The crew of 2015’s “Cinderella” created a film that looked like it was taken right out of a fairytale. One of the main elements that helped create this aesthetic was the costumes. They were all made by none other than the Oscar winning costume designer Sandy Powell.
Unsurprisingly, the most iconic costume is Cinderella’s ball gown. However, Powell revealed that dressing Cinderella was tactually quite difficult. She once said that “the bad guy is always the most fun to dress, and the good, kind person is always the most challenging.”
It took 20 people 500 hours of work to create the iconic blue gown. The skirt is “made of more than a dozen layers of gossamer-fine silk in different shades of pale blue, turquoise and lavender.” Under layers of feather-light material are petticoats “with literally miles of frill.”
According to Powell, ”It took four miles worth of thread to hem one petticoat.” Moreover, the designer partnered with the famous company Swarovski when creating the ensemble. Indeed, over 111,000 Swarovski crystals were added to the skirt, making it shimmer whenever Lily James, the actress playing Cinderella, moved.
Powell and Swarovski also collaborated to make the famous glass slippers. They created a shoe based on one from the 1890s that Powell found in a museum. It took approximately 150 hours to develop the perfect slipper and six different versions were made before the final choice was made.
However, the actress did not wear the crystal shoes as it was impossible to walk in them. Thus, she wore leather shoes that had the same shape and dimension, and CGI was later used to transform them into crystal slipper on the screen.
For the costumes of the stepmother, Lady Tremaine, Powell worked with Cate Blanchett, the actress who would wear the dresses. Powell and Blanchett traded ideas and were in constant dialogue. The costume designer made the stepmother very stylish, sophisticated and glamorous because she felt that there was “something rather intimidating about the woman who is perfectly dressed.”
She paid a lot of attention to her silhouette and “wanted Blanchett’s wardrobe to look like the 19th century channeled through the 1940s.” She also made a lot of costumes for Lady Tremaine, Anastasia and Drizella so they could have a lot of different dresses throughout the movie as it would underline the fact that they were spending all of Cinderella’s father’s money on their own clothes.
Since the story is not set in any particular time, Powell had freedom to do what she wanted. For the stepsisters’ costumes, she used a lot of bold, bright colors. Powell declared that she didn’t have to make them tasteful, she could make them vulgar. They wear “the yellow and pink of 1950s sorority sisters,” and Powell made them gauche and over-the-top.
Regarding Prince Charming, Powell didn’t doubt that he should be in a sort of uniform. For the ball scene, she found it perfect that he’d be in white and she added blue parts to “accentuate his [Richard Madden’s] startling blue eyes.”
I think Powell did a truly wonderful job. Every costume reflected the personality of its character and Cinderella’s ball gown is simply stunning. I’m not a child anymore, but that costume is still a dress that I dream of wearing.