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- The Handmaid's Tale Costume Designer Details the Design References For the Show's Sinister Third Season
The Handmaid's Tale Costume Designer Details the Design References For the Show's Sinister Third Season
by
kara kia
Everett Collection / Elly Dassas
Natalie Bronfman is the two-time Emmy-nominated eye behind the costume design for The Handmaid’s Tale. Supervising the creation of the show’s iconic red caped dresses and white bonnet hats since its 2017 debut, she more recently took over as lead costume designer for the show’s third season. Now that Bronfman is up for her third Emmy nomination, she speaks with us about the rich variety of design references that inspired season three of one of television’s most visceral drama series.
“It’s funny because I actually wanted to be an opera singer,” Bronfman admits, with a joyful demeanor in contrast with the dystopia she dresses. But it’s easy to see how her love for drama and theatrics shapes her eye for design. “I tend to like a post-war aesthetic, post Second World War, like [Federico] Fellini, that genre of films, and anything very historical. Even the original version of Cleopatra which was so over-the-top with Liz Taylor, but you look at it and it’s such a visual eye candy that you can watch it 10 times and there are more things that you see.”
Everett Collection
Bronfman’s historical approach to costuming is seen heavily in the prim-and-proper post-war silhouettes of The Handmaid’s Tale. For season three, the character’s dress – particularly that of June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss), Serena Joy Waterford (Yvonne Strahovski), and Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) – takes a much more sinister turn when the storyline moves to the austere state of Washington.
Everett Collection
“With June, when the government was doing the propaganda, the handmaids wore little capelets that covered up the neckline, so that became a new costume piece. There was also an army that was introduced, and a new commander uniform, but it didn’t make it to camera for some weird reason or not in the final cut, but it was sort of influenced from various armies in the past.”