A production I saw when I was younger and fell in love with
is Wicked. If anyone has not seen the musical, I highly suggest to do so
because you will not be disappointed. Not only is Wicked known for its music
and lyrics, it is also known for its beautiful, colorful and innovative costume designs.
Susan Hilferty, is the creative brains behind the costumes
of all the characters on Wicked. Hilferty takes pride in designing and creating
costumes which faithfully represent each character she works with. She has also
designed costumes for the productions: Dirty Blonde (2000), Into the Woods
(2002), Annie (2012) and much more. For
her work on Wicked alone, Hilferty has won three awards: a Tony Award, Drama
Desk Award, and Critics Circle Award.
There are over 200 costumes, and accessories which were
created through the imagination of Hilferty. Not only was Hilferty the lead
designer for all of the costumes of Wicked, she also personally tailors each
costume to each character. All of the award-winning costumes of Wicked, play a
huge part in representing the productions themes to the audience. She has said
that a lot of her inspiration for the costumes came from Dr. Seuss, especially
the costumes of Emerald City. For Wicked, “She created a style called “twisted
Edwardian” which is Edwardian-era suits and dresses with asymmetry and literal “twists”
in them.”
One of the biggest challenges Hilferty faced while designing
the costumes for the two main characters, Glinda and Elphaba, was to
distinguish them as good and as evil. In a recent interview, when asked about
the costumes for Shiz University, Hilferty stated: “When I was trying to figure
out what the school colors would be, I moved Elphaba to be all blue so she was
always the darkest person at school and Glinda to be all white so she was
always the lightest person in the school and everybody in the middle was a mix.
But Elphaba and Glinda always stood out.” Additionally, Hilferty was inspired
by natural sources to convey the good of Glinda and the evil of Elphaba. For
Glinda’s costumes, she was inspired by “the sky, light, starts, and rainbows.” Whereas
for Elphaba’s costumes, inspiration came from the earth. “[Elphaba’s] dress isn’t
black, it has many colors in it—the same way that mica or coal or jewels, when
you think of mining into the earth, so that’s why the dress is designed to feel
like it’s planted or coming out of the earth.”
My favorite costume from the play would definitely be Glinda’s
dress in Act II. Initially, I would describe Glinda’s dress as very Cinderella-y.
For inspiration for this dress, Hilferty turned to young girl, whom she asked, “What
do you think Goodness looks like?” The girls responded with the ideas of
goodness as a Princess and a Bride. The
gown which represents lightness, air, and bubbles, was created to appear like
every girls fantasy of a princess. Hilferty explains that over 25 different
kinds of sequins were used for Glinda’s gown.
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