posy’s all-out glamour, and Violet’s shift to a softer, more sensual look, as she falls for Lady Danbury’s brother, Lord Anderson (Daniel Francis) – is John Glaser. The Emmy-winning costume designer, who was also behind last season’s elaborate looks and previously collaborated with Ellen Mirojnick on season one’s wardrobe, too, has outdone himself yet again.

Ahead of the first half of season four dropping on Netflix on 29 January, Glaser and his junior designer, Henry Wilkinson, talk us through Benedict’s Shakespeare in Love-inspired aesthetic, taking style cues from Anna Wintour, and the young Bridgerton slowly emerging as one to watch.

I know that you like to make every season of Bridgerton slightly distinct – in season three, it was all about layering fabrics to create a softer, almost blurry look. What makes season four different?

John Glaser: Well, this season was dictated by the fact that it takes place in the autumn. Bridgerton’s always been in the spring or summer, so this time, we went to warmer tones. Last time, the palette was like a flower garden where the colours were blurred. Now, in the autumn, the colours are a little sharper and heightened, and we wanted to get rid of contrast. So, we’ve eliminated the colour white. Even the men’s shirts are all pastel colours now. And we don’t use black much – we use navy. A lot of hues are mixed together. We’re not setting the clothes against a bright green lawn this time – it’s against warmer coloured leaves.

The most important look in this season is Sophie’s silver ball gown. What went into creating it?

JG: In the book [Julia Quinn’s An Offer from a Gentleman], that dress was from the attic and is an older style. We looked at what period that would be, and it just didn’t make any sense for us to do that. So, we decided that the dress was from a cousin of hers, so it could be a little more current and not an old dusty dress. And it had to look good on her. And her mask had to be beautiful but also big, and hide her face – her cheeks and eyes – so that Benedict couldn’t tell who she was. It also had to look like she’d made it herself, because she was making it for her sister. It had to do multiple jobs, including feeling integrated into the rest of the masquerade ball.

Henry Wilkinson: It was about finding the balance between it being light and delicate and pretty, but also opaque enough to hide her.

JG: We started off with a very translucent mask, but that didn’t work. With the dress, there are layers of fabric and sparkle. You’re not really sure what period it is or where it’s come from. She’s the only one in silver – that’s how she stands out, but we didn’t want her to be over the top, otherwise she’d look like she wasn’t part of the ton. The dress had to be enchanting, sexy, mysterious, and old but not old. It’s just that the Jimmy Choos give it away. That’s not period. [Laughs.]

For much of the rest of the season, we see Sophie in her maid uniform, and also borrowed dresses from Benedict’s sisters. How did you work to make her stand out, despite that?

JG: She actually wears a lot of old clothes from Daphne’s closet from season one. Our season one looks are very different compared to our wardrobe now – those dresses are much simpler, more Regency.

As for her maid uniforms, because she’s working in specific homes, they are like what the other maids wear, but we’ve used fabrics that are a little more luxurious, which actual maids wouldn’t wear. If she wore an actual traditional maid’s outfit the whole time, it’d be very sad. If you look at the maids’ outfits in Bridgerton, none of them are truly maids’ outfits. At the very end, Sophie does get to wear an evening dress, something of her own, but it’s based on the dress she got out of the trunk. We don’t quite know who she is yet, visually speaking. Her real clothing is very simple, so we don’t define her character yet. Benedict doesn’t know who she is. We’re finding out who she is, so we can’t give things away.

Coming onto Benedict, how is he styled for his leading man moment?

JG: There’s something a bit Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love about him. Because we’ve gone forward in time a little bit in the show, the men’s silhouette has become softer and a little more open. And Benedict specifically, we’ve pushed him into the future a bit so that he’s not as restricted as the other men on the show. He’s discovering this whole new world – he’s no longer going after debutantes, so we’ve opened him up to accept this new world.

And Araminta – she’s a widow, but her clothes are stunningly detailed and glamorous.

