Diego Peralta
Every time Bridgerton graces Netflix screens, viewers are swept away by its lush sets, captivating performances, and enchanting music, but it’s the costume design that truly weaves the show’s magic. Since 2018, John Glaser has crafted the unforgettable looks that make every scene of this global hit visually spectacular, earning accolades for his artistry.
In an exclusive Awards Radar interview, Glaser shared his passion for tackling the challenges of season three, where Penelope Featherington’s transformative arc demanded nuanced, intricate costumes that tested his team’s creativity. From the six-to-eight-week process of creating a single outfit to navigating the show’s signature opulence, Glaser’s work continues to elevate Bridgerton as one of Netflix’s most dazzling successes. Below is my interview with John Glaser.
John Glaser: Morning, how are you? Good.
Diego Peralta: I’m great. Good afternoon. My first question is, what criteria do you focus on when deciding an outfit for a character in Bridgerton? Do you work based on a character’s age, their backstory, or their personality?
John Glaser: It’s a combination of all that. First, it’s what’s written in the script, which tells you what the character is, but then you have to meet the actor, and that will guide you. There are certain things an actor does with their character, but also a person has natural attributes. You can’t change that, so we have to blend the two. We also have to think about where the character came from and where the character is going.
DP: Brilliant. How long does it take to craft a single outfit for one of the main characters? From the moment you think about the outfit to the moment the actor wears it, how long does it usually take?
John Glaser: We’ve figured out about six to eight weeks, and that’s from doing research, looking at research, picking research, drawing the sketch, finding fabric, fitting, probably fitting twice, and then it goes to embellishment. It may go to the textile department. About six to eight weeks.
DP: Great. That’s a long period of time. The craft of your line of work is just so impressive. I love it every time I watch the show.
John Glaser: In an emergency, six to eight weeks is our luxury time. We can do it in probably a week or two weeks. Not to the same level and not to the same quality, but we could get something for someone to wear in that amount of time.
DP: That is absolutely impressive. I don’t know how you managed to do that. Do you have any favorite characters you design for? And if you do, who are they?
John Glaser: We have a pretty good answer to that. Our favorite character that we’re designing for is the one that we’re doing right now. That’s a tricky question. Come on. You can’t ask me that.
DP: I had to try. No offense to the cast, but I just had to throw that in there. If someone wanted to make their own Bridgerton outfit at home for Halloween or for a special event, what advice would you give when it comes to the basics of it?
John Glaser: They have to find a Regency pattern, which is easy to do online. And the most important thing is not to buy cheap fabric. Buy fabric that has some substance to it. Otherwise, it won’t hang correctly. And make it simple. Don’t try to get too complicated or too elaborate.
DP: Is that something the team thinks about when working on the show and trying to make it simple?
John Glaser: No, we try to make it as complicated as possible. Not as complicated as possible, but we try to get lots of detail in, lots of embellishment, lots of embroidery, as much as we can get into a costume in that amount of time that I talked about. Because you have to remember, it’s Bridgerton, and Bridgerton is not simple. It’s lots of layers of textures and colors and sparkle. We don’t go for simple.
DP: Let’s talk about Lady Danbury, who is absolutely the greatest Bridgerton character in existence. No disrespect to the others. When it comes to that character in particular, what are your inspirations for her outfits, and are there any rules to what she can wear and she can’t?
John Glaser: Yes. When we started out, Lady Danbury, the color of her house is burgundy, so everything that we first put around was burgundy. She is a very strong woman, and we try to make her masculine. That’s why she wears the top hat. Over the seasons, we’ve expanded out to use different colors, but it’s a pretty… She wears the same silhouette, because she’s a man. She’s wearing a suit, a woman suit, basically. And we use strong jewel tones on her, not a lot of pattern, never a floral on her. Everything is with a masculine accent to it. We’ve tried colors on her which don’t work, so everything is always a dark jewel tone. Emerald green, navy blue, dark green. And we have veered away from burgundy, because everybody knows that’s Lady Danbury, and her character has expanded, and so with us, our colors have expanded along with it. If you don’t know who Lady Danbury is now, a lot of people think it has to be by color, but she started out in burgundy, but now you should know who she is. We don’t have to knock it over the head that she’s Lady Danbury wearing burgundy.
DP: I have a personal bias. I love her every time she’s on the screen. But I do think it’s interesting that you point out how this character has been on this journey, and that’s why she’s allowed to wear different things over the course of the show. Do the actors have any input on the outfits, or is that exclusively for you and your team to decide how to tweak it?
John Glaser: No, they definitely have input, and we don’t want to put anything on anyone that they don’t or they don’t feel is right for the character. It’s not a lot of input, but it’s the nuances that they are involved with. They know their color palettes. They know their silhouettes. They know their color stories. It’s just the smaller, the nuances. Sometimes we do something that doesn’t feel right for them for the scene and we’ll make some adjustments. I think they do have some input.
