TV Shows

Bridgerton Season 3: Penelope’s New Look Explained

Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan shares details about Penelope’s new look for Season 3.
bridgerton-season-3-penelope-nicola-coughlan-costume.jpg

Bridgerton Season 3 is the big debut of Penelope Featherington’s glow-up. Netflix published a featurette about the costume and makeup differences in the upcoming ign episodes. Nicola Coughlan’s heroine steps into the spotlight for Season 3. She’s here to win a husband and look good doing it. As the delightful Adjoa Andoh says in the new clip, “Let’s look fabulous and not constantly be in eye-burning yellow.” Some would absolutely agree with the Lady Danbury actress’s assessment of Pen’s signature looks for the first two seasons of Bridgerton. Well, you won’t have to worry about the citrus tones this time around. 

Videos by ComicBook.com

Costume designer John Glaser explained, “She starts out in her clothes from Season 1 and Season 2.” He adds that pace was something they really kept in mind. “We could’ve done it slowly, but we quickly changed her silhouette, changed her color palette,” the designer added.

bridgerton-season-3-penelope-nicola-coughlan-costume.jpg

Erika Ökvist was in charge of making her look more mature in this season. The makeup artist quickly ditched the established tones from earlier seasons. She began, “Doing the makeup like we did in Season 2. Very strong colors. It doesn’t necessarily work with her skin tone, but definitely works with her character… Instead of doing the makeup like we did in Season 2, we used all the lights to lift the cheekbones up to God.” Ökvist opined, “She needed her glow-up before the world, before showing she’s this cool, independent woman.”

Nicola Coughlan celebrated the choice. She said, “This is great. It needs to go from this to the big change, ’cause that’s gonna be fun for the audience, for it to look like a different person.” The actress noted the differences between her first couple of years on the show and now. “It was so different to how she was before ’cause it was all rosy cheeks and fresh,” Coughlan recalled, “It really helped the character. She has to grow in confidence. And it helped me grow in confidence, to feel good in costumes. It was great.”

Bridgerton Season 3 Transforms Colin

bridgerton-season-3.jpg

While Penelope is rightfully the belle of the ball this season, her perspective beau has also changed heading into the upcoming episodes. Spend more than four seconds online and you will see fans cheering his “pirate coat” and other new wardrobe pieces. TVInsider spoke to costume designer John Glaser and hair and makeup designer Erika Ökvist about changing Colin from a boy into a man. It turns out, much like Pen, color does a ton of the work here. But, measuring out the cut of his clothes to make him more “sturdy” and dashing also does wonders!

“Well, first of all, John switched him up, and he also comes with incredible bone structure,” Ökvist told the site. “I mean, those cheekbones, that really square jawline, and his eyebrows are almost like seagull wings. If you look up any kind of cartoon hero picture, it’s pretty much him. In Seasons 1 and 2 we used soft and round shapes on him so he feels younger.”

The costume designer also mentioned Colin’s wardrobe upgrades reflecting his personal growth in Season 3. “They’re dark, there’s no ruffles, there are open shirts, it’s a hard collar,” Glaser elaborated. “Everything is a hard, masculine shape. Also, we’ve said that he himself has matured. He actually has lost the roundness and became very angular, so we had to follow suit.”

Are you loving the new look for Penelope? Catch all of our pop culture discussion at @ComicBook on social media!