Bridgerton ​ Famously Makes Its Actors Even Hotter Each Season. There’s an Art to It.

Netflix’s hit period-romance Bridgerton, based on Julia Quinn’s book series, is known for three things: its steamy courtships, its racially retconned Regency flair, and the so-called Bridgerton glow-up. Each season follows the love story of a different Bridgerton sibling in an alternate-history London. Anyone with eyes will notice that the featured lovebirds, without fail, get a makeover right when it’s their turn to step into the limelight, to the delight of fans who love comparing before-and-after shots of the characters. Season 3 of the show—which follows the third Bridgerton son, Colin (Luke Newton), and his best-friend-turned-more romance with the girl next door, Penelope (Nicola Coughlan)—continues this grand tradition, transforming two already attractive people into even more ravishing versions of themselves.

Slate sat down with Bridgerton’s hair and makeup designer, Erika Ökvist, to break down all of the aesthetic upgrades this season. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Slate: As I’m sure you already know, there’s this concept that the internet has dubbed “the Bridgerton Glow-Up,” where, in any given season, the main couple undergoes a noticeable aesthetic improvement when it’s their time to shine. How much of these changes are expressly intentional? Is there some kind of war room where all this masterminding takes place whenever a new season starts?

Erika Ökvist: What we’ve got to remember is that all of these characters started off in Season 1 being quite young, so we got a natural glow-up that happens with these actors. Like with Penelope in Season 1, everything was round and enhanced, and obviously her chest was put away. Then in Season 2, she tried to explore who she was, and sometimes it was successful and sometimes it wasn’t. Now, she clearly has grown up. She’s a woman of her own right. She knows she’s not going to marry Colin, and she decides that she doesn’t want to be under her mother’s thumb anymore. So, she puts on what I would call a “war look.” She’s literally going in to seduce somebody. I think that the glow-up is prompted by the story and how the character needs to develop. It is definitely a glow-up, but it’s something that is totally character- and story-driven.

How do you decide what to change?

With Nicola, for instance, I’ve got to go with a look that I think will work for her face, which is the most important thing. Obviously we want her to be beautiful. So, I might have had three different ideas, then you try the ideas, and then you go down the one that was the most successful. The old Hollywood glamour—Rita Hayworth, kind of Marilyn Monroe—really works for her facial features, and also married really well together with what [costume designer] John Glaser did costume-wise. Both Shondaland and Nicola were happy with the look. So, it’s something that you develop, but it’s always character-driven and what face you’re working with.

Let’s break this classic Hollywood look down a bit more. What are the major differences in the makeup, hair, and costuming for the character of Penelope, compared to the previous seasons?

In the first season she was childish, in the second season she’s a teenager, and now she becomes a woman. Instead of enhancing anything round, we’re just enhancing all the lines going up. So, we’ve got these cheekbones going up to God, as I say. We’ve got a snatched jawline, we’ve got the cat eyes. All of these shapes that I talk about are very well documented on almost all Hollywood starlets. Basically, we wanted to create a siren.

The first time we see her, she’s taking all the advice from the modiste, so it’s not her own yet. It’s almost like she’s been styled. Then, during the season, as she develops herself, she will then find what I will call her “final look.” As she finds herself, she finds her look.

How much discussion went into her color palette this season? In her storyline there’s a specific effort to break away from the citrusy colors and the things that the Featheringtons are most known for, and to build her own sense of style and her own presence.

What both me and John Glaser discussed was: When you see a Hollywood starlet in these films, you don’t remember exactly what they were wearing or what their hair was like. All you remember is that she looked great. With the early Penelope, the clothes were wearing her, and now she’s wearing clothes that she glows in. We use colors that are absolutely perfect for this type of alabaster skin, because a skin like that could look ruddy in these very strong yellows and greens, whereas somebody else will look fantastic in those and look really wishy-washy in the colors that we’re choosing for her. It’s a deliberate decision that we’re going with things that are more flattering for her skin. It’s the first time where she gets that, really; everybody else has got it all the time, and now she finally gets to have it, because she’s getting away from her mother and making herself her own woman. You can see that visually. That’s what I think is really interesting is that she’s a strong, super intelligent woman with means. She would be the biggest influencer if she lived now. Her Instagram would explode. She’s that intelligent, and she can still be that glamorous. I think it’s something that strong women need to realize, that it doesn’t matter how you look, you can still be really intelligent and should be respected regardless of what you wear. If you want to wear jeans and a T-shirt, you should be as respected as if you had on super high heels and a crazy amount of jewelry.

As somebody who cannot walk in stilettos, I agree.

All you have to do is get yourself an arm to hold on to. That’s what I’ve found.

Speaking of arms to hold on to, let’s talk about Colin’s look. What are some of the differences between the previous seasons and now? He’s grown up, he’s gallivanted across Europe, he’s done all of these things.

In Season 1 it was very round hair, and hiding away his square hairline. In Season 2, for instance, he was wearing a lot of frills under his chin, which will take away his chiseled jawline. Now he’s quite open-necked, so we’ll see the chiseled jawline. Also, we styled the hair differently so you can see that he’s got a square hairline. Every single facial feature that was very masculine, we enhanced in this season.

But also, we have to remember that these actors are maturing, themselves. He basically went from teenager or young man to man himself, as well. He came with a lot of these attributes. It usually happens later for men—I think they’re usually 23, 24, 25 when that happens—whereas young women get the woman look in their teens or early 20s. I think that that’s why it’s so obviously blatant that it happened to Luke.

