‘Bridgerton’ costume designers know you’re lusting after Lady Violet’s lingerie set

The first instalment of Bridgerton’s fourth season has left us with some burning questions: Does Sophie accept Benedict’s ungentlemanly offer? Has Lady Araminta Gun lied to Sophie about what was really in her father’s will? Will Varley turn a spy for her new household? And does Francesca reach her pinnacle?

All these questions will be answered on February 26, once part two of the swoon-worthy series returns to screens. To keep you going until then, we sat down with costume designers John Glaser, George Sayer, and Dougie Hawkes—yes, the Emmy-winning costume design team of the show—to tell us a bit more about the clothes this season.

The masquerade ball alone had 170-plus costumes

Obviously, as evidenced by the past three and a half seasons, the costume budget for Bridgerton is unhinged. But learning that just episode one’s masquerade ball had 172 costumes makes the scale feel even more jaw-dropping. The sequence was essentially a production within a production, requiring hundreds of historical references, a dozen character-specific disguises, and a bespoke Jimmy Choo moment for Sophie.

Because masquerades were historically theatrical spaces, the team approached the costumes as high fantasy filtered through Regency wealth. As menswear lead Dougie Hawkes explains, the characters would have commissioned or hired their disguises from elite costumers of the time, meaning nothing could look remotely pedestrian. “L&H Nathan was around then, so they would have gone somewhere very special to hire these costumes or have them made,” he says, which is why everything was executed in the richest, most top-quality fabrics.

Every costume takes 4 to 6 weeks to create—and that’s the fast version

The timeline goes far beyond dressmaking. The process begins long before a needle hits fabric. “It starts with reading the script, then talking with the director and actor, and doing research,” says Glaser. From there, sketches are developed by Hawkes and Sayer, fabrics are sourced, and garments are constructed—before moving into dyeing, embellishment, fittings, and finishing.

Even then, nothing is locked. Sometimes, pieces are reworked once they’re tested on screen. “It’s never finished until we see it on camera,” Glaser explains, noting that tweaks continue right up to the final days of filming. In other words: the Regency glamour you see on screen is built like a start-up: fast, iterative, and relentless. “Through the whole filming schedule, you’re still building costumes right to the end,” laughs Hawkes. It’s only possible because of the scale of the team behind the scenes—an “army” of makers, dyers, and embellishers who operate, in Sayer’s words, “like one big family”.

Sophie’s silver masquerade gown isn’t really about Cinderella

The plot this season may scream Cinderella to viewers, but that wasn’t the designers’ starting point for Sophie’s dress. “For us it wasn’t a Cinderella story; it was a Bridgerton story,” says Glaser. The brief—silver—came straight from the script. Instead of a voluminous, princess-coded ballgown, Sophie’s dress was cut closer to an early Regency shape. “We deliberately wanted to change the shape of the dress,” Sayer explains, grounding the fantasy moment more firmly in the show’s period world.

Placed opposite her is Benedict in head-to-toe black—a way of signalling his reluctance to even be there—a choice also guided by the scriptwriters and showrunner. As Hawkes puts it, Benedict “wants to live in his debauched world, so he goes out of duress. We can presume he’s given the outfit by his valet and was just a character from history” rather than a look he was invested in himself.

Hawkes also threaded in a cinematic reference point. He looked to Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love to mirror Benedict’s artistic and poetic sensibility. Together, the palette contrast becomes narrative shorthand. “It’s like, as worlds collide, you’ve got silver and black. If he had been in a light-coloured costume, you would have thought he was Prince Valiant, and it wouldn’t have worked,” adds Glaser. “He had to be more of a real person—and a sexy one.” And sexy he was.

Miss Eloise Bridgerton remains the hardest character to dress

Four seasons in, Eloise remains the hardest character to pin down sartorially. Unlike her siblings—whose visual identities are more clearly codified—Eloise exists in a constant state of tension. “She’s kind of a rebel… We’re not really sure where her storyline’s going,” admits Glaser, explaining that every design decision becomes a balancing act between softness and structure, femininity and tailoring. “We’re always walking on the tightrope with her, back and forth, hoping not to fall off.” It’s a challenge the team clearly relishes—even if it keeps them on edge.

