Hey your majesty, welcome to the ‘60s! The Crown jumped into the swinging 1960s for season three, and along with the all-new cast came an all-new set of costumes.
“We’ve moved now into the ‘60s, away from the first two series, which was very subdued, and now we’re into color,” Amy Roberts, costume designer on The Crown, says in the video below.
Olivia Colman as an older Queen Elizabeth II in a new decade brought new challenges to the department. “Amy, the wardrobe designer, is brilliant. It’s a huge team effort. The queen has a different outfit almost for every scene and they’re all handmade. They are all incredible,” Colman says.
By the end of season three, which premiered Sunday, Nov. 17, principal cutter and head of the costume workroom Sue Crawshaw says about 70-80 costumes for the queen. Helena Bonham Carter‘s Princess Margaret got about 40 for the season. And they do everything from skirts and blouses to gowns and jackets.
“You can have a week or less to turn around a costume from start to finish and you can fit up to 10 at a time, so it’s quite concentrated,” Crawshaw says.
The costume department goes scene by scene to figure out what type of outfit is appropriate for what’s being filmed, and they also have certain benchmarks in history they have to dress for. Luckily, assistant director Sidoine Roberts says they have a wide variety of Queen Elizabeth-specific fabrics to go to. And then there are Margaret’s colors, which are slightly darker, “bruised if you like, a bit like her.”
Josh O’Connor, Prince Charles in the series, said the costume, specifically a checked suit, made him feel more like the royal.
See more in the video above.
The Crown season three is now streaming.