What's so appealing about Cinderella's dress, which cost over $100,000?
In 2015, movie-loving audiences were dazzled by Disney’s live-action Cinderella. Not only was the plot carefully crafted, the film also scored absolute points with the female lead’s stunning blue dress. However, to create this masterpiece, the costume team had to make a remarkable investment in both material and mental aspects, not to mention making the female lead “struggle” many times.
According to Vogue's research, this beautiful blue dress was created by Sandy Powell. Director Kenneth Branagh himself called her to join the project because her talent was recognized by even the master Martin Scorsese. According to Powell, Cinderella's dress was inspired by the 40s and 50s and was influenced by Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca.
Rebecca was the inspiration for Cinderella's dress.
This Cinderella dress actually had 8 different versions, each worth up to 12 thousand USD. Sandy Powell had to "rack his brain" to design the dress to have its own style but absolutely not far from the cartoon version. This dress includes 8 layers with many different shades of blue, made from very light yumissima material to create a floating, graceful fairy tale look.
In particular, the outer layer of the dress is made of thin silk and studded with more than 110,000 sparkling crystals from Swarovski - the leading long-standing gemstone brand. After that, the Cinderella team continued to ask Swarovski to "support" the female lead's classic glass slippers. The shoes alone have 6 different versions, taking approximately 150 hours to complete.
Not only was the design a painstaking task, but the female lead Lily James herself also made many sacrifices. She had to follow a strict diet, only digesting liquid foods to maintain her "wasp" waist. Not to mention, the actress also wore a series of corsets that tightened her waist, to the point that her co-star Richard Madden only needed one arm to hold her. Lily James almost suffocated after spending hours filming the dance scene while wearing the corset, as well as the layered, billowing blue dress.
From here, many conflicting opinions began to appear around the corset, arguing that it was something that bound women’s beauty and freedom to “be themselves”, rather than something that was simply for beauty. For example, it was the corset that forced Lily James to squeeze herself to have a beautiful princess-like figure in the movie.
Luckily, after all, the dress became a big factor in the success of Cinderella 2015. The film is still favored by audiences because it is so meticulous, affirming that it is the most stable and quality Disney princess adaptation, especially in terms of costumes and settings.
According to Fatherland