And yes, they’re already deep into solving that puzzle for the next instalment. While season four is only just meeting audiences, the costume department is firmly in season five mode. “It’s meant to be a secret,” Sayer grins sheepishly—before everyone confirms it anyway. “We were just picking fabrics for Eloise about an hour ago, and we said the same thing,” Glaser reveals.

Lady Violet Bridgerton’s corset in the “I am the tea you are having” scene

The lingerie in the steamy scene with Lady Bridgerton and Lord Marcus Anderson wasn’t strict about period accuracy. It was more about charting Violet’s romantic and sensual reawakening through silhouette and texture. “She was becoming more sensual, more confident in herself as a woman, and more romantic,” says Glaser.

Her corset—crafted with silk and French Chantilly lace by Stephen Williams (who has worked on the show since season one and done all the corsets for season four)—was paired with matching knickers loosely based on period items. “The bloomers from that period… They weren’t very beautiful,” Sayer laughs. “And, actually, when they wore them, they were very revealing.” So, the team pivoted to a sexier, 1930s-inspired cut instead. “Ruth [Gemmell, who plays Violet] was involved with it as well, and her performance in that scene was incredible.”

“We always try to make things work for the actor and their actual body. It’s loosely based on period research, but like everything in Bridgerton, it’s been fantasised just to be pretty and to help tell the story,” Glaser adds.

And the sculpting doesn’t stop with the women. “People always talk about the women’s corsetry, but Dougie and Stephen Williams also make men’s underwear,” reveals Glaser. Even the men wear a form of corsetry; you just don’t notice it. The idea—to give the body a shape—is the same. “I think it’s such a success because it goes unnoticed. It looks natural and it looks part of them, and it makes them look sexy.”

Hawkes puts it more bluntly: historical accuracy alone wouldn’t cut it. “Traditional men’s underwear really was not very sexy at all,” he says, noting that modern references—Calvin Klein included—informed the glamourised finish, albeit with “an element of corsetry” built in.

If you’re all caught up on the latest season already, here’s another reason to re-binge the entire series—this time, with a focus on the underwear.

Lady Araminta’s all-black wardrobe is a personal style choice

Yes, she’s widowed—twice—but Araminta’s unwavering commitment to black is less about historical mourning codes and more about character psychology. “We just thought that she started to kind of own the colour,” says Sayer, noting that the palette also helped her stand apart visually from the rest of the ton. “It was more of a style choice for her, really.”

Historically speaking, mourning dress had time limits during the Regency era, which is why we see characters like Violet Bridgerton, Portia Featherington, and Agatha Danbury in colour. “It wasn’t until Queen Victoria, which is much later, that people went into mourning for the rest of their lives,” says Hawkes.

For Araminta, though, the darkness is narrative shorthand. Flashbacks reveal her in softer shades—most notably pink—signalling a very different emotional state. “It just helps the viewer to understand that she was a happy person one time, and now she’s not,” adds Glaser. Rather than positioning her as a villain, the wardrobe reframes her as tragic. “She’s not evil,” Sayer adds. “She’s misunderstood and has been through it.”

And yes, the costume department is rewatching the show and lurking in the fandom

They may have made the costumes two years ago, but the designers are also watching season four alongside everyone else. “We like to watch it when it comes out for two reasons: one is because it’s nice to see the audience’s reactions, and two, for work reasons. We have interviews to do, and we actually have to watch it to remember and refresh our memory,” says Glaser.

Rewatching also functions as an internal audit. “It’s good for us to watch it in a critical way,” says Sayer. Details that felt monumental in the workroom don’t always translate on screen—a learning curve that feeds directly into future seasons. “It helps us evolve creatively.”

And yes—they know fans are analysing every mask, corset, and glove online in forensic detail. “Once in a while, I do [go on Reddit or other forums],” Glaser admits. “I would like to write back a lot of times because a lot of the information is misinformation… But you know what? So be it. We can give what we can.”

Bridgerton season 4, part 2 releases on Netflix on February 26