How 'Wicked' Costume Designer Paul Tazewell Followed Up Elphaba & Glinda's Oscar-Winning Outfits

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'Wicked' and 'Wicked: For Good' costume designer Paul Tazewell spoke to THR about creating Glinda and Elphaba's iconic looks for the sequel film.

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00:00Both of these costumes are reflective of many, many hours of work just seeing these costumes

00:07being made, but also some of the process is collaborative where I create the design and

00:15create a sketch, choose fabrics that I think are most appropriate for representing the costume.

00:21Those first fittings, oftentimes it's in muslin, a fabric that really doesn't relate to the

00:28costumes at all so that I can draw on it with a marker, I can set how far over I want for the

00:35coat to come if it's on Elphaba, or it's just establishing design lines on Glinda.

00:42The whole time I'm observing how they're reacting to what the shape is and then asking questions.

00:49Does this feel appropriate for Elphaba? Does it feel appropriate for Glinda at this moment within

00:55the story to make sure that it's, you know, still in keeping with how they were imagining

01:01their character to evolve?

01:03And I have to find her because if someone else gets there first...

01:06Yeah, I'm worried for her too. She's made her choice.

01:10The dress that's behind me, this is the first bubble dress that she wears.

01:14I was hoping for the dress to embody all those qualities that resonate with the audience.

01:21You know, it starts from the 1939 film and that dress that Billy Burke wore, which was in pink.

01:26I didn't want to use pink for that dress because I had the pink dress from

01:30the beginning of the film. So I made the decision to adopt the lavender and blue iridescent quality

01:37that's reflected actually in the original Glinda dress from the Wicked Broadway musical,

01:43just to give a nod to that dress. But also in the classic shape, I'm still giving it a more

01:51old-fashioned or a less evolved Glinda, if you will, to give a step towards where she ends up,

01:59which is the big pink bubble dress. And that's actually when she is most powerful. But the lavender

02:05one serves this new persona that she's adopted. It's when she is this political propagandist figure that

02:13she goes into the lavender dress. I'm a public figure now. People expect me to fly. Be encouraging.

02:21So I've translated the idea of the Wicked Witch of the West and that dress that she wears in the

02:261939 film into an Elphaba Wicked Witch of the West, which is that dramatic coat, her trousers,

02:33her kick-ass boots, merging those two sensibilities and topping it off with a dramatic hat. And because

02:39Cynthia was going to have to fly in this costume, it was really important to get the right kind of fit

02:45to make sure that we were accommodating both a corset and a harness and all the different elements that

02:50would go into what this costume is. Then also with Elphaba, the cape that she's wearing is actually the

02:58cape that she jumped out of the window in the first Wicked, but it's grown. It's become more dramatic.

03:04And then it's also showing wear and tear as well, because she's now living in exile in the forest.

03:11There are a number of different elements that we were trying to figure out with this garment,

03:15because we're going to open for good with her in this amazing power silhouette.

03:21Are you all right? I'm fine. I just wanted to come and see you. That means a lot to me, Elphi.

03:28The wedding dress as it's represented in the sketch, it adjusted slightly in the fitting process,

03:34and that was the collaboration with Ariana and just thinking about, you know, where she wanted for

03:40Glinda to be emotionally for this wedding. It gave her more vulnerability with bare shoulders and bare

03:48arms. And so we incorporated that into the design of the dress. It's a multi-layer overskirt. There are

03:55spirals of dimensional butterflies that trail around the hem. They run down the 25 meter veil. The

04:04imagery is supported by animated butterflies, gold butterflies. As she's walking, she parts a path

04:10with her dress, and then they float up and fly around. It's a very magical moment. All of it was

04:15specialty. The intent was to have this world of Oz feel as original as possible, like a world that

04:20we've never seen before. That then meant that as the costume designer, I was leaning into other ways

04:26of manipulating fabric so that it would look like fabric that we couldn't just go and buy in a store. So

04:32there's so much custom work that went into creating the look of Wicked and For Good to maintain the,

04:39you know, this look that was bespoke, you know, that could not be found anyplace else.

How 'Wicked' Costume Designer Paul Tazewell Followed Up Elphaba & Glinda's Oscar-Winning Outfits | THR Video

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