Paging Lady Whistledown: Netflix’s hit period romance, Bridgerton, is back for Season 2, which serves up new romances and plenty of fresh fresh lewks from the Regency era. Before diving into the show’s sophomore year, Yahoo Entertainment cordially invites you to take an up close and personal look at some of Season 1’s standout fashions — with expert commentary from the Emmy-nominated costume designer, Ellen Mirojnick — via our exclusive augmented reality experience.
Activate your audio and click below to explore the costumes from ‘Bridgerton’ with commentary from costume designer Ellen Mirojnick:
“The thing about the first season of Bridgerton is that there was noting specific or formulaic laid out,” Mirojnick says of how she approached the show’s freshman year, which featured breakout star turns by Phoebe Dynevor and Regé-Jean Page as the show’s central lovers, Daphne Bridgerton and Simon Basset. “I would see the fabric and say, ‘Oh, that’s a gorgeous fabric. That could be a dress for Daphne.’ It just had a feeling to it.” (Mirojnick is currently working on Christopher Nolan’s upcoming drama, Oppenneimer, with Sophie Canale taking over Bridgerton costume designer duties for Season 2.)
Based on the bestselling series of novels by Julia Quinn, Bridgerton follows the tangled romantic lives of two Regency Era families: the Bridgertons and the Featheringtons. And Mirojnick says that part of her job in Season 1 was coming up with a way to help distinguish both clans by the way they dressed. “The initial instinct was that the Bridgertons were French macaroons and the Featheringtons were citrus fruit,” she says.
That citrus color definitely defines the yellow dress worn by Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan), the youngest and most independent-minded of the family’s daughters. “The yellow dress is quintessential Penelope,” Mirojnick says. “It has everything but the kitchen sink more or less.”
“In the books, Penelope is described as wearing a garment of an acid-like color,” she continues. “I thought that this particular color, which was a little bit of yellow and a little chartreuse was totally fanciful, but it wasn’t loud. Also the elements of applied to it, and the additions of roche seaming in very specifically places added to the design of the dress just enough to get our point across.”
Penelope has good reason for not wanting to be too loud in her attire. As Bridgerton fans know, she spent Season 1 leading two lives: one as a Featherington, and the other as Lady Whistledown, the mysterious gossip-monger holding London society in her thrall. “She’s not shy about making a statement,” Mirojnick notes. “Penelope does have a particular stance on romance that’s very different than Daphne. She’s the hidden romantic, who absolutely wants all of the romance, but is a little bit shy.”
While Penelope Featherington shines in yellow, Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) cuts a dashing figure in blue. Mirjonick describes the third Bridgerton son as “the perfect son of an important family” and his coat accentuates that perfection. “He was brought up in a very proper tradition with proper manners, proper form and proper dress,” she says, noting that this particular shade of blue also matches his eyes. “He’s very regal and very much the young man of the house.”
Colin’s blue also contrasts with Simon’s eye-catching red coat, which Mirojnick says encapsulates his standoffish personality for much of Season 1. “It sets him apart from everyone else,” she explains. “It’s very clear that he’s an independent soul: he has travelled and not been part of London society. He’s more worldly than the families we meet. So we made his shirt collar taller and deeper, and kept the shirt open and topped the whole outfit off with the red coat.”
Page famously isn’t returning for the second season of Bridgerton, much to the chagrin of fans. But his onscreen bride is back, and attending to the love life of her brother, Anthony (Jonathan Bailey). Daphne’s costumes have undergone an evolution since Season 1, when she was the “diamond of the season,” and dressed accordingly.
“It was very important for Daphne’s fabrics to look as if they came from France, and were exclusive — not available to just anybody,” Mirojnick says. “Every dress she wore had to feel that special and that unique. Only Daphne could wear it because she was flawless.”
“Dressing Phoebe was absolutely a dream,” she continues. “The only adjustment we had to make was how the corset was fitting. The gowns needed to blur the lines of strict Regency attire. We wanted to shift the period into a modern sensibility so that it had a sexiness and a fluidity to it. All of the gowns needed to be able to move, and the characters needed to be able to move in them, in a way where you were seduced into the story.”
Bridgerton is currently streaming on Netflix
