Go behind the scenes with ‘Wicked’ costume designer Paul Tazewell as he breaks down the stunning dresses worn by Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba. In this video, Tazewell explains how he brought these iconic characters to life through costume design, from initial inspiration to the final details.
Learn how the costumes reflect each character's personality and journey, and hear about the design choices that blend classic ‘Wicked’ elements with a fresh cinematic look. Tazewell also shares insights into his process working with Ariana and Cynthia to bring their on-screen wardrobes to life.
Learn how the costumes reflect each character's personality and journey, and hear about the design choices that blend classic ‘Wicked’ elements with a fresh cinematic look. Tazewell also shares insights into his process working with Ariana and Cynthia to bring their on-screen wardrobes to life.
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00:00The meeting of these two contrasting characters
00:03is the strength of this story.
00:06You're green.
00:09I am.
00:10And how they change each other,
00:12how they help to balance each other,
00:14how they learn to love one another.
00:18That's a beautiful thing to be able to create
00:20and represent visually.
00:25For over 20 years,
00:26Wicked, the musical prequel of sorts to The Wizard of Oz,
00:30has been thrillifying audiences across the globe.
00:33When the musical opened at the Gershwin Theater
00:35on October 30th, 2003, where it remains to this day,
00:39it propelled stars Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth
00:42into the stratosphere as household names.
00:45Since its Broadway debut,
00:47Wicked has become one of the most successful musicals
00:50of our time and is currently the fourth longest running
00:53and second highest grossing musical on Broadway.
00:56And almost as instantly as the musical hit Broadway,
00:59discussions of adapting it for the silver screen began,
01:01resulting in a nearly 20 year journey,
01:04leading to Wicked's feature film debut,
01:06releasing across two parts in 2024 and 2025.
01:10But the origins of Wicked extend much further back,
01:13beginning with the 1900 children's novel,
01:15The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by author L. Frank Baum,
01:19which some of you diehard fans may recognize
01:21as the origins for the name Elphaba.
01:24I would say that my first connection to Wicked
01:27was the Broadway show.
01:28I have been changed for good.
01:32Susan Hilferty is the designer of that original Broadway musical.
01:36It was fascinating to see what Susan was coming up with.
01:38And The Wizard of Oz, the movie that was done in the 1930s,
01:42that has been a part of my life since I was a very small child.
01:46I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too.
01:49And then The Wiz.
01:50He's The Wiz, and he lives in love.
01:55I've designed The Wiz probably six times.
01:58That was actually the first major musical that I designed
02:00when I was in high school.
02:01So the story of The Wizard of Oz has been in my life
02:05for a considerable amount of time.
02:07So then to turn around and be asked to do the film of it
02:12was a surprise and also very exciting.
02:14Three, two, one, action.
02:15It was really John Chu, the director, that connected with me.
02:19And because of our connections through In the Heights
02:23with Lin-Manuel Miranda,
02:24I think that there was a familiarity that already existed.
02:27When I think of the film that I did before Wicked,
02:30West Side Story, that I designed for Steven Spielberg,
02:32I was very aware of the original West Side Story
02:36that was done in 1960 is very beloved.
02:39I love it.
02:40It's one of my favorite films.
02:41It's one of my favorite designs of a film.
02:43It was imperative to capture the energy of that design
02:48and bring it into our film, our new film.
02:52With Wicked, it was important to pull in the fan base
02:57of the Broadway musical,
02:59but then have them experience it in a new way
03:02with film, you do need to create everything,
03:07all of the buildings.
03:08And indeed, Nathan Crowley, the production designer,
03:11did an amazing feat of building these huge sets.
03:14They were mind-blowing.
03:15My challenge was to then people these spaces
03:18with clothing that makes sense within itself.
03:21I knew from the very beginning that we were going to need
03:24to manufacture everything in this film.
03:27The costume department encompassed sometimes 150 people
03:31at the same time, tailors and costume makers,
03:33milliners and fabricators of all sorts.
03:36It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
03:38to have these amazing craftspeople to make these things
03:43come to life.
03:45What we're seeing here is the Elphaba Oz Dust Ball outfit.
03:49So this is the first time that she actually wears the hat
03:51in public and she is dressing up.
