Elphaba Costume Design for the musical Wicked Citations

Elphaba Costume Design for the musical Wicked Citations not included in example

Costume for Elphaba I chose to design the school uniform that Elphaba wears during her pre-wicked days at Shiz. My reason for this is because unlike the black witch costume, I feel this costume leaves more room for interpretation and design. I plan to follow the needs of the play and color suggestions provided by my research.

Visual Research The following images are examples of the Elphaba school uniform that have already been created. I plan to keep the same intention while adding my own interpretations. 1

Original Costume Designs According to my research, Susan Hilftery, one of the costume designers for Wicked, determined that the school colors for Shiz (the university Elphaba attends) are blue and white. She used darker blues and black tones to illustrate the emotions of 2 2 Elphaba’s character. Ms. Hilftery also said that no matter who was on stage with Elphaba, she would always stand out with her uniform colors. 3 2

Visual Research According to my research, the uniform should was patterned after school uniforms of English boarding schools. 3 I like the look of this uniform, but the skirt is a bit too short, and the colors are wrong. I will use a black blouse with either a navy or dark gray tie. The blazer will remain navy in keeping with the school colors of Shiz. 4

Visual research I like the skirt length shown here. It shows a contrasting color panel towards the bottom. I plan to use this for my design. The skirt will be either navy or dark gray with black or navy contrasting panels. This will keep in the spirit of my research for keeping Elphaba’s color scheme dark to reflect the darker emotions of this character. Her stockings will be black to continue the dark theme. 5

Hat and emblem According to my research, Elphaba does have a beanie or head covering. However, her uniform does not seem to have an emblem. In my design her uniform will have a Shiz embroidered emblem on the left side of her blazer done in dark gray or black. The hat will be patterned more after the Beauxbaton’s hat in The Goblet of Fire. The shape and form will be interesting foreshadowing for the wicked side of Elphaba to come. This will still keep in the spirit and need of the show since the Beauxbaton’s costumes were based on English boarding school uniforms and the hat resembles the shape of the wicked witch’s hat that caome later in the show.

Visual research for hat and emblem 6 8 7