An Inside Look At The Costumes of The Latest Bridget Jones Film

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They say clothes make the man—but who makes the clothes? In the final Bridget Jones movie Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, it was Molly Emma Rowe. The inimitable costume designer utilized her artistic education to create the costumes for Renée Zellweger’s titular heroine, who’s experiencing great loss and the start of new romance in the series’ final film. We caught up with Rowe on her process for dressing Bridget in her 50’s, mixing vintage and designer pieces, and which items from the original movies made special appearances—and which ones her team recreated from scratch! 

How did you become involved with this project?
I’d recently worked with Working Title, who are the production company on a film called The Swimmers. They put my name forward to the director, Michael Morris, and the producer, Joe Wallett, who I didn’t know before. Then they asked me to come in and meet with those two, and  see how we got on. It was love at first sight!

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy (Courtesy of Backlight PR)

Are you a Bridget Jones fan—and if so, how did that inform your process for creating these costumes?
I’ve been a Bridget Jones fan since I was a teenager. The book came out when I was 16, and the movies came out in my early 20’s. I’ve been very, very obsessed with Bridget for a really, really long time. It’s unbelievable to me that I had the opportunity to be involved. I remember when Joe, the producer, walked me to the lift after my interview, and I said, “I’m like so sorry. I was not very cool in that interview, but I am beside myself, and I don’t really know what to do, because I’m such a huge fangirl of Bridget.” Joe just said, “We’re all fangirls, only fangirls are welcome.” Every single person on that film was so excited to be there, and so invested and excited to build the next chapter of Bridget Jones together. It was really, really exciting. No one had to be cool or hide it. It was all just out there all the time.

Did being a fan already make the costume design process more emotional, or deeper than a standard film project?
What was very interesting for me is, because I was such a fan of Bridget, I needed to watch everything from a slightly different perspective. One of the appeals of Bridget is that a lot of people find themselves in her, so then we all attach things about ourselves onto her, which may or may not actually be there visually. I had to go back and go over all of the movies again without my bias on top, and try and work out what it was about Bridget, and why she wore things, and how she wore things. I did that. After I’d done my passes of the other movies, I had to go and talk to Renée [Zellweger] and find out from her, because ultimately, she is Bridget Jones. She’s created this character over two decades. From what I’d read about the way that Renée works…a very good friend of mine was her personal dresser on Bridget Jones’s Baby, so I tapped her up for some intel.

How involved was Renée Zellweger during your fittings and the overall costuming process, given that it’s Bridget’s last chapter?
Renée immerses herself in every single role that she does. I have friends who worked on Judy, too, and she really inhabits the characters that she’s playing to such an incredible extent. I knew I needed to speak to her and find out from her, and try and get a feel from her. That instinct was right, actually. Renée is very, very clear when she’s trying things on. Unfortunately, there’s no clear set of rules that we can write down. It was about getting things that we felt were Bridget, and then we would just try and try and try and try and try, and look at things together, and be like, “No, no, too chic, too expensive, too luxurious,” and put things together ourselves, and see how it was. Essentially, Renée is in every scene of this film, apart from two. One is Daniel Cleaver watching his girl’s poetry, and the other one is Daniel Cleaver on the phone to Bridget. She’s at work every single minute of every single day, so when she came over to the UK we had a week where I would see her for three hours pretty much every single day, and we would try things on. What I wanted to do was build a wardrobe of things that Renée believed would be in Bridget’s wardrobe, and then I had a little bit more freedom to put outfits together for the changes, without us having to decide on every single outfit. Before filming, if we decided on Bridget’s wardrobe—so, let’s say eight skirts, three cardigans, 10 dresses—that we felt that Bridget would have, I could put them together in different combinations. It felt very important to us that we see the same things throughout the film. She wears this cardigan, but with three different outfits, because another thing about Bridget is that she’s very believable. She’s not a fashion show where every time we see her, she’s wearing something completely new and completely different. We wanted to build this very authentic, real wardrobe for her that then we could put outfits together for.