03:55Everyone at SHIZ, they're all dressing up to go
03:58to the Oz Dust Ballroom.
04:00The character of Elphaba, that's where I have the strongest connection.
04:03She's marginalized because of the color of her skin.
04:05And then that idea is interpreted in a fantasy realm.
04:09As a costume designer, I'm always thinking about how to maintain
04:12a consistent point of view for each character.
04:15You see the same silhouette represented in the first time that we see her,
04:19she has a beautiful black cashmere coat, and then she comes out of that
04:23and then she's in a felted dress with a blouse that is all micro-pleated.
04:27For Paul and his team, the attention to detail to bring the character
04:31of Elphaba to life didn't just end with her costumes,
04:35but was also an important collaboration across multiple teams
04:38to be, well, fixated on her verdigris, but for good reason this time.
04:43Frances Hannon, who's our makeup artist, spent a lot of time figuring out
04:48what the perfect kind of green would be, especially going on to Cynthia's skin.
04:53And then within the costume department, needed to go about figuring out,
04:57OK, so when Cynthia is wearing a costume like this and she's painted green,
05:01does the rest of her body need to be painted green as well?
05:04I was using a lot of sheer fabrics.
05:06If we were going to see a bare arm, we definitely needed to paint that.
05:11If we only saw the green through a sheer sleeve and a sheer bodice, then we went to a dyed bodysuit.
05:18On camera, you couldn't tell that it was not actually makeup.
05:22Thinking about Elphaba, she has been marginalized by her family and by the community of Munchkinland,
05:27but she is also the advocate for animals.
05:30So I aligned her with nature.
05:34We've reinterpreted the underside of mushrooms as these swirling pleats that are applied onto the net of her blouse,
05:41and then also the ruffles and pleats that have been felted into the surface of the wool.
05:46If you look closely at her velvet bodice, you'll see fiddle ferns embroidered onto the surface of her waistcoat.
05:53And then her iconic hat is also micro pleated and architectural in its shape as well.
06:00It's made in a traditional way with buckram and that's wired and all of these sections are their own shape.
06:08And then as you stack them together, they create this shape.
06:11There's a moment that you see in the film where the hat actually opens up.
06:15So it's the way that it's packed away.
06:17The story is that this is a hat that was made by Galinda's grandmother.
06:21She never wears it, so she's giving it to Elphaba as a joke.
06:25But indeed, it tops off this very beautiful silhouette.
06:30The imagery of the Wicked Witch of the West would become the blueprint for the idea of a witch depicted across pop culture.
06:37So for Paul, his goal was to bring this iconic silhouette into a more modern frame of view.
06:43The way that I fabricated it turns it into something else.
06:46I leaned into felting mainly because of its organic quality.
06:50And because we were able to create different kinds of pleated textures that we could then manipulate.
06:56Whether it was undulating in a wave pattern that was applied onto the silhouette of a dress.
07:03Or it was ruffling that created a different kind of quality.
07:06The choice of Black was because her mother passes very early in her life.
07:12Elphaba is kind of stuck emotionally.
07:14And I think that her gravitation to Black as well, there's a starkness about it.
07:20And then when she goes into uniform, into Shiz uniform, she is in a darker charcoal gray.
07:27But it's still a world of charcoal gray.
07:29It does have some of the teal that is part of the Shiz pinstripe world.
07:33But it stays on the darker spectrum.
07:37I used purple just as an accent.
07:39You know, if you look closely at the skirt,
07:41it ombres from Black into purple as it goes down to the hem of the dress.
07:47So that kind of plays in and out of a lot of her clothing.
07:50I'm Glinda, the Witch of the North.
07:52You are?
07:54When you think about Glinda, the first image is going to be from the 1930s film.
07:59And you see the silhouette and a very tall crown.
08:02I went about figuring out how to reinterpret that.
08:05Oh, hello.
08:09Much of my inspiration was through this idea of bubbles and circular pattern and spirals.
08:16I really leaned into that for her crown where it's all a series of circular bubbles
08:22that are stacked on top of each other and set with diamantes.
08:26And you see these stars and kind of spirals within the crown as well.
