Bridgerton became a cultural sensation when it first arrived on our screens on Christmas Day in 2020. The steamy Regency-era period drama was watched by over 80 million households in its first month, becoming one of the streaming platform’s biggest hits and catapulting its young, relatively unknown stars to household names.
Now in its fourth season, the show continues to be a runaway success. “It’s like one big movie, it just keeps going and doesn’t stop,” the show’s lead costume designer, John Glaser, exclusively tells HELLO!. “It’s always evolving. A movie, at some point, stops, but this just keeps adding to itself.”
The way in which the show captured the zeitgeist was somewhat unexpected for Glaser, whose luxurious creations are part of what makes the drama so appealing – and won him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Period Costumes last year.
“None of us knew the reception that it would have when it was first released,” says the designer, who, alongside his department of over 100 people, made more than 700 costumes for the new season, including 172 unique looks. “When you’re in the moment, you never know how big something may be or how insignificant it may be. This just happened to be massive.”
Benedict takes centre stage
Adapted from Julia Quinn’s bestselling novels, each season of the dizzyingly glamorous drama has focused on different members of the Bridgerton family.
© LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIXIn season four, actor Luke Thompson takes centre stage as the rebellious, bohemian second Bridgerton son, Benedict, whose life as an eternal bachelor is turned upside down when he meets Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha), a maid disguised as a debutante at a masquerade ball.
“Benedict was building up for this season.”
“He was building up for this season,” says associate costume designer Dougie Hawkes. “He really sees himself as an artist, he’s a bit playful, and he’s trying to find himself on the sexuality side of things, as well. So it was a chance to pull that out and show it in his relaxed costume.”
An evolution of Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy in Benedict’s wet shirt scene
One particularly memorable scene emulates an iconic moment from the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, when Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy emerges from a lake in a sopping wet shirt. In Bridgerton, Benedict also appears lakeside in a sodden shirt while Sophie bashfully hides behind a tree nearby.
“It’s become a bit of a game for me,” says Hawkes, who worked on the BBC’s 1995 Jane Austen adaptation. “We tried to perfect it with the weight of the shirt, what it would look like, how we would play the pantaloons. It’s become a bit of an evolution of Colin Firth,” explains the designer, who says that this time, Benedict’s dangerously low-cut, half-buttoned trousers have become a talking point among viewers.
© LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIX“With Colin, it was his shirt, but with this one, it’s become about the pantaloons,” says Hawkes, adding, “Luke Thompson just effortlessly did that.”
Embracing the ‘upstairs-downstairs’ element of season 4
As well as shifting the spotlight to a new Bridgerton sibling, the show also pulls the lives of the downstairs staff into focus. “This is the first time where there’s a lot of integration between the upstairs and the downstairs,” says Glaser, whose previous credits include Gotham, Brotherhood, and another Shonda Rhimes hit, How to Get Away with Murder. “We had to find a nice balance. We had to make sure that the downstairs was elevated enough and not too contrasty with the upstairs. If it had been a really sad downstairs and a really fantasy upstairs, the interactions wouldn’t have worked,” explains the designer, who said the maids’ necklines are “more elegant and sexy” this time around.
“There are no divas, there’s no pulling rank.”
The maids aren’t the only ones to get a new look this season, however. Lady Violet Bridgerton (played by Ruth Gemmell) dons sexier and softer styles as she explores a new romance after years of widowhood.
“That was a really lovely journey this season,” says assistant costume designer George Sayer, who, before this, worked on the Oscar-winning film Poor Things. “Her clothes had been quite conservative before, and we were trying to feed into that whole, blossoming, finding love again, narrative,” Sayer says of the Bridgerton matriarch, who embraces her sexuality as a mature woman, sparking a relationship with Lord Marcus Anderson (Daniel Francis), the brother of Lady Danbury. “Everything was softened and made a little bit sexier.”
© LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIXWith the show already renewed for another two seasons, work on the next instalment is well and truly underway ahead of filming in March. According to Glaser, returning to the show is like “going back to school”. “You get your notebooks out and think about how to approach it in a different way, what can keep it fresh,” he says.
There are no divas on set
While plot details for season five remain firmly under wraps, what is for certain is Glaser and his team’s continued appreciation of the production.
“It’s a great project,” he says. “And that comes from the top, from [executive producers] Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers. It’s like, no muss, no fuss. Let’s have a pleasant and rewarding experience.”
© LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIXAs for the two leads, Thompson and Ha, Glaser couldn’t be more complimentary. “They are great people and they’re very self-sufficient,” he reveals. “This production is like a Woody Allen film where an actor comes in and they’re glad to be here. They’re glad to have their job.
“There are no divas, there’s no pulling rank,” says John. “It’s a great project. We appreciate it and I think the actors appreciate it too.”
Bridgerton Season Four is available to stream on Netflix now.
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