Categories: Showbiz

22 “Wicked” Behind-The-Scenes Facts Straight From The Costume Department

Nessarose’s iconic slippers couldn’t have been the same as the ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz because MGM still owns that design, but Wicked always planned to make them silver like they are in the Broadway musical.

Wicked is an amazing movie, and in my opinion, the best parts are the costuming and the hair and makeup design. Alongside their respective teams, costume designer Paul Tazewell and hair and makeup department lead Frances Hannon truly made magic onscreen, and their work deserves to be celebrated.

Here are 22 Wicked behind-the-scenes facts from the costume department and the hair and makeup department:

1. On Broadway, Glinda’s bubble dress is blue because “there were legal issues with using pink for the Broadway design just because of studios.” However, Wicked was given clearance to use pink like Billy Burke’s bubble dress in the original 1939 movie.

2. The design of Glinda’s bubble dress was inspired by butterflies and the Fibonacci spiral.

3. Glinda’s bubble dress was designed so that light passed through it, giving it a “lighter-than-air quality.”

4. Frances worked with special effects makeup manufacturer David Stoneman to create custom body makeup for Elphaba’s iconic green look. After a lot of research and testing different shades on models with Cynthia Erivo’s skin tone, they still couldn’t find one that looked good in different lighting. However, Frances finally found the answer in an unexpected place — a little tube of discontinued neon eye paint from Canada.

5. Once the team had the process down, transforming Cynthia into Elphaba only took “roughly two hours and 15 minutes.”

6. Cynthia was “very much so” involved with deciding on Elphaba’s hair. Frances told Glamour, “We wanted to make it timeless, so it was trying to find a balance. Cynthia, as an artist, is tiny, and her costumes — that big witch’s hat and those cloaks — are big. So we had to bring a style to Cynthia that could grow and change but not swamp her. Micro braiding fulfilled every nuance.”

7. Ariana Grande wore wigs in the movie, but, during pre-production, she dyed her hair blonde as well “because it gave her the feeling every day of being Glinda.”

8. Cynthia pitched ideas for Elphaba’s shoes, glasses, and pajamas.

9. Many of Glinda’s outfits were based on classic Hollywood icons.

10. Her hemlines reflect her character arc. As she matures, they get longer.

11. Elphaba’s outfits were based on the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, but her silhouettes are “more of a turn of the century 1890s shape, albeit it’s still from the lens that feels more contemporary.”

12. Her “very restrictive and tailored” school uniforms contrast with her flowing “Defying Gravity” look to reflect how she’s breaking free.

13. Paul told Teen Vogue, “My approach to Elphaba was to connect her to nature and to a world that is organic and grounded. That connection to nature speaks to her advocacy for animals.”

14. Because Cynthia shaves her own eyebrows, she wore eyebrow transfers in the movie.

15. Nessarose’s slippers couldn’t have been the same as the ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz because MGM still owns that design, but Wicked always planned to make them silver like they are in the Broadway musical.

16. Paul told Playbill that the floral embroidery in Nessarose’s costumes was “reflective of her mother, the red poppies and white milkflowers.”

17. Glinda’s crown and Nessarose’s slippers were 3-D printed by Guberinic, the same artisan who made the 2024 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show wings.

18. Paul told E! News, “For Fiyero, he’s a prince and heroic, and his character, played by Jonathan Bailey, needed to embody all of that. The embroidery that we used on his Ozdust Ballroom suit, inspired by tribal design, which I think gives it a little more edge.”

19. For the Shiz University uniforms, the costume team “were intent on finding a color palette that would be magical or bring [them] delight and be completely different from the other films that have school uniforms.”

20. Paul told Teen Vogue, “We created probably five or six Wicked Witch hats, all going in different directions. There was one that had the same texture, but it was completely pointed. We had an origami shape that kind of collapsed. There was another that had a different swirl and texture. I was getting at what would be the perfect — the icon — for the film.”

21. Elphaba’s “Defying Gravity” dress had a hidden corset that helped Cynthia buckle into the harness for flying scenes.

22. And finally, the texture of her dress mimics the underside of a mushroom.

What’s your favorite costume from Wicked? Let us know in the comments!

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