JG: We didn’t want people to think of her wearing black because she’s evil – she’s not evil, she’s just misunderstood. We don’t really know where she’s from, she feels separate from the rest of the ton. Her shape and silhouette aren’t Regency – it’s a little 1820 mixed with 1970. We gave her as much texture and subtle sparkle as possible – it’s like this reflective shield that she’s wearing, it’s her armour. She has a stronger silhouette than other characters and we never see her skin.

HW: The brief that we got at the very start from showrunner Jess [Brownell] was that she’s almost like Anna Wintour in personality. She wears a uniform. But then, later, when you see her shoe closet, Jess was quite keen on the shoes not being all black. There are different colours in there, pinks, reds, purples – a subtle hint to a more eccentric style. It’s not all sober. And she wears black in a striking way.

JG: Anna, when you see her walking down the street, you know right away who she is. You’re not afraid of her, but you’re going to respect her. You see her coming and you better be ready. She’s a strong person.

I am also obsessed with Rosamund and Posy’s fashion.

JG: With them, we started with fabrics. In one scene, they’re wearing the same fabric – one is actually wearing the back side of the fabric. We flipped it. One is a softer character, and the other is harder. We’re slowly moving into 1820, so we’ve pushed these characters forward – they’re the first characters that we could make fashion forward, like their mother, too. Once we thought of their mother as Anna Wintour, we thought, she’s dressed them for the ton. Their modiste wouldn’t be the same as the Bridgertons’.

Our references were from all over the place – from period to the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. We looked at a lot of Lilli Ann suits – there’s something sculptural and tailored about their clothes. The colours might be soft, but the shapes are still hard. From their silhouettes, there’s no question that they’re the daughters of Araminta.

The masked ball is packed with incredible looks. Which were your favourites?

JG: The theme of the ball was “Midnight in a Woodland Forest”, inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Violet Bridgerton is Titania, the queen of the fairies. Lady Danbury and her brother are both Zeus.

HW: I love Eloise as Joan of Arc. That fits her character so well.

And Rosamund is Marie Antoinette – so she’s wearing the queen’s famous necklace. And Posy is a mermaid – very soft and pretty. They’re strong costumes, as Araminta would have ensured.

And what’s going on with Penelope’s Napoleon hat?

JG: She’s a pirate!

HW: She and Colin are both pirates. The fans loved “pirate Colin” in season three, so that was the impetus. This is their couple’s costume. And then we also have the Mondriches as Anthony and Cleopatra.

JG: With that scene, at first, it was Lady Bridgerton’s ball, so we thought it was going to be all lavenders and blues, but that’d look like a cult scene [laughs]. So, we scratched that and came up with the theme. We looked at balls at the time, and people dressed really eclectically, so we decided to put everything we possibly could in there. It didn’t really matter what period it was, just as long as it looked fantastic. But, we did try to make the principal characters stand out from the crowd.

JG: With that scene, at first, it was Lady Bridgerton’s ball, so we thought it was going to be all lavenders and blues, but that’d look like a cult scene [laughs]. So, we scratched that and came up with the theme. We looked at balls at the time, and people dressed really eclectically, so we decided to put everything we possibly could in there. It didn’t really matter what period it was, just as long as it looked fantastic. But, we did try to make the principal characters stand out from the crowd.

HW: Lady Bridgerton’s Titania was lovely as well, because it’s a chance to do something a bit softer with her.

JG: As the season goes on, she becomes sexier, softer, more open. She looks beautiful.

Can I also ask you about Hyacinth? She feels suddenly all grown up this season.

HW: She’s definitely maturing as a character, and you get the sense that she’s maybe being more assertive about what she’s ordering from the modiste. It’s soft, romantic, still girly, but…

JG: She’s growing into herself. She’s no longer a child. She’s dying to be a debutante, though she’s too young, so she’s a little over the top sometimes, more than you’ve seen her before. She’s not quite sophisticated enough yet, and her mother is letting her experiment a little bit.

And are there any other characters that you loved dressing this season?

JG: Another key character comes back in the second part of the season, one who we love to dress. That’s all I’ll say.

Bridgerton season four’s first four episodes will drop on 29 January, with the next four following on 26 February.

This article was originally published on British Vogue.