08:31The silhouette is this big kind of fairy princess dress.
08:35I've reinterpreted it with the help of the tailor that made all of Ariana's clothing.
08:40We were looking at the Fibonacci spiral shape.
08:44So with the dress, we were looking at flat shapes that then,
08:48when they're spiraled around themselves, they start to create a specific shape.
08:53And then on top of that, it's over-embroidered and beaded.
08:56And we've printed the silk organza that then has some color movement.
09:01So we're going from dark to light.
09:02It was ombre.
09:03And with the pattern on top of it, then you've got this shape that undulates
09:07and moves in a very elegant and ethereal way when she arrives.
09:12So this is Glinda, and this is her Ozdust ballroom dress-up dress.
09:20I was living in London as we were in production for the film.
09:24There were these beautiful roses that were in Regent's Park, a rose that ombred from this
09:29wonderful golden yellow to pink. And I thought, oh my gosh, that would be so reflective of who Glinda is.
09:37And so I used that for this living and breathing petal dress.
09:43To fully capture the vision of the rose that inspired Paul,
09:46the ombre effect of Glinda's Ozdust ball gown was mirrored by custom-dyeing the satin on Ariana's shoes.
09:53The color schemes for Glinda always were rooted to the pink.
09:58Always went back to that iconic Glinda dress.
10:01The one that she appears in at the very beginning of the film.
10:04Many of the silhouettes that I used for Glinda were based in this kind of Dior 1950s romanticism.
10:11So a whimsical but then perfect silhouette that I think keeps us in this world of fantasy.
10:16I am so ready to fly.
10:18Nessa Rose, the character and also the beautiful actress Marissa that played Nessa Rose,
10:25she's wheelchair bound. So all of my designs needed to acknowledge that this again is Nessa Rose's
10:33Ozdust ball dress. And my thought was turn of the century dress in knitwear. So this is a custom knit
10:41dress. She wears her crystal slippers that have been gifted to her from her father. My interest is to
10:48make sure that it's consistent with how we see Elphaba and that they're of the same world. There's an
10:54innocence about her. There's youth and she is in some ways untouchable. Keeping her in lighter tones,
11:01there's a lot of white and semi-sheer. I was very interested in giving her this feeling of untouchable
11:07perfection.
11:09There is no pretense here. I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shunned.
11:12Jonathan Bailey plays Fiero. This is Fiero in his Ozdust suit. Fiero is, he's a prince. I mean he
11:20is of royal blood. What is set up and established with Fiero is this tribal geometric patterning that
11:28is throughout a lot of his costumes. It's very influenced by Spanish equestrian clothing and some
11:35of the North African and Southern Spain sensibility. And then there's this military element as well,
11:41especially with this suit. So we have Jeff Goldblum as the wizard. If you remember the 1930s film,
11:50you've got a man who is part of a carny. He's also a charlatan.
11:54I am the great and powerful wizard of Oz. So I was trying to imbue him with this kind of carnival
12:01feel. His costume is covered in fobs and chains, that one that's a balloon and another one that's
12:08it's like trinkets or like little metal monopoly figures.
12:11You. Come with me. Of course. Not you. You.
12:17Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible, you're enticed by her. I mean she is the one that actually holds a
12:23certain amount of magic. Her magic is her control of weather. So I've used that idea throughout her
12:31clothing and also in her hairstyle, this undulating cloud. You also see the stars and the astronomical
12:40images that I use throughout her clothing. And we've done that with embroidery and beading and
12:45some printing and you see it represented throughout her looks.
12:50The story of Oz has been a part of the fabric of American literary and cinematic history for so many
12:56decades. It is almost impossible to overstate its influence and impact on culture.
13:04It has continued to inspire generations of creatives by the myriad ways this dynamic story
13:09could be retold. And with the new screen version of Wicked set to make box office records,
13:14it is clear that the love for this story and its many adaptations is unlimited.
13:19I believe that Wicked is so meaningful to people. It speaks to the strong bond and relationship of two
13:27very different people and how their bond and relationship changes their lives. And then it
13:33also speaks to self-empowerment for both of them in choice. Being in charge of your own power and how
13:41you're seen, it resonates very much in a modern way.