Bridgerton Season 4 Costume Thoughts

Another season of Bridgerton (2020-) has come and gone, so I figured I’d give y’all a chance to rant about it! Although costume-wise, I was surprised to find this one the least whack-a-doodle in a long while. Sure, the costumes still fit within the candy-colored, fantastical riff on Regency that is the Bridgerton worldview, but the designs were less extreme than the previous season. Surprising because S4’s costume designer is John Glaser, who is also listed as co-designer on seasons one and three.

But this time around, some of the major characters who usually wear super-ridiculous stuff aren’t there. The Featheringtons are absent except for Lady Portia (Polly Walker), who has a small role as Penelope and Colin’s live-in mother-in-law. And Cressida Cowper (Jessica Madsen) doesn’t appear until the very end, so her insane fashions are a lesser punctuation note on the show.

Much of the storyline focuses on the downstairs, so simple servant-wear is shown for the first time. The romance focuses on second son Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) falling in love with Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha), who works as a maid, so she spends most of the time in uniform.

The costume designer told Teen Vogue that the maid costumes were updated though:

“We did the maids completely. The Bridgerton ones. Because we knew that Sophie would have to wear one. She’s the leading lady. She has to look pretty. So the design was changed. No one would ever notice that there was a change. It’s very subtle. … Prettier neckline, a different fabric. But you wouldn’t notice is different.”

Likewise, simple hairstyles for the maids were considered, and everything had to be fashions that could reasonably done by themselves, as hair and makeup designer Nic Collins told InStyle:

“We really wanted to make these maids feel real, so we looked at a lot of braid work, which was the kind of basis of hairstyles for the Regency period.”

This series’ big costume moment is right at the beginning of the first episode — the Bridgertons host the seasons’ first ball, and it’s a masquerade theme. I was impressed! The main characters all got costumes that fit their personalities and looked slightly plausible for the period. But really, I just love a masquerade ball, so this didn’t disappoint. In Vogue, John Glaser described the ball:

“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.

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.

[Penelope] and Colin are both pirates. The fans loved ‘pirate Colin’ in Season 3, so that was the impetus. This is their couple’s costume. And then we also have the Mondriches as Anthony and Cleopatra.”

The ball is where Benedict and Sophie first meet, although he doesn’t know it’s her because she’s in disguise. That meant her masquerade costume was carefully considered to be dramatic and beautiful but not stand out as one specific character. The costume designer told Variety:

“You remember Cleopatra’s mask. You remember Joan of Arc. But can you describe what Sophie’s silver dress looked like? Not really. Silver. And that’s the idea — she is a little blurrier. You’re not really sure what it is over there.”

On Netflix, head milliner Sarah Blackmore talked about Sophie’s mask:

“It was a harder piece to work on because it had to do a lot more than the other masks. Obviously, the viewer wants to be able to understand who she is, but we want it to be believable that Benedict might not know.”

Because Benedict doesn’t recognize Sophie later when “meets” her again because she’s a maid, and in that Variety article, showrunner Jess Brownell admits:

“What we’re really relying on is the fact that class was such a major divide in that time period that even for someone like Benedict, who is fairly progressive, he just would never expect that the lady that he’s been looking for who he met at a ball would be a housemaid. The staff were essentially invisible during that period.”

Taking the Featheringtons place as semi-antagonists and wacky-fashion-wearers are Lady Araminta Gun (Katie Leung) and her daughters Rosamund (Michelle Mao) and Posy (Isabella Wei).

Araminta always wears black, which the costume designer explained in Vogue:

“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 armor. She has a stronger silhouette than other characters and we never see her skin.”

Her daughters are dressed in big, ostentatious styles, which John Glaser also described in Vogue:

“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. 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’.”

I said Cressida doesn’t show up till the end, but when she does, ugh, she’s back in all her weird-dress glory:

This costume was fascinating and horrifying, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off it. So I guess it did its job? In Teen Vogue, the costume designer said of the new Lady Cressida Penwood:

“Every look of hers is fun and unique. She’s a challenge because we don’t see her that much. And you use the word ‘style,’ and I always say a costume designer has the luxury of having scripts and time to develop a character through their clothes. A stylist only gets one chance. They have to tell that story with one outfit. That’s kind of how Cressida is. Similar to Araminta, as well, you’ve got to hit it the first time and then continue it. She doesn’t have a lot of space to grow, go backwards, or experiment. You’ve got to style her hard and right the first time. Because we don’t see her that much, you can’t travel backwards. You have to always keep her moving forward.”

One small thing that bugged me was all the pastel shirts the men wore, especially the pale blue on the Bridgerton boys. It looks cheesy to me!

According to junior costume designer Henry Wilkinson in Vogue this was on purpose:

“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 colors were blurred. Now, in the autumn, the colors are a little sharper and heightened, and we wanted to get rid of contrast. So we’ve eliminated the color white. Even the men’s shirts are all pastel colors now. And we don’t use black much — we use navy.”

Meh, not a fan, and you can’t really tell this is “autumn” because characters aren’t wearing more coats, pelisses, spencers, or even wraps than in any other season.

I do continue to enjoy most of Queen Charlotte’s (Golda Rosheuvel) costumes though, especially this green gown she wears at the final ball, which she hosts.

The whole gown has gilded touches, and her stomacher shows a portrait of her husband, King George III.  On her skirt is the painting “The Swing” by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, c. 1767-68. I think this reflects her continued care for him and her feelings of isolation in time, especially at this scene which is a “going-away” party for Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh), whose friendship is tested this season.

 

What do you think of Bridgerton‘s fourth season?

 

 

 

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