Belle's Yellow Dress: Emma Watson & Costume Designer Facts
GLAMOUR has seen Beauty and The Beast and we can confirm: a) it's awesome, and b) Belle's yellow dress is INCREDIBLE. We spoke to Emma Watson about what it was like to wear the iconic ball gown and she said that it felt "perfect" when she put it on. She also told us the dress was "a dream of a dress to dance in".
Emma's co-star Dan Stevens also told us how his little girl had opinions about the dress, and even sketched some designs for Emma to look at. How cute! Watch the interview below...
Designed by Academy Award-winning costume designer Jacqueline Durran, who designed everything from the costumes for all the villagers to the elaborate ball gown worn by Belle when she dances with the Beast in the castle ballroom. She said it was easily the trickiest costume because the world loved Belle's yellow frock in the original. As a result, the design process was lengthy and it involved numerous discussions about its look, colour and the material used.
“The dress was always going to be yellow in our film as an homage to the animation,” Jacqueline said. “What we tried to do was re-interpret it and flesh it out a bit by adding more texture and making it feel like a real living costume.” In the end, the dress was created from multiple layers of feather-light satin organza dyed yellow (180 feet in total), which was cut broadly in a circular shape and required 3,000 feet of thread.
The top two layers were printed with gold leaf filigree in a pattern matching the ballroom’s Rococo floor and accentuated with 2,160 Swarovski crystals.
The dress took over 12,000 hours to make and multiple copies were needed. Interestingly, the team decided not to include a corset or cage because they wanted Emma to be able to move because this Belle is way more active than the Belle from the animated film.
“It was definitely an interesting challenge,” Emma said, “The dress itself is so iconic because it is part of that romantic scene in the story. The dress went through a lot of different iterations, but, in the end, we decided the most important thing was that the dress dance beautifully. We wanted it to feel like it could float, like it could fly.”
Jacqueline agreed, saying: “We actually took this into consideration when designing all of Belle’s costumes. We didn’t want her to be a delicate princess but an active heroine, so the blue dress and apron she wears at the beginning of the film was designed with pockets where she could place a book and to be worn with bloomers and a bodice.”
Belle ditches the dainty sandals and opts for a pair of boots to wear with her yellow dress. “We really wanted to expand Belle’s persona in the film and wanted to make sure she came across as a genuine horsewoman,” Emma said. “We made sure she had proper footwear and hiked up one side of her skirt so she could ride western style and that it looked easy for her.”
“The expectations for all of Belle’s costumes were quite high. But we ended up with some beautiful dresses that reference the animated film but are still unique to this one.”
It was a team effort, and Emma said she loved worked with Jacqueline: “One of the wonderful things about working with Jacqueline is that she is so incredibly collaborative. I was just blown away by how much input she wanted from me… she really wanted to understand how I perceived the character inside and out. It was such a special experience for me as an actress, and such a great way to build and understand a character through that process.”
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