“I’m really pleased with how the hair and makeup looked for the show,” says hair and makeup designer Nic Collins. “Its like we took flavors of the period and we put them into the show, but we also created our own look, which I think was really important.”
Queen Charlotte tells the story of a young Charlotte’s (India Amarteifio) rise to power before the events of Bridgerton. As she arrives in London for an arranged marriage, she is met with a distant new husband and his controlling mother. “The main inspiration was telling a personal story,” says Collins. “Obviously, we know how Queen Charlotte looks in Bridgerton, so we had to work backwards.”
Collins felt it was very important to represent textured hair throughout the wigs. “Basically she arrives in her own textured hair, and through the storylines we knew that we had to get to a place where you know the Regency Queen Charlotte goes into the big wigs.” Golda Rosheuvel, who played Queen Charlotte in Bridgerton, returns for her own storyline as well, showing a stark difference in how Charlotte’s hair begins and where it ends up. “We gradually progressed her from a day look to a night look, and then when the balls came along, we gently pushed into the bigger period style.”
With two Charlottes in the series, Collins knew it was important to keep them linked through appearance. “I always made the decisions based on entwining the two characters together, so