The Crown's Costume Designer Breaks Down the Fashion of Season 2

My name's Jane Petrie and I was a costume designer

on season two of The Crown.

(light music)

These are Notes on a Scene.

When you're designing costumes for The Crown,

one of the sort of balancing acts

that sometimes you're being historically accurate

and sometimes you're designing something fresh and new.

But this is one of the cases

where we were historically accurate

and we were as close as we could be

to what Elizabeth actually wore

when the Kennedy's came to visit.

And it's a Hartnell gown that we see in an earlier scene

when she goes to choose it at Hartnell's Studio.

What this dress says about Elizabeth in this scene

is that she's still a little bit stuck

in the earlier fashions

and Jackie Kennedy arrives in her fresh Paris fashion,

so there's a sort of the clash of the two,

the old and the new.

Done.

Goodness sake.

Come on, it's like royalty.

Oh, very funny.

(footsteps approaching)

So this is Jodi Balfour arriving into the palace.

I think this the first time you see her dress full length.

I wanted it to feel like fresh and clean and clear

and crisp and modern and maybe Parisian

in contrast to all the stuffy, kind of frills

that we had on the Hartnell gown for Elizabeth.

When I saw the rehearsal it just didn't look finished,

it didn't look like she was arriving.

It was all about the arrival and the freshness

and the impact of her walking through the door

from the outside.

It wasn't really saying it with just the dress,

on it's own just a simple dress.

And I made this at lunch time which is why embarrassingly

there's a little bit of a crinkle here

and this isn't ideal there and I think I had 45 minutes

drop back in the car and came back down.

And we got it on her,

I needed to see what I needed to see for the narrative.

And then we see the dress later on without the shawl.

We deliberately had two blue dresses.

There's a line in the script where I think,

I think it's Phillip, somebody describes her as icy.

So that felt naturally that was the right color.

And then the color that Elizabeth wore,

Elizabeth's dress was accurate.

So the two blues kind of arrived.

I didn't feel like I imposed that on the script.

Done.

This character here in the background,

she is very much dressed as though she is part

of the American contingent,

that is a very very modern outfit for the royal household.

And her hair and makeup she's a little bit more fashionable

than say this lady here or this one here.

Her dress is very very modern.

And you see it's got quite a sort of high waisted here.

This sort of quite cold pink and all of the embroidery

just has different feel and a different tone

to the kind of golden colors that we used

for a lot of the older establishment types

that surrounded the royals here.

There's lots of golden sort of warmth

and then this kind of cool, contemporary modern pink

that came in.

These sort of Swarovski Crystals,

you can see them all along here and all around here.

If you see on, in this dress there are sort of flounces

and gathers all around it.

And then if you look at this woman over here,

who's representing modernity for us,

the contrast is quite clear.

It's clean and simple and fresh

and it's sort of cluttered and very 50's

and we're into the 60's now.

(footsteps approaching)

So here's Phillip,

he's one of the best dressed men actually,

if his arm was straight you would see

that there's always just that right amount of shirt showing,

he always, always had a very straight clean crisp.

Well, hang on this, this guy's got the same.

I think if I'd noticed that at the time

I maybe might have changed that.

'Cause that's a very Phillip thing.

Phillip's just always spotless and immaculate

and appropriately dressed.

So the differences with Phillip's tuxedo

is sort of a wider 50's collar,

you've got here and it's sort of quite 50's.

And then you would have on JFK's a bit narrower

and a bit more 60's, just a little bit narrower in here.

So Phillip kind of, some of his jackets

and the 50's detailing is something that he stuck with

and you'll find that he's pretty similarly dressed

in the 80's, 90's even now.

This is, I think he's reached his optimum lapel here.

(footsteps approaching)

In contrast to Phillip, we've got Michael C. Hall here

who's playing JFK, his collar of his jacket

is just that bit narrower and a bit more 60's.

Notched lapels here, his shirt was a little bit pleated

I just remembered that.

Where Phillip's is a little bit crisper

and a little bit more heavily starched

in a sort of conservative English way.

And Kennedy's a little bit more relaxed.

President first, President first.

So, here we can see how much jewelry Elizabeth's got on.

One, two, three and four, if you count each earring,

I suppose.

She's putting on a big show.

There's a bit of power.

She's asserting herself here.

And Jackie is very relaxed

with one really simple elegant diamond,

just one statement piece that makes her outfit just right.

Your majesty.

No curtsy, no curtsy.

Mrs. Kennedy.

Your grace.

And there you've got simple earrings

in contrast to Elizabeth.

The simplicity of it is very fresh

compared to the sort of fussiness and busyness

of the earlier designs that Elizabeth has.

Your grace.

Your royal highness.

Mrs. Kennedy.

Good evening your royal majesty.

Oh dear.

For goodness sake.

Mr.President.

Mr. President.

So you can see the back of Jackie's dress here

there's a sort of an attached cape

which is attached to the back of her dress

which is under there just like that.

And then this sort of drops off,

so it highlights from the front, it gives you,

it means that it's not super plain at the front.

And when you see the back of the cape there's a little bit

of movement and it's not just a straight tube.

So it was a bit more interesting to look at.

Your grace.

Do they know about the protocols?

Yes.

These obviously didn't read it.

Yes, well, shall we?

Jackie.

Where do you think she's going?

Lord knows.

Mrs. Kennedy.

(sighs) I feel like that went wrong

in about 10,000 different ways.

For Kennedy's shirt here you can see it's got

a very very fine sort of rib in the cotton.

And the peak at Phillip's you can just pick up,

there's a little kind of, in the weave,

it's the type of cotton weave that's very very traditional.

And Kennedy's feels, again, it's more fashionable,

it's more of the 60's and less conservative

and less stuck in tradition.

And look at Phillips's perfectly tied tie there.

I've seen worse.

But I'm not sure when.

(laughs)

Drink?

Please.

Sorry sir.

Bloody shambles.

With The Crown the characters everything sort of

takes place usually at I get one hit at.

If the Queen has a meeting with the Prime Minister

then the next time that she meets with him

it might be in a different house

where she would have a different outfit.

Or it might be the following year

and you don't see her wearing the same thing twice.

I thought it feels quite contrived, it's quite theatrical,

but then when I spoke to this dressmaker

who had made the clothes for The Queen, she said,

That's exactly how they do it.

They have to.

Because she has to be seen from a distance,

she can't be dressed in the same color as the town hall

that she's standing in.

So it's very theatrical in reality as well.