ELLE Exclusive: Oscar-Winning Designer Paul Tazewell Takes Us Behind The Costumes Of 'Wicked: For Good'

Few modern films have shaped global pop culture the way Wicked has. What began as a quiet Broadway fixation has now erupted into a colour-soaked movement — pink and green now tinting Instagram grids and moodboards everywhere, thanks to the irresistible pull of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. These hues have become shorthand for friendship, rebellion and feminine complexity. Even the dialogue has entered our daily vocabulary: a playful “toss toss” here, a knowing “you’re green” there, and the eternal, inescapable promise of becoming ‘popular’.

As excitement builds for Wicked: For Good, ELLE India sits down with Academy Award–winning costume designer Paul Tazewell, whose work forms the visual heartbeat of this cultural phenomenon.

“The first film was all about transformation, discovery, enchantment, becoming,” Tazewell says. “For Good carries different emotional weight. There’s tension and identity.” That tonal shift demanded a deeper, bolder design language. Where the first film shimmered with the innocence of Shiz-era optimism, the sequel steps into shadow, into the space where ideals fracture, strain, and choices become irreversible. In this world, costume becomes text.

He adds, "Fabrics are emotional cues; silhouettes act like character arcs; garments are repurposed, deconstructed or rewritten entirely as Oz tiptoes towards unrest." Working with hundreds of artisans across embroidery, tailoring, dyeing, weaving and fabrication, Tazewell builds a visual vocabulary where clothing is a political act as much as a personal one.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Elphaba’s transformation. Audiences remember the rigid Shiz skirt suits — pointed sleeves, chevron pinstripes and the stiff, meticulous orderliness that insisted she “fit”. But For Good lets her stand in her truth, her once-practical raincoat evolves into a sweeping, sharply tailored coat layered with distressing and texture – as if shaped by rebellion itself. Tazewell shares "her cape returns, now weathered by flight and conflict, and the dress beneath has softened into a tunic that feels lived-in, hard-earned.

Even her hat, the gift that once made her flinch, is altered. Its brim widens, its point rises, and she wears it not in shame but in ownership." By the time she reaches Kiamo Ko, wrapped in Fiyero’s ancestral cape with its blue-to-black ombré and metallic embroidery, she has become something larger than a myth: a woman in full command of her story.

Glinda, meanwhile, glides through For Good in a different register entirely. If the first film gave us the effervescent girl who could “make you popular” with a single hair flip, the sequel presents a Glinda who understands the stakes of performance. Her wardrobe is full of couture, “Dior meets Marie Antoinette,” Tazewell says — all airy silhouettes, fine fabrics and crystallised femininity.

Her iridescent bubble dress captures light with layers of silk organza, tulle, sequins, foiled sheeting and hand-beaded glass crystals that seem to shimmer mid-air. Her wedding gown is even grander: tulle and organza layered with butterflies that cluster at the hem, rising through the skirt to meet a crystallised tiara and a 25-metre veil. “It marks the moment she becomes a figurehead,” Tazewell explains. “There’s romance, but also performance.” Later, when Glinda steps into a soft pink bubble dress, the shift feels like emotional evolution. Once she adopts this palette, she remains within its variations, ensuring that her arc stays visually rooted.

Jonathan Bailey's Fiyero’s introduction in For Good sharpens the film’s sense of authority. His custom military uniform, inspired by nineteenth-century ceremonial attire, is rich with gold bullion ribbon, cording and ornamental bands. It positions him instantly as someone caught between duty and desire — a man who lives in the tension between who he is and who Oz expects him to be.

Nessarose experiences one of the most significant shifts. Gone are the creams and whites of Shiz-era innocence. As Governor of Munchkinland, she embraces severe aubergine tones, structured asymmetry and silhouettes that echo Elphaba’s early rigidity. Her jewelled slippers remain, but her striped stockings are reworked into off-kilter patterns in deeper hues — a quiet reminder of how power reshapes identity, sometimes mercilessly.

Even the supporting characters are elevated with symbolic detail. The Wizard appears in an emerald-toned dressing gown bordered with art nouveau poppy embroidery — almost domestic, yet theatrically vain. His waistcoat, with spiral embroidery radiating from an emerald “eye”, mirrors the surveillance and spectacle he orchestrates. Madame Morrible’s designs grow darker, denser and more imposing. For her most powerful moment, she wears a deep green velvet robe embroidered with gold and silver bullion, the multilayered chiffon sleeves swirling like the tornado she conjures. She becomes not just a villain, but a tempest.

“It’s about who these characters become,” he says, “and what it costs to stay true to themselves.” And just like that — toss toss — Oz takes over the world once again.

via GIPHY

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