Bridgerton - How Historically Accurate Is It?

The Netflix series follows the story of the eight close-knit siblings of the Bridgerton family on their search for love and happiness in London's high society. The series was inspired by Julia Quinn's bestselling novels.

Costume designer Ellen Mirojnick brings the Netflix series Bridgerton to life, featuring 7,500 elaborate costume pieces. Bridgerton is a stylish period piece set in 1813 Regency England. The series was completed with royalty, towering manors, formal ball and courtship practices. Ellen shared with BAZAAR.com that “The challenge really was, how do you create this world, logistically, in the reality of it?”

Ellen Mirojnick

There were two characters in particular who stood out to me in terms that their costumes reflected their personalities were Lady Featherington and Queen Charlotte. Lady Featherington was always dressed in bright colors, and made her 3 daughters wear these colors as well. This complimented her drive to be seen/noticed as the best, her family went through turmoil throughout the season but they hid the darkness behind the bright extravagant dresses.

Lady Featherington's daughters

Queen Charlotte was always dressed in amazing Rococo style gowns. Her personality shone through each gown, her dignified yet complicated self. Ranging in color, every gown was covered in beautiful embellishments to show the Queen's high rank in society.

Queen Charlotte

The whole cast was beautifully dressed in historically accurate garments from Empire dresses to tailcoats and everything in between. The Empire dress was a prominent garment in the series as it was worn by every woman with the exception of The Queen who was stuck in Rococo fashion. Gentlemen were always dressed in suits with a tailcoat and the popular tight pants that were in fashion at the time. Ellen Mirojnick did an amazing job at keeping all garments historically accurate.

Marina Thompson and Colin Bridgerton

Of course the era's fashion was not only about the dresses being worn but accessories had a large role in fashion as well. Feathers were worn in the hair by the newest debutants when presenting themselves to the queen. During balls women wore tiaras, ribbons or hats in their hair to keep it presentable. Extravagant jewelry was worn by many during the balls and in their day to day life depending on status, the more or less expensive the jewelry is. When not at home women wore gloves that extended almost to the shoulder.

New debutants

Class was very well distinguished by the dresses worn by the different classes. The Queen always had elaborate gowns, the noble people had their garments made of fine silk and velvet whereas the maids and commoners had their garments maid of linen fabrics. Colors were also a good distinguishing factor in the class rank, bright colors were worn by the nobles and more muted simple colors were worn by the commoners.

Maid tightening their mistress' corset

The young debutants, had to present themselves at the beginning of the courting season, for this special event they wore a special dress. Each young women wore an elaborate white gown, sometimes with golden trim and embroidery to give themselves to society. Along with the dress as discussed before they wore white feathers in their hair and log white gloves. White was worn for this occasion as it signifies purity, and innocence and the golden trims signified class as well as rank.

Daphne Bridgerton's debutante dress

In a series like this the challenge was not only the large cast but also the depth of the story line. For example, there were ten balls in just eight episodes, this requires a lot of tailcoats, tiaras, and gowns. Although the story was fictionalized the essence of the time (1813) was still a main part of the series. At this time the girls changed a lot, a different dress was worn to each ball, and would change several times from morning till dinner. This was a large endeavor that Elle and her team took on, and they succeeded. Ellen did alter the costume designs slightly to those from the era by simply making the colors brighter, adding more glitter and over embellishing the dresses. Overall, I believe Ellen did an amazing job at keeping the essence of era alive throughout the series.

If you haven’t already watched this Netflix series, I highly recommend it! It is an amazing strory full of love and drama!