“I’ve never seen it before in a period drama. And that’s what this was all about, creating images that you get to see now,” says hair and makeup designer Nic Collins.
Five minutes into Shonda Rhimes’ Bridgerton prequel Queen Charlotte, a young Charlotte, played by India Ria Amarteifio, is called “Ridiculous to the eye” by her brother Adolphus as she sits barely moving in the back of a carriage. Charlotte, displeased, both by her circumstances — being married off to the king of England — and her attire, delivers a terse response that sets the tone for what will come to define her character throughout the series: Her feisty spirit and her fashion sense.
“I am wearing lyonnaise silk encrusted with Indian sapphires working with an overlay of 200-year-old lace,” Charlotte retorts. “Apparently too much movement can cause the sapphires to shred the lace. If that wasn’t enough, the gown sits atop a bespoke underpinning made of whalebone.
“Yes, whalebone, brother,” she added a moment later as he stared back in astonishment, “The bones of whales. Whales died so I could look like this.”
No whales, or their bones for that matter, were used in the actual creation of the gemmed bodice of the plush light blue gown the future queen wears in the scene, but co-costume designers Laura Frecon and Lyn Paolo did go to great lengths to pull off the ornate looks worn throughout the Netflix series. That included a purchase order for 175 corsets which, along with all of the period underpinnings, were made specifically for the show.
“We wanted it to be history meets high fashion,” says Frecon of Queen Charlotte’s style direction.
Via Zoom, Frecon and Paolo, who both worked on the origin series, demonstrate to Rhimes how they’d bring forth the concept, drawing inspiration from the 2014 Met Gala theme Charles James: Beyond Fashion based on the 20th-century couturier who was known for his structured ball gowns.
“We had worked all day on Bridgerton and then were holding up mood boards to the computer trying to explain what our plan would be, so we were lucky enough to be invited to do the show. Halfway through, Shonda was like, ‘Yeah, love it. Thank you. Great. Let’s do it,’” Paolo recalled, laughing. “That was a great gift from Shonda.”
In the sketches Paolo and Frecon showed Rhimes, Charlotte’s hair was imagined as natural from the outset. The contrast to the grandiose wigs that later define the queen pushes forward the lead character’s narrative of coming into her own power as a ruler.
“We all agreed that it would be a journey,” says hair and makeup designer Nic Collins. “She’s not coming in as this big personality with these large wigs. She starts with natural hair. She’s in a foreign land, she’s in an arranged marriage that she doesn’t want to be in. It must have been terrifying for her. Those were the things we were considering.”
For two-thirds of the first episode, Charlotte’s hair is mainly styled in curly textured updos, including the scene where she tries to jump over the palace wall to avoid marrying the king. She’s caught by young king George who declares, “The choice is entirely up to her,” after Adolphus testifies to their exchange and attempts to assure George that Charlotte wants to marry him. The notion of agency warms Charlotte up to the king and the idea of being his wife, leading her to go forward with the arranged marriage.
At the wedding ceremony, Charlotte presented with a perfectly coiffed head of coils that’s accentuated by a row of curls framing her face, a detail that’s true to the time period, Collins notes. The jeweled tiara she wears was handmade by head milliner Jen Lewis and head jeweler Steven Rogers.
“We wanted to show the afro and its beauty,” Collins says. “That was important. It’s her decision, it’s her choice. It’s like she’s just let her hair down and it sits in its glory.”
The ivory dress made of duchess satin that Charlotte wears was inspired by Queen Elizabeth II. “Laura and I went to Kensington Palace and saw Queen Elizabeth’s wedding gown, which had this amazing iconography from each colony. We thought, wouldn’t it be great if we did this, so we incorporated the Tudor and the Yorkshire Rose into the hem along with some other very British pieces of iconography,” Paolo recalls. “That embroidery matches the embroidery on George’s wedding suit. So, they’re bonded.”
That bond is immediately threatened when, after the wedding, Charlotte is informed that she’s to return to a separate dwelling rather than live with the king. Devastated by this news, she’s shown alone, cradling her knees to her chest in a bed meant for two. Her hair hangs freely around her face.
“She goes to this strange house that she doesn’t realize she’s going to and there’s this whole host of people that don’t look like her, who don’t know her, and she’s just kind of left,” Collins explains.
