Bridgerton Season 3: Tour the Elaborate Sets
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Photo: Liam Daniel/courtesy of Netflix
In the world of Bridgerton appearance is everything. Netflix’s Shondaland smash hit, which will air its latest season in two four-episode drops (the first premiering May 16 and the second June 13), is known for delivering appropriately rich Regency-era sets for its London high society setting. Though the exterior shots of the show’s dwellings use a number of real-life historic buildings—like the wisteria-laced Bridgerton family house, which borrows its façade from a circa-1723 Georgian villa in Greenwich, London—its interiors are all the work of a dedicated production crew tasked with transforming bare-bones soundstages into intricate 19th-century homes fit for royalty.
The highly anticipated third installment will return fans to some familiar spaces, like the Bridgerton and Featherington homes, while introducing a few new spots. Viewers will be welcomed back inside the Bridgerton family drawing/morning room (oh, to have a designated morning room), decked out in its classic palette of pale cream and Wedgewood blue—or Bridgerton blue, as it’s known in these halls.
In a new video, AD catches up with the show’s production designer Alison Gartshore for an inside look at the new season’s sets, and the Bridgerton abode’s common area is done up in some extra festive decor. Blue and yellow blooms cascade from the columns, while elaborate cakes (fake) adorned with handmade floral and cherub detailing (real; fondant icing and sugarcraft) create a celebratory atmosphere “for a particularly special scene,” Gartshore hints.
Elsewhere in the Bridgerton residence, one of the show’s fan-favorite unions coincides with a marriage of decorative motifs. (Longtime lurkers planning to tune into the series eventually, look away: spoilers ahead.) Season 3 sees newlyweds Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) and Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley) cohabiting in an apartment within the abode that borrows some elements of the family home’s original style, like its color palette, while remixing it to be “a little bit livelier, and a little bit younger in feel,” Gartshore explains. That familiar Bridgerton blue joins a somewhat “peachier” cream shade, meant as a nod to Kate.
“We’ve brought in some of the warmer tones, which we had for Kate and [her sister] Edwina last season, and we’ve married them together with the Bridgerton classic palette,” Gartshore says. She points out references to Kate’s Indian heritage in the couple’s marital quarters, such as paisley fabrics, “trims on the canopy [bed] that we felt reflected Indian culture quite well,” and various decor items including elephants, ivory, and brass throughout the space to signify her presence being woven into the home.
The interior design cues to Kate’s Indian roots continue in her study, where the walls are lined with medallions of scenes “all from India,” Gartshore says, referencing imagery like peacocks (India’s national bird) in oval-shaped gold frames. Others are simply nods to the viscountess’s affinities, including a “specially commissioned” portrait of her corgi, Newton, and one of a regal chestnut steed, a gesture to her equestrian skills.
Kate’s study is anchored by a stately wooden desk, covered with papers detailing her accounts in fine calligraphy. But perhaps more important to the narrative is the size and the sturdiness of the furniture piece: “If you know Bridgerton, you’ll know that there’s quite a lot of intimate scenes throughout the series,” Gartshore says, running a hand over Kate’s desk. “And not to give you any spoilers, but we always have to make sure that, where we have those intimacy scenes, the furniture will stand up to the job, shall we say.”
Aside from the Bridgerton manor, another set that returns for the season is the Featherington home, with its trademark citrus yellows and greens, echoing the signature lemon-lime costuming of the Featherington family.
The elegant plasterwork on the dwelling’s walls is highly elaborate, which Gartshore calls “a completely over-the-top treatment,” adding that it would be uncommon to see quite so much of that detailing in a space. “Lady Featherington (Polly Walker) is very concerned with how other people see her, she’s very shallow…. We reflect that in the way we decorate their spaces,” she says.
The furniture in the Featherington’s place is based on the style of a designer contemporary to the Bridgerton narrative, Thomas Hope, who was influenced by Egyptian aesthetics and relied on lots of blacks and golds. The team found Hope’s style fitting for the family: “It’s very intense, it’s very in-your-face, it’s very Versace,” Gartshore says.
New for Bridgerton season 3 are some interiors in the Cowper family home, where deep blue walls with hand-painted marbling set a grave, masculine tone in the corridor. Viewers can expect to learn more about the backstory of Cressida Cowper (Jessica Madsen), who comes off as somewhat abrasive in earlier seasons. “We understand her to be quite a difficult lady,” Gartshore says. “We start to understand a little bit more about, maybe, why she is as difficult as she is.” She notes that the space was designed to reflect “the masculinity and the austerity of her father, who’s quite an overbearing character, it turns out.”
The creators wanted the Cowper home, particularly the drawing room, to feel oppressive. An earth-toned palette devoid of the vibrant pinks and feminine pastels of Cressida’s wardrobing contrasts starkly to her character’s vibe. The style highlights her lack of belonging in the area, with its imposing red marble columns and impossibly sky-high bookshelves. Even the wood ladder propped against them appears to scale only halfway up.
“We had a scene where one of our characters wanted to look at the books and Cressida was very nervous about that,” Gartshore says. “She’s not actually allowed to touch the books. Being a woman, it’s not her place to touch the books.” Despite the depiction of literacy firmly outside of the realm of women’s business in the Cowper home, we presume Bridgerton season 3 will see Cressida (and plenty of the show’s other women characters) voraciously reading the documents that drive much of the show’s drama: Lady Whistledown’s scandalous gossip column.
Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
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