New Bridgerton episodes haven’t yet debuted, but we’ve already found our Diamond of the Season.
Promotional videos of Queen Charlotte (played by Golda Rosheuvel) for the Netflix drama’s upcoming third season — premiering the first four episodes on Thursday, May 14 — reveal the monarch’s most jaw-dropping wig yet: a white, Fabergé egg-inspired piece complete with an oil painted backdrop and motorized crystal swans nestled inside.
The idea for the showstopping creation came to hair and makeup designer Erika Ökvist during production on Season 2, but she didn’t find a suitable event to debut it then. An opportunity finally presented itself in the upcoming episodes, which will follow Penelope and Colin’s love story while Queen Charlotte delights with stunning new hairpieces such as the swan number.
While we can’t reveal the exact details around the event that called for such a wig, Ökvist tells TVLine that the moment required the stylist ruler to have “the best wig she’s ever had, or at least the most spectacular.”
As one can imagine, meticulous detail went into crafting it, and the Emmy-winning stylist had most of it already built when she pitched the piece for Rosheuvel to wear on screen.
“If I say to somebody, ‘I’m going to make crystal swans swim around in the queen’s wig,’ they’re going to say, ‘Yeah, whatever. That’s not going to happen,’” she shares. “I had to have the motor working, the glass swans, and the basic underpinning of the wig to prove that it would work because it’s such a crazy idea. I don’t think that I’ve seen it before anywhere so therefore, it’s a new concept [and] you have to prove it.”
The inside appears as a stage with a backdrop, and the wig itself, according to Ökvist, is a “Fabergé egg holding this treasure in the middle of it.” She made the swans dance by 3D-printing a clockwork and then built a motor to set them in motion, accompanied by an on/off switch hidden under Rosheuvel’s armpit.
What fans might not have picked up on, though, is the golden cherry tree running up the entire length of the wig from behind, connecting to the branches with sparkling crystals as leaves hanging in front of and just above the actress’ head.
“Golda can carry this off. I don’t think all actresses could carry something like this off,” the hair and makeup guru notes. “When she is in character, I’m like, ‘Oh, I better not stand in her away.’”
Ökvist’s biggest problem with the wig was creating the shape of the Fabergé egg so that the clockwork was exposed but unseen.
“If you put something on top of [the clockwork], it will clog up,” she explains. “So, it’s just a matter of getting the angles just right so that the camera wouldn’t see into it.”
There was also the issue of ensuring that the motor runs silently as to not interfere with the sound on set. “I tried loads of different ways of padding it so it wouldn’t rattle around,” Ökvist adds. “It was a very fun project. I like to try lots of really weird things as you can imagine.”