Renee Zellweger (Patrick McMullan/PMC)

What was your starting point for the costumes in this film, which is the last in the series and follows Bridget into her 50’s? How is she dressing now, in the 2020’s?
It was really important to to think about this. We were in a very interesting position whereby we could make a very subtle statement about what we think about women in their late 40’s, early 50’s, and onwards, and what’s appropriate for women to wear. Our belief is that everyone should wear anything that they want, it makes you feel confident and it makes you feel good about yourself. Then, we need to try and break down all of those inner critics, outer critics. We wanted to empower people. There’s lots of different characters as who I think do that. Talitha, played by Josette Simon, is a fabulous, fabulous woman who just dresses extraordinarily all the time. That was a really cool. Then we’ve got all of Bridget’s friends back as well, Shazzer and Jude so it was getting into the essence of all of these people and making them feel like they’re the people we’ve been following for all this time. With Bridget specifically, I really broke down and looked at what feels like Bridget Jones. It’s short skirts and tiny cropped cardigans; why should she not still be wearing them in her early 50’s? There’s absolutely no reason why, if they make her feel confident and happy—and it takes a lot to get out of the door sometimes. When we meet Bridget in the film, she’s very, very deep in her grief, so we stripped out a lot of colors. We put her in a lot of very comfortable track pants and pajamas and Birkenstocks, things like that. Then, throughout the film, we brought her back to life. When she goes on her first date with Roxster [Leo Woodall], we chose this short floral wrap dress. It feels very feminine, it feels quite Bridget. It feels like a Bridget look with a denim jacket. I looked a lot at what she’s worn over the years, and when she goes on her mini break in the first film, she wears this denim jacket. It really got me thinking about pieces which transcend age. A denim jacket is something you can wear as a little kid, and something you can wear at 80, 90, years old. It’s really timeless and it’s really classic, and it’s not gender-specific either. These are the pieces that felt good, strong, confident, and accessible. That’s really, really important. You can get Bridget’s look, or you can see yourself in Bridget’s look quite easily. What we did is bring back things that I could get out of the archive. There’s not much in the archive at Universal, but there’s a gray hooded jacket with a belt that she wears in the first scene of the first film on her way to her parents’ turkey curry buffet. She wears that in the beginning sequence to our new film. It’s like how you keep things with you, and you find them in the wardrobe, and you try them out again. When you’re feeling vulnerable and nostalgic, you reach for things that make you think of different times of your life. It was cool to be able to do that. Also, it adds to that believability that this is Bridget’s wardrobe over 20 years; it’s not just all new clothes.

Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones (Courtesy of Backlight PR)

What brands or designers does Bridget wear in the film?
Bridget now lives in Hampstead, which is an area of London. We went to all of the charity shops and consignments in that area, and shopped as much as we could for her there. They were pieces that—if they were designer pieces—because they were worn and used and from a charity shop, explaining that to Renée, she was like, “Huh, okay, so Bridget could have gone into this thrift store and found this,” and we’d be like, “Yeah,” because we really did do that. She wears a lot of her little cashmere, the classic Bridget cardigan. There’s a pink one in the movie. There’s a black one in the movie. They’re from Brora. She wears a really lovely Victoria Beckham dress at the beginning. We wanted a green dress to make the audience think…there’s a sequence in the third film when she gets together with Mark [Darcy] at the christening. There’s a lot of things like that that are very subtle connections to the other films and moments in the other films. I wanted this belt…I wanted a brown belt that looked really battered, really beaten up, for her to wear to a summer party with a pink Ralph Lauren dress, Brora cardigan, and then her denim jacket, which is from H&M. My incredible buyer, Katrina, found this Alaïa belt on eBay. We were like, “Oh God, it’s Alaïa, though.” I was like, “But it looks perfect! It’s exactly what I’m looking for!” So we snuck a little bit of Alaïa in there! Sometimes it’s about making sure that everything’s accessible, but every now and again you need something that’s exactly what you’re looking for, and it doesn’t matter where it’s from—it’s the right piece. There’s a lovely, really cute blue floral dress that she wears on her first date with Roxster, which is Ralph Lauren. The pink dress is Ralph Lauren. There’s not so many brands at all. Her work bag is her Mulberry bag from the third film. She wears her classic Tiffany floating heart [necklace] that she’s worn in every single film. We added a little “D,” an antique “D” pendant to the heart necklace, for “Darcy.” What else does she wear? There’s so many clothes in that film, my goodness. She’s got a really cute Max Mara cardigan. Lots of the stuff we got from the charity shop, old Whistles or Hobbs, those kind of brands, which are office, high street brands in the UK. She’s very un-brandy!

Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones and Leo Woodall as Roxster (Courtesy of Backlight PR)

Why were designer labels less of a focus for Bridget?
Renée’s thing that she was very certain about is, Bridget has nice clothes, but there’s always something a little bit off about how she wears them together. Finding that was the key to Renée trusting us to carry Bridget on into her next phase. She puts things together, the patterns don’t match, or there’s a tiny cardigan, but with a low-rise, wide trouser, but there’s something very believable about those things. It’s quite challenging, because you have Renée Zellweger to dress, and she just looks incredible in everything. And brands were like, “We want to dress her!” And it’s like, “No,” but this is such a character costume. It’s not about getting designer labels and brands and things.

