Variety: ‘Wicked: For Good’: Paul Tazewell Upcycled Elphaba’s Looks and Wove Audrey Hepburn’s Style into Glinda’s Designs
- paultazewelldesign
- Dec 4, 2025
- 1 min read
By Jazz Tangcay
December 04, 2025
At the end of “Wicked,” Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba leaps out of the Emerald City palace window in her velvet cape with her hat, and she flies off on her broom.
“That is the moment where she embraces her power,” says the film’s costume designer, Paul Tazewell.
In the film’s conclusion, “Wicked: For Good,” the community of Oz has made Elphaba into the villain, falling for the propaganda churned by Madam Morrible (Michelle Yeoh). Glinda (Ariana Grande) has become a pawn in Morrible’s plans. Elphaba has been forced into exile.
Tazewell leaned into the idea of repurposing and deconstructing looks that she had previously worn. Because the film was a continuation of the same story, he didn’t want anything to feel brand new. To keep that continuity, Tazewell says, “The dress that was her very best dress that she wears to meet the wizard deteriorates into a tunic that she then matches with trousers that we’ve seen her in at Shiz.”
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