Wicked costume designer reveals which Ariana Grande Glinda dress was the most challenging to make and her 1 request
She’s going to be popular!Paul Tazewell used his own magic to create the incredible costumes in “Wicked.”But making one iconic outfit — worn by Ariana Grande’s Glinda the Good Witch — was not an easy feat for the 60-year-old costume designer.“I would say that the bubble dress that we first see Glinda in was probably the most challenging and time consuming because it required so much engineering so that it would appear to float on Ariana’s body,” Tazewell told The Post in an exclusive interview.For the Tony and Emmy Award winner, it was important to perfect Glinda’s bubble dress, which Grande, 31, debuts toward the beginning of Universal’s two-part film.“We wanted for it to retain a buoyancy that would be reflective of bubbles and all that was kind of captured in the air,” Tazewell explained.
“And then the embellishment and the layering of the different sheer fabrics, orchestrating what all that would be.”He added, “There was a significant amount of research and development and figuring out how to make sure that there was support underneath.It was just all the way around figuring that out.”Tazewell also named which of Cynthia Erivo’s on-screen dresses was hardest to create.“For Elphaba, I would say that it is the Emerald City dress that she wears when she first goes to visit the Wizard.
Because again, it is one that has a very intricate puzzle of undulating chiffon, pleated chiffon, that is laid on to it,” he said.Tazewell continued, “The delicate hands of the makers who were able to craft that, I took a significant amount of time and figuring out what the overall shape would be and how it would best move and the kind of underpinnings that were needed for that as well.”“And that’s just for this film,” Tazewell added, noting that he made more costumes for Grande and Erivo, 37, for 2025’s “Wicked Part 2.”“There are so many other costumes and the trajectory of what their characters become into the second film,...