As Bridgerton returns to our screens, Lady Whistledown’s gossip is one hook of the historic romance, however the present’s vogue has turn into one other central obsession.
When it involves Regency-era costuming, Bridgerton is consistently making an attempt to make its garments really feel new but well timed. For season 4 – which returns to Netflix in two elements, January 29 and February 26 – designers drew upon some of the sensual clothes in period drama historical past: Mr Darcy’s moist shirt from 1995’s BBC TV collection Pride and Prejudice.
“I think Colin Firth made the men’s period full-sleeve shirt iconic for the Mr Darcy moment,” says Bridgerton’s males’s affiliate designer, Dougie Hawkes. “I was involved in that [1995 Pride and Prejudice production] many, many years ago, but I think ever since then, I’ve always wanted to better it personally.”
That ambition involves fruition in Bridgerton season 4, by means of the protagonist, Benedict, performed by Luke Thompson.
“We’ve been, since season one, trying to perfect the men’s shirt in its betrayal within Bridgerton, and I think we finally got there this season,” Hawkes says.
“I think Luke Thompson’s pulled it off for the lake sequence, which you will see in this one. I think it really just, literally, the shirt looks fabulous, and it’s, I’m very happy.”
It is a element that neatly captures what Bridgerton does greatest – taking one thing rooted in period drama and reimagining it by means of a contemporary lens and fantasy. As John Glaser, the lead costume designer for this season, places it, pure, historic accuracy is “not what the show is.”
Hawkes sums it up extra expansively, noting that “John [Glaser] has bought the word spectacular to design of Bridgerton, and I think that is the best word to sum it all up […] as a viewer, you really should want to see something that’s spectacular.”
Season 4 embodies that ethos greater than ever earlier than. For the primary time, Bridgerton correctly ventures beneath stairs – into kitchens, corridors and servants’ quarters – asking its costume designers to make two worlds coexist.
“When [we were presented] with the scripts and the outlines, it was obvious that it had a new dynamic compared with previous seasons,” Hawkes explains. “There was a lot more contrast between the glamorous pools, and we were now introduced to what goes on below stairs. So that dynamic was a very new thing for us […] We had to present it to the viewers as a new thing.”
For Glaser, that shift was a chance: “We also had to make [it clear that] the downstairs [is] as interesting as the upstairs has always been, which was a nice challenge.”
The problem lay in getting the stability proper. “It was blending the fantasy of the upstairs with the reality of the downstairs. So a new area for us to balance the two worlds,” says Glaser. “They couldn’t be so extreme that they didn’t work together, but they still had to look and appear differently.”
Crucially, ‘downstairs’ in Bridgerton is rarely uninteresting.
“Not at all,” Glaser insists, when requested whether or not it meant firming down the aptitude. “Because we set boundaries. You know, how far you can go with the downstairs, [but it] still had to be glamorous.”
Hawkes agrees that it “wasn’t as gritty as perhaps it would have been […] the apron bows were all very designed and precise, whereas maybe, in reality, it would be just a string […] but that’s the fun of it.”
As Glaser places it, “A lot of things that would have just been functional […] were functional, but at the same time they were pretty.”
Transformation stays central to Bridgerton’s enchantment. Much like Penelope Featherington’s transformation in season three, Glaser teases “the introduction to other Penwood girls”, however it’s the males who expertise probably the most radical shift.
“This was one season where the men, especially [Benedict]got to make that transformation, which Dougie [Hawkes] did miraculously, because he freed them up.”
Hawkes’ strategy to Benedict was rooted in romanticism. “Because he’s the artist, he’s the romantic, you know, I took him, I tried to push him to the limits of being the kind of Pre-Raphaelite, if you like, and softened him right up. I wanted to make less is more, it’s romantic without being over thought.”
Another pivotal journey belongs to Sophie, the illegitimate daughter of Richard Gunningworth, Earl of Penwood, who’s launched this season.
“The other transformation would have been Sophie, because she had to travel back and forth between the two worlds,” Glaser says. Hawkes provides, “We see her in at least three different households, because she moves employment, which is great and will catch the viewers out no end.”
It is the primary time the collection has requested a personality to actually reside in each realms.
Colour continues to symbolise energy, persona and place all through the totally different households.
“We still use the original colour palette from season one,” Glaser explains, “but saying that, as the characters have matured and developed, our colour palette has matured and developed.”
The alerts are refined and maybe not as overt as Penelope Featherington’s transformation from yellow to emerald inexperienced. When a personality enters the Penwood home, says Glaser, “[they’ll] add pink to the aprons, and pink to their hair, to their head pieces – but [it’s] not blatant.”
Hawkes factors to a seasonal shift too. The earlier seasons have usually been filmed in spring, however for season 4, it was autumn. “We wanted to bring those richer, darker, golden leaf colours, if you like, into the costume,” he says, “and that’s very, very evident.”
Modernity seeps in by means of particulars, too. “With the guys, I’ve really picked on pop culture and art culture and fashion culture,” Hawkes explains, “just in men’s jewellery.”
While “we don’t make an attempt to put an Easter Egg [a symbolic item] in. It just kind of happens naturally,” Glaser says, he does reveal a doable Easter Egg to look out for within the first episode’s masked ball: “Something that we want to see, if people actually see, is that Benedict has a bracelet. We’ve never used a bracelet on any man.”
Hawkes contextualises it: “Historically, it is there […] mostly used as a remembrance thing […] but it’s a piece that I think brings it well up to date.”
What unites each determination is a refusal to settle. “We never give up, and we’re always looking for the better option,” Hawkes says. Whether it’s fastenings, trousers or collars, refining is fixed.
As Glaser notes, the collection format permits evolution: “We never like to go fall on our laurels, we’re always looking at it […] and trying to perfect it and make it look better.”
That relentless pursuit leads again, inevitably, to the shirt.
“We’ve stopped using white because just it doesn’t [work] well enough,” Glaser says. “It doesn’t film well enough for us, and it just doesn’t fit into the Bridgerton look anymore […] we’ve taken the shirts into [more] pastel colours.”
In Bridgerton, even a easy shirt carries the burden of romance and reinvention. Season 4 guarantees to do the identical for the ton round it – upstairs, downstairs and in every single place in between.