Cinderella Wedding Dresses

Making of Cinderella's Wedding Gown

First Look: The Making of Cinderella’s Wedding Gown

Sixty-five years after Walt Disney released the animated film Cinderella, the beloved fairy tale is heading back to the big screen on March 13 as an epic, live-action romance. Costume designer Sandy Powell drew inspiration from the 19th century and the 1950s to reimagine the looks of characters from the classic cartoon for director Kenneth Branagh’s remake.

“I wanted the costumes to be bold and have an explosion of color as if it were a picture book,” says Powell, 54, a three-time Oscar winner. “But at the same time, I wanted the clothes to be true to each character and believable.” In a fairy tale movie, as you might imagine, “believable” can be stretched. Powell’s work on Cinderella included an twelve-layer ball gown, a single dress that took more than 550 hours to make, and eight pairs of shoes made of Swarovski crystal—none of which were ever worn by Cinderella herself.

When it came time to dress Cinderella (Lily James from Downton Abbey) for her magical wedding to the Prince (Game of Thrones alum Richard Madden), Powell says it was crucial that the happily-ever-after gown be unlike the showstopping, blue gown she wears to the ball. “Creating the wedding dress was a challenge. Rather than try to make something even better than the ball gown, I had to do something completely different and simple,” she says. “I wanted the whole effect to be ephemeral and fine, so we went with an extreme-lined shape bodice with a long train.”

She constructed a beige colored, long-sleeve, silk organza gown with a floral print to represent the simplicity of the princess-to-be. “Cinderella wins the Prince’s heart through her goodness, so I wanted to show this through her clothes,” Powell explains. “I wanted her to stay modest and pure even though she was going to be a part of royalty.”

A team of seamstresses meticulously cut, sewed, and stitched together the elegant, to-the-floor–length gown for nearly a month. Once it was assembled, the frock was given to the artists who intricately hand painted flowers onto the gown. It took 16 people and 550 hours to complete the dress. However, all the hard work put into the picture-perfect gown was nearly lost. While the production crew snapped photographs of James in the gown, she stood too close to a small electric heater and the dress caught on fire. “It was a disaster! The entire top layer was completely burned and it had to be redone. It wasn’t like, ‘Is Lily O.K.?’ All we were concerned about was the dress, because only one wedding dress was created due to time and budget,” says Powell.

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