Were there any looks or pieces that were especially challenging to create or source?
There’s a lot of things which are scripted, which are from the other films. There’s the iconic penguin pajamas, which are in the first and third films. There’s also a sheer top and a black miniskirt that she wore in her office in the first film, when she’s messaging with Daniel Cleaver. We needed to recreate those, because they don’t exist, they’re not in archive. We spent a lot of time camera-testing different reds to make sure that when we printed our penguin pajamas, the red would look like the red from the first film, and the fabric would look the same. Once we got those colors right, we printed up the fabric, and had the pajamas made up. We have a team of breakdown artists who make everything look lived-in if it’s bought new, so everything looks like it’s been worn. They had to make the pajamas look like she had them for 20 years, so we broke buttons, and bleached the color out of sections, and frayed them, and made them look like they’d been washed for all of that time. The see through top was horrific, because no one could remember what it was made out of! No one could work out what it was made out of. I spent a whole flight back from a fitting in LA, literally just watching that scene over and over again. We were all like, “It’s tulle!””No, it isn’t! It can’t be, because it doesn’t have this!” The discussion was immense, and we made two versions in the end and and we camera-tested them both. I know it’s not the same, but it’s enough for…fans will understand that it’s supposed to be that top and the joke still works, even if you’re new to the film. But those two things were like, “Ah!” because they’re legacy things, and we needed to make sure that the audience believed they were the original things from her wardrobe.

You also worked with Hugh Grant, Leo Woodall, and Chiwetel Ejiofor on this film—it’s a very good-looking and stylish cast! Did the boys have a lot of input or feedback on their costumes?
My relationship and protest with Hugh was very much the same as it was with Renée. He wasn’t in the third film, so actually, it’s been 20 years since he’s played Daniel Cleaver. It was really important for me to discuss with him who he was, why he dressed like that, and who his tailor was, and all of these kind of things. We really got into that, and he was very, very, very generous with me with his time and his knowledge. Richard James made his original suits. Richard no longer cuts suits, so my tailor who I use all the time very kindly tracked down a tailor that used to work with Richard. I really wanted to be able to offer Hugh somebody who understood how Richard made those suits back in the day, and what his twists and flares was. Hugh is very aware of those things, so I wanted him to be able to be discussing with me and somebody who understood as much. He also very generously gave us time to make a bespoke suit. We had four fittings with him, it’s very time-consuming, but Hugh understands the process and what you achieve from having a bespoke suit. I was very lucky that he was so keen to get it perfect, Leo and Chiwetel, because they’re new characters,  I had more of an opportunity to collaborate with them and design with them and around their characters, because they were so new to the franchise. They were very exciting and interesting to do, because they’re not like any other characters that have been in the films before. With Leo, we wanted to give him a real timeless look. We wanted to make sure his look felt conceivable within his… he has a very different socio-economic status to most of the other people in our film. We really wanted to reflect that, so his wardrobe is very small. It’s T shirts and jeans, and he wears his boots for work and when he’s on dates. It minimizing everything for him, but getting that very timeless, James Dean starting point, I suppose. With Chiwetel, interestingly, [his character] Mr. Walliker is not an entirely dissimilar character to Mark Darcy in that him and Bridget have conflict. He’s much more uptight than she is. Maybe we learn that Bridget has a type! But it was very important to me, and to Michael Morris, our director, that Mr. Walliker was not Mark Darcy number two. I thought a lot about school teachers and old-fashioned school teachers, and the kids really look up to him and really enjoy him being their teacher, even though he has this conflict with Bridget. It felt important that he looked approachable and cool and you could warm to him, even though they have this conflict at the beginning. We designed and made everything for him. My tailor, Chris Kerr, made these beautiful tailored cords and tweed blazers and things, quite old-fashioned traditional school teacher clothes, but really updated and made modern. He would wear those with denim shirts and woolen striped ties. There was something lovely and traditional, but then there was something super modern and interesting and cool, because Chiwetel is a leading man! He just looks great. There’s this beautiful blue double-breasted suit that he wears at the Christmas concert at the end, and it was just so perfect. It’s cool and it’s different, and it’s certainly not anything that Mark Darcy would ever have worn—and I love that about it.

Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones and Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mr. Walliker (Courtesy of Backlight PR)

All of the Bridget Jones films have a couple defining outfits. Is there a look that’s really definitive of Mad About The Boy?
That’s a very interesting question, because Bridget goes on much more of an emotional journey in our film. It’s a very, very emotional film, because it deals with grief. A lot of people like the summer party outfit. That’s a pink floral Ralph Lauren dress with a denim jacket. It’s quite Bridget. It feels like a Bridget look, so I get asked about that a lot. There’s also an outfit that she wears when she climbs the “magic man” tree in Hampstead Heath. She’s wearing jeans, which is not something that we’ve ever seen Bridget in, apart from some maternity jeans in the third film. She’s in a Levi, really nice, classic blue Levi’s straight-leg jeans with New Balance trainers. Then she’s wearing a shirt. I took this to Renée and Michael at the beginning. When my mom was going through her grief, when my father died, I noticed—I was thinking a lot about it—I remembered that she would often wear his clothes, his jumpers, his work shirts, oversized, and they would look really, really cool. But there was something…when she needed to feel close, or she wanted to feel close to him. I took that to Renée and Michael, and they really loved that idea. At the beginning of the film, she wears this really baggy gray cashmere bubbly cardigan. We gave it a backstory: it’s Mark’s cardi for home, so it’s oversized on Bridget, and then she’s wearing a very classic blue and pink-checked Turnbull and Asser shirt, which I feel like Mark would definitely have worn that pattern and have worn shirts from Turnbull and Asser. We had “MD” monogrammed on the shirt, which you can’t see in the film. But we wanted to just build all these layers so that Renée could really believe these pieces were Mark’s. We washed it loads, and frayed the collars, and things like that. That feels like a really important outfit, because it’s very new style for Bridget. Essentially, she’s wearing Mark’s clothes and jeans and trainers, and it’s not really something we’ve seen Bridget in before. That was exciting.

Do you have any post-viewing thoughts after seeing your costumes on-screen?
I’ve seen the film twice. I was just so, so proud of my team. My team was so invested and talented and kind, and everybody put absolutely everything into making that film come alive. I always feel very, very, very emotional about it, because it was such a team effort. I feel that very strongly about my own team, but the every filmmaker on that set, how costumes works out with hair and makeup, how costumes works out with production design. The cinematography is extraordinarily beautiful. In this film, Suzie Lavelle is an absolute genius. The film looks like it was shot on film, like the first film. It was very emotional to see all of our work looking so cohesive and so collaborative. It gives a very authentic, believable feel to Bridget’s world, and it really comes across on screen. I was really happy with everything, but it just made me feel so grateful about the people that I got to make this film with.

You’ve also designed costumes for A Discovery of Witches, A Town Called Malice, and Gap Year. How would you describe your aesthetic and approach to costume design across different projects in different genres?
I went to art school and I studied fashion design, and I was a stylist for probably 10 years with costume design in there. My approach is a person. When casting comes in, that’s really the thing that changes everything for me. I like to work with the actor and with the character, and make sure that they feel convinced and comfortably that person. We basically help them to tell their story. We all come together to help tell the story, and we’re an extra part of that puzzle. It’s always very important to me that the actors feel convinced by the work that we’re doing together. As a stylist, I use a lot of accessories. I really like to mix anything contemporary. I would always mix high street, designer, vintage, antique. Those layers create interesting characters and more believable wardrobes. Nobody just goes out and buys things, and then that’s all they have from now. And color, as well. I always use a lot of color to tell stories. Maybe that comes from my music video days back in the 2000’s! Maybe that’s where my obsession with color came from. I love tailoring. I love to tailor everything. I love to make tailored clothes. You can you get clothes from anywhere, and if you can tailor them or alter them to fit the person that’s wearing them exactly how they should be, then that that can change everything about an outfit.

What advice do you have for someone who wants to be a costume designer?
What’s always helped me is being able to make clothes, so I have an understanding of how I can alter something. I have an understanding of how to make clothes, so I can speak to shoemakers and explain what I want and what’s possible out of fabrics. I don’t think you have to have formal training, but being able to make clothes is really important for me. I was a stylist for nearly a decade, so I spent quite a lot of time thinking, Why think that? What a waste of time? Actually, it’s come back around that it’s the most important thing, to think. Research. Just absorb. You never stop learning. You never stop being inspired. You should never stop having conversations. People around you, people in the street, take notice of everything. How should we be wearing something, and why? Ask these questions and try and answer them. You see people that build a library of how people wear clothes, and when, and maybe why. You can create backstories. Also, my answer is, get ready to be really, really tired. File your receipts! Learn about tax!

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