The Woman Behind Bridgerton

On a close-up of a pastel, pale green corset, we are introduced to the Featherington family. The golds, silks, and ostentatious outfits perfectly describe this family. The women's busts are up to their chins; the jewels on the gowns are gaudy and outlandish. We see the extent they are willing to go for fashion. We then see the camera pan left and zoom in on a home with soft hues of purples and blues—the Bridgertons. The clothing is relaxed, empire waist style dresses. The softness of ruffles, bows, and lace wonderfully encapsulates this "perfect family."

These glorious costumes were created by the celebrated costume designer Ellen Mirojnick, who professes her experience working on the set of Bridgerton. "There was never a question of it being right or wrong. Once we knew where we were going, we went straight ahead and didn’t look back once," Mirojnick joyfully states.

At the start of 2021, Netflix Original Bridgerton became a fan-favorite fantasy show for viewers to indulge in overnight. With 82 million views and counting, Bridgerton, which takes place in 19th Century England, set the record as Netflix's most-watched show. Despite lacking period accuracy, the fashion portrayed in Bridgerton was the main character in the show, captivating the viewer’s attention.

Ellen Mirojnick, the woman responsible for the fashionable sensation, is an American costume designer born and raised in New York City. Mirojnick got her start in fashion in the 1970s designing for an emerging sportswear company. In 2019, Mirojnick was approached by Netflix to design and create the costumes for Netflix's adaptation of the book series Bridgerton. Her costumes are what some might call "unconventional" when it comes to period-piece productions.

Source: kcrw.com - Costumer Designer Ellen Mirojnick

Shondaland is the production company produced by showrunner Shonda Rhimes. She created shows such as Scandal, Grey's Anatomy, and How to Get Away with Murder, and in 2018 she signed a contract with Netflix for $150 million to produce a multitude of productions. The first to come out of the Shondaland camp was Bridgerton. Talking with Mirojnick, she spoke about the expectations of her as the costumer, "I’d worked with Shondaland before, I knew that it needed to have an aspirational feel. I also knew that it needed to have modern twists."

"The first and foremost thing that one has to do is create a vision for what the entire world needs to be." Ellen Mirojnick, and her co-captain, as she describes him, John Glaser, created an extensive lookbook. "With this lookbook, it felt exactly what our research brought to us, and where we wanted to go with creating the vision for the show." This lookbook included the color palette, from modern clothes to period clothes. "It was most important to bring across the feel of what we wanted." This book helped get everyone involved in the production on the same page and create the show's actual look and feel.

Fashion Historian at Sotheby's University, Shannyn Schack

With the modern twists brought to the show, especially with the costuming, Fashion Historian at Sotheby's Institute of Art, London, Shannyn Schack, weighed in with her thoughts of the modernization of the Bridgerton costumes. Schack starts off by stating how she actually loved the costumes as a historical fantasy. Something she pointed out is how Regency Era television and films tend to all look very similar. She continues talking about the costumes, stating, "I was surprised they took such an interesting aesthetic direction. It’s a very fun, very modern approach to the Regency Era."

Sarah Lambert, the co-founder of the "Let’s Talk" book club from Berkeley

With the decision to not use bonnets, as they would’ve been used during this time, Mirojnick said, "Chris Van Dusen, who created the show, was not interested in a bonnet world; it needed to be a bonnet-less world." Julia Quinn, the author of the Bridgerton book series and Van Dusen, tasked Mirojnick and her team to create a historical fiction adaptation of the series. Mirojnick claims, "It is a heightened reality, it’s fantasy, romance, and sexiness." Sarah Lambert, the co-founder of the "Let’s Talk" book club from Berkeley, talked about reading the books and how clothing related to the storyline. She states, "When you’re reading a book like this, you have a very clear picture of the time period."

Creating a world, or in Mirojnick’s words, "a magical world," is hard to do. "It was a big assignment and a big responsibility," Mirojnick said. "I loved it so much, and I didn’t for one second think that it was too much." Calling herself crazy, she goes on to say, "I never thought this would be anything but a luscious challenge." Lambert speaks about this magical world and how the costumes added to the plot, stating, "when costuming is done well, it adds to the realism factor and helps make the story feel less cliché."

Comparing the creation of a fantasy world to a magnificent meal, Mirojnick says, "It comes with your eye, a feel for the balance, and there’s no exact science to it. It’s just a way in which the colors, and the fabric, and the feel balance each other out." It was important to Mirojnick that nothing looked too serious. And if something seems uptight and stuffy, the look needed to become more fanciful. On the other side, if a look was too fanciful, it needed to find balance. "It’s like a fanciful feast and making everything you ever wanted to go into this huge popery." This show was rich with costuming and going with the feast antidote; Mirojnick talks about if something wasn’t rich enough, some spice was added.

When talking about the historical accuracy of the fabrics, Schack stated, "The synthetic fabrics used aren’t accurate to regency era." Mirojnick explained, "The fabrics were very modern." The first level of modernism Mirojnick says was shifting the color palette, and the second layer was the fabrics. "We were able to layer color upon color and not have it feel like a drapery was wrapped around the shoulders." With Schack’s thoughts about the inaccuracy of the fabrics, she also praises them, "the embroidery and sequined flowers and laces are beautiful. It’s super modern, and I’m not going to try to pretend those pieces are even close to regency era, but I appreciate how fun they are and the attention to detail."

It was important to Mirojnick and her team that the colors had fluidity and could shift to another tone when they moved. "We chose organdy and organza fabric, not chiffon because that was too limp and didn’t have enough body to layer on top of silks." Something that she did which was interesting was during the fittings if the actor tried on the clothes, and the look was too heavy and seemed to not fit with the actor’s personality, it was changed immediately—aside from Queen Charlotte’s looks. Mirojnick said the costumes for Queen Charlotte were heavy, and whatever wig was designed, it didn’t matter because actress Golda Rosheuvel was up for anything.

Being exceptionally organized helped Mirojnick and her team on the shooting days. Having created more than 6,000 costumes, everything needed to be organized and ready to go. "We knew what, where, how, and when we needed to proceed with each one of the character’s garments." She attributes a lot of, if not more of, the organization to her costume supervisors and team: "Every single member of my team was so perfect in every single way, everything was so synchronistic, and worked like clockwork."

Using the Regency Era as a starting point and adding in contemporary upgrades, Mirojnick researched a multitude of time periods for the costuming. Having been inspired by Audrey Hepburn and taking that inspiration to the character of Daphne, it’s no wonder the '60s were an inspirational time period: "The '60s were natural to look at in terms of silhouette." Looking at how the Empire Line was constructed, they knew they had to change it and do something different. Mirojnick claims, "the '60s were more cylindrical and even around. What we wanted to create, because there is so much movement in the show, [was] a fluidity to the back of the dress." Doing a big deep dive with research and a self-proclaimed lover of fashion, Mirojnick says, "You always learn something, and your eye picks up thoughts that can lead to other thoughts."

With being inspired by some recent Haute Couture shows, specifically Chanel Spring/Summer 2019 collection, Mirojnick was influenced by the combination of fine and delicate versus firm and bold. She liked how the fabric was made out of flower shapes that were fine and delicate while also mirroring it to silk, making it sculptural. This helped inspire Mirojnick with the idea of mixing and creating fabric. "Creating fabrics and not only the embellishment, but creating fabric with the idea of layering flowers and appliques onto simple fabric to get an end result." With embroidering all done in-house, it made it easy for the vision to be executed.

Having so many different elements of the costuming, Mirojnick states the jewelry is one of the most important parts. She says, "How can you go to a ball without jewelry?" Mirojnick claims that gathering jewelry was the hardest task. Each character had their own identifying pieces and way they appeared, "Daphne, for example, is very delicate and hardly wore any accessories and when she did, they were very small." Whereas talking about the character Portia Featherington, Mirojnick says, "she wore the kitchen sink." The jewelry collection they had was quite large, gathered from Italy, Spain, the U.K., and the United States. Mirojnick says that their jeweler Lorenzo was the best and made magnificent jewelry. Mirojnick describes the jewelry in such an interesting way, saying, "the jewelry was meant to be the period at the end of a sentence." In cases like the Featherington’s, they go against Chanel’s classic saying of taking one piece of jewelry off before you leave the house—the Featherington’s put one more piece of jewelry on. The Bridgerton family only needed little touches of jewelry to complete a look.

Something unique about the show and the costumes are the colors of each family. The Bridgerton family has soft blues, purples, and pastels. Comparatively, the Featherington family had bright, bold colors. Within Julia Quinn’s book series, according to Mirojnick, "The Featherington’s were always audacious." Mirojnick describes the Featherington family colors as acidic and a little off. Having been inspired by French macaroons for the Bridgerton family colors, she goes on to say, "how the boxes are displayed, it’s so pretty, and the scrolling done on pastries and cakes is refined." The refined look is how the Bridgerton’s come across, as opposed to the "luscious fruits, richer, more vibrant, colors for the Featherington’s."

The mark of Bridergton’s were bees and the Featherington’s were butterflies. There are bees on waistcoats, stickpins, and different patterns in the Bridgerton household. The butterflies are always on the character Penelope. She has butterflies in her jewelry, hair, and on her dress, "She wears butterflies everywhere you could possibly imagine we could put on, even as an accessory at the top of her waist." These symbols are the signatures of the two families and their houses.

Silhouettes for different characters play a big part within the costuming. A team of costumers, spanning 230 people, worked tirelessly to create these costumes. Amongst those 230 was Mr. Pearl, who is a world-renowned corset maker. "He created the silhouette for each and every girl with the corset." Schack explained, "Regency fashion is inspired by Roman silhouettes and antiquity. The politics and the zeitgeist of the time led to such extreme transitions between eras. Regency hits under the bust at its highest bust. A lot of the show’s costumes are designed cutting off the bust."

Queen Charlotte, according to Mirojnick, never changed her silhouette when she took the crown. She also speaks about keeping her silhouette in the 18th-century style versus Regency Era as a fun choice. "Her hair serves the Queen characteristically and fills out who the character is, rather than accuracy," states Mirojnick. According to Schack, Queen Charlotte’s costumes are completely accurate, however, for a different time period. Schack states that Queen Charlotte’s clothing is accurate to "1760s/1770s, her hairstyles make her a bit more 1780s, but the costuming doesn’t venture past that era." The court dresses worn are inspired by the French court. Schack explains how English dress wore panniers, but they kept the high bust, thus creating a very odd silhouette. For Bridgerton, Schack says their court dresses mirror the French. Because Queen Charlotte didn’t change the rules of panniers in court, the notion she never dressed for the time was created.

Schack continues to speak about the clothing accuracy by saying, "It is extremely historically inaccurate." However, Mirojnick states, "We never, ever, ever started out to make a perfect period piece." Mirojnick, who is fully aware the show isn’t period correct, states, "I thought there was going to be a lot of people who would rack me over the coals because it isn’t period correct." However, this show is a fantasy adaptation of the Regency Era. Lambert states, "in my opinion, only historians or someone in academia would notice the historical inaccuracies. As a viewer, it was better to see Regency Era appeal, but with the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. Thus, transforming you into this historical world."

Having been the first person hired to work for the show, Mirojnick had a big part in the world-building. Will Hughes-Jones, the production designer, according to Mirojnick, loved the color stories created: "Will was so generous with us, in terms of working so closely with the colors, the paintings, and the colors of the rooms working with the clothing." Having the clothing colors and room colors so closely match and go together isn’t often seen.

Costume designing is a challenging job because it sets the tone for the television show or film. Gaining an appreciation for the amount of work, time, energy, and effort for what it takes to create costumes is the most important thing. And there is no doubt that anyone watching the show will have an opinion on the costumes. However, as a historical fantasy show, the costumes follow the aesthetic perfectly, and they truly capture our imagination like magic.