Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Wicked’s Extravagant Movie Costumes Are Full of Hidden Surprises, Designer Reveals (Exclusive)
As Wicked fans eagerly await the second part of Jon M. Chu’s mystical and magical silver-screen musical adaptation, costume designer Paul Tazewell teases that things only get better.
“The second part will be a great gift. I am telling you, visually it just keeps going, so I’m really excited for everybody to see,” the Oscar-nominated designer, 60, exclusively tells Parade.
Alongside director Chu, who recently won a Critics Choice Award for his work on the film, Tazewell was integral in creating the extravagant world of Oz — and he began by going back to basics, starting with the 1900 L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that inspired the 1939 Judy Garland movie and the 1995 novel Wicked by Gregory Maguire.
“Those characters are the characters [Maguire] actually took and reshaped and gave them a backstory,” says Tazewell.
So many of Wicked’s costumes have small nods to the classic Hollywood film. “That was a huge, fun element in the design,” says Tazewell. “Because the characters from The Wizard of Oz have been a part of American culture for such a long time — and now global culture — it was amazing to be able to pick and choose what elements would help tell the story.”
One important choice Tazewell made was to have Ariana Grande’s Glinda descend by bubble in a pink gown — reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz’s Billie Burke — instead of in blue like the character does in the Broadway musical.
Related: 'Wizard of Oz' Easter Eggs in the 'Wicked' Movie That Aren't in the Broadway Musical
“I made the decision to go back to the original pink dress and reflect more of that fairy princess feel created in the Billie Burke dress,” says Tazewell. (Legalities prevented the original Broadway design from being pink.)
Also in the beginning of Wicked, audiences get to meet Mrs. Thropp, Elphaba’s mother, and Tazewell explains that her costumes were designed with intention.
“With Mrs. Thropp, her red dress speaks to the field of poppies where [Dorothy and her friends] fall asleep and that connection to opium… And then you align that with the green elixir that Mrs. Thropp gets from her secret lover that turns Elphaba green. That connection to this kind of drug is directly related to the poppy field, and therefore I dressed her in red, and I also put a poppy at her waist,” says Tazewell.
The magical silver slippers in the film pay homage to the tornado that brings Dorothy to Oz. “The tornado, and the crystal and silver slippers are the equivalent of the ruby slippers that we know from the Wizard of Oz film. To have the opportunity to actually design something that was going to be seen so intimately — and then to imbue it with its own cultural image inspired by the Wizard of Oz film — was golden.”
As for what’s ahead, fans will get to see more of Dorothy, Scarecrow, Lion and Tin Man in Wicked’s second part. “I mean, it is my version of who the Scarecrow and the Tin Man are. It is a Scarecrow and a Tin Man that we’ve never seen,” Tazewell explains. “Because they originate from something that has come from the first film, they're a very original image. I think that it hopefully is a moving transformation when we see it happen. I'm excited to be able to share that. And the same with Dorothy. With Dorothy, the challenge is — because there are legal issues as well to recreate what the Judy Garland Dorothy is — so I haven't done that, but I've alluded to what that silhouette is.”
Related: When Does 'Wicked Part Two' Come Out?
Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba will be elevated “even more than where we left off,” says Tazewell, alluding to the large cape, textured dress and iconic witch hat Elphaba flies off in. In the next film, “it bumps up to the next level,” he says. “And there’s a connection to the raincoat that she wears when she’s taking the lion cub out into the forest.”
As for Glinda, “She becomes a political figure,” Tazewell notes. “It’s how we continue that level of glamor that then is used in a political way and then find what her heart is within that.”
Will the costumes in Wicked’s second part be even bigger and better than in the first? “Absolutely,” says Tazewell. “Are you kidding?”
Related: Cynthia Erivo Reveals If She'll Reprise 'Wicked' Role on Broadway (Exclusive)