DP: Are the wigs a part of your job, or is that a separate department?
John Glaser: That’s a whole separate department. We have nothing to do with hair, except that the hair department, makeup department, and us all work together. But I couldn’t tell you anything about hair if my life depended on it. I don’t have any hair, so…
DP: I’m going to be thinking about that for a long time. I’m sorry.
John Glaser: It’s okay.
DP: I’m glad to hear that there’s collaboration between every single team involved in creating these characters and how they look on the screen. I respect you so much for bringing up the no hair thing. You’re amazing. How often do the Bridgerton characters repeat outfits? Do they repeat outfits at all in the series? And if they do, how often?
John Glaser: They never used to. But this is the first season where we have repeated an outfit. Because we’ve never done it, we’re very selective about what we repeated. And it was a little… It was jarring to us because they never repeat clothes. So I think next season we won’t repeat clothes again. It just isn’t something… It’s a fantasy show. It’s an unreal world. And to repeat clothes just doesn’t make sense. Also, people don’t expect this. And they don’t expect to see the same thing twice. This year, because of circumstances, we had to repeat some things here and there, but it just doesn’t work. The producers wanted to, but I didn’t think it worked.
DP: I know dedicated fans are going to notice online if these characters repeat outfits.
John Glaser: We’re going to get left and right about – why are they repeating clothes? Did they cut the budget? Are they getting lazy? It’ll be a whole list of things, why they repeated clothing. Exactly.
DP: Not me. I really love your craft and I love the outfits, but as the only man in the family who watches it, gun to my head, I could not tell if you repeated clothes. I swear. Okay, all right. A lot of people will.
John Glaser: I know.
DP: Have you designed a Bridgerton costume for yourself?
John Glaser: No.
DP: Is that something you would be interested in at some point?
John Glaser: No interest.
DP: Great. Just keep putting it on the screen. Did you ever talk with Julia Quinn, the author of the books, before working on the series?
John Glaser: No, we’ve never actually had a conversation. I think what you have to remember is that Julia Quinn speaks to Shonda Rhimes and we get our details from Shonda and her team. You don’t want to mix it up too much, so you go from one person, you go from the source, which is Shonda Rhimes.
DP: Amazing. You used to work in a lot of comedies and then you did Gotham, right? And then you jumped into Bridgerton, which is something radically different, I believe, from what you have done before. How did you end up working for Bridgerton? How did these projects take you to this journey that you have been on for more than half a decade at this point?
John Glaser: I worked with a woman named Mirojnick, who’s a costume designer, and we’ve done projects together. Shondaland, that corporation called Ellen, to come into London and start Bridgerton. We had done a few other projects with Shondaland, so they asked me to come over with Ellen and just to get it started and to set the look. I felt it and I never left.
DP: Do you feel comfortable with the fact that you’ve been working on this for so long, or would you be open to doing other projects?
John Glaser: Oh, absolutely other projects. But you have to remember, season one was 2019. Then there was the pandemic and the writer’s strike, which I didn’t do season two. And season three, and now, oh, you’re right, season four, right. Okay, yeah. No, but everybody needs to do different projects. And if you don’t do different projects, then you don’t bring enough inspiration to the table if you just keep doing one thing. And that’s why every season, we come up with different ways to approach the season. It depends upon what the overall feel for the season should be. And I can’t tell you what that is for season, well, you did see season four, right?
DP: Yes, unless you want me to.
John Glaser: No, I mean. No, no, no, no, no. Each season, we try to give a different feel to it, yeah.
DP: I mean, is there anything you think the viewer should notice a little bit more when watching the series about what you and your team do?
John Glaser: I would just be, you’d have to be very interested, but just to see that we do use period references and how we interpret them into a more modern look. It’s finding a little Easter egg. So that’s from that painting, that’s from that research. Oh, we’ve seen that a million times in Regency research, but look how they’ve twisted it around.
DP: Oh, so it’s the music, when they bring modern songs, as if they were classical pieces, you do the same with the outfits?
John Glaser: Yeah, exactly. Just with the, I can’t even speak, with the music in Bridgerton, yes. The same thing, the same idea.
DP: It’s okay, great. Thank you so much. Before I go, there was something else that popped in my head that I can’t remember right now, I’m sorry. But I really want to thank you for this conversation. I had a wonderful time, and you’re just, it’s so interesting to listen to you. Honestly, I could spend here the whole day. But thank you so much. Oh, great. And I wish you the best.
John Glaser: Thank you. Great, you too. Have a great day.
See John Glaser’s on Bridgerton – all three seasons are not airing in their entirety on Netflix.
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