How much of this process of changes in the wardrobe and hair and makeup is a collaborative process with the actors?

With Nicola, I proposed the look, we did it, and she liked it. I would never ever want any of my actors to not be happy when they’re going to set. I think it’s really important that they are feeling taken care of. They obviously need to be staying within their character look, but I want them all to feel as beautiful as each other. We are taking care, with every character, to make sure that they are shining as much as anybody else. That includes the men. Let’s face it, everything is about sex appeal in this show. They feel that, so they can go in front of the camera and go, “Whoa, here I am.”

Speaking of everyone else, are there other improvements in the looks of other characters outside of Penelope and Colin that you made this season?

All of these people were really, really rich. They wouldn’t be caught dead looking the same in between seasons. Whilst they’ve been away, they’ve probably gone to the equivalent of Regency Paris Fashion Week and got a whole new wardrobe. They sent their maids off to be taught in Paris how to do the newest and latest hairstyles. So, that’s where we’re going, in terms of a glow-up. The costumes this season are more ostentatious than they were last season. Therefore, I could go in with more makeup and more crazy hairstyles, because the full look of somebody needs to be like a visual symphony—I have to match what the costume is doing.

I’m so glad that you said “ostentatious,” because I actually also really want to talk about Cressida. Her looks this season are very interesting. What were some of the inspirations for her wild hairpieces and her clothing?

All of these clothes and all of these looks for everybody are basically a commercial to show everybody else how well-to-do they are. For somebody like Cressida, how wonderful it would be to marry her, because she’s now the wallflower, but she’s too old to be a wallflower. Again, it’s almost like war makeup and hair and costume—and a desperate cry for help, I’d say. But very, very beautiful. I think that the aim with most of what we are doing here is that I wanted everybody secretly to think, “Oh, I really wish I had that hair, but I don’t know if I know anywhere to wear it.”

Are there any changes that you can’t wait to make for other characters? Maybe there’s something you’ve always wanted to do for Benedict but you haven’t done yet, or a difference in Eloise’s palette that you haven’t made yet?

I’ve got another, I don’t know, 20 different looks already in my head for every single person, because when you evolve a character, you can’t switch that off. For example, Queen Charlotte’s wig with the swans swimming around, that was an idea that I had in Season 2, but there just wasn’t an opportunity for that wig. But now that we have the Queen’s Ball, then it would work because the swans are, in this country, the queen’s bird. So, let’s say I’ve got 100 ideas for the queen; depending on what the event is going to be, I’ll have to choose the one that is the most suitable for that particular event. So, that means that maybe 90 percent of all my ideas just never happen.

I paused at that moment just to admire that wig. Actually, how did you do that?

I wanted to have something moving because I thought it’d be really nice if there was a wig that was interactive. I wanted every time you see the queen to be a surprise. I don’t want to repeat anything ever, because, again, she wouldn’t be caught dead repeating. I also do special effects and costuming, so I thought, we’ll do a 3D print of a clockwork. Clockwork has been around since medieval times, and all you need to do is wind it up. So I had that 3D-printed out, then I had to find a motor that did the right speed. They go around in one circle all the way around, and then they all pirouette separately. I had to figure out what to put in there—naturally, I was thinking about swans. Then, for it to set off the scenery, we had an oil painting–like backdrop, almost like how it would be in the theater. If you look closely, Queen Charlotte’s got a tree with diamante leaves, and that is also mirrored as a painting inside the wig. Golda [Rosheuvel, who plays Queen Charlotte] had an on-and-off switch, and the only difficult thing with this wig was I had to make it quiet enough so the sound man wouldn’t want to kill me.

For every season do you go back and do more research just about the fashions of the era? Or do you feel like you’re entrenched in it now?

I worked on Taboo maybe six or seven years ago, which is set exactly the same year as Bridgerton. When I did that, I basically bought every single book, saw every single Regency film, I printed every single Regency picture that is on Pinterest—to the point where, when I go into Pinterest to look for Regency images, it says, “You’ve got it already.” So the actual historical aspect of it, I’m very aware of already. It becomes second nature. But it’s how you translate those pictures for different shows. I could have the same exact research picture for Taboo as I do for Bridgerton, and the outcome would be polar opposite because of the story that needs to be told. With Bridgerton, I also tend to look a lot in Harper’s Bazaar, what’s on the catwalk, maybe the Met Gala, just to keep the pulse on what is en vogue at the moment. But when I actually do the character, all of this is being baked in my head, so I don’t think about this trend or whatever. I just go, “What is good for this character?” I think, ultimately, the written word in the script takes all the information that I have, condenses it, and makes it a look for that character.

Do you get all of the scripts before you start working?

No. I know that people keep asking about all the Easter eggs, but we don’t know what’s going to happen most of the time. I know the rough A-to-B, but what happens in between there, I don’t know. If we’re doing Easter eggs, it is purely because we know in our guts what’s right for this character and what would work as a look for this character. Then maybe I end up using something symbolically there, just because of my gut feeling, that then works within the story that comes next.

That’s also an homage to my team, because you can see all the time and effort. You really feed from each other. Even if you’ve got a dry day, when you’re totally empty of ideas, you speak with somebody, and then suddenly they’ve got an idea. I think if you don’t burn for this job, you wouldn’t last one week. But my team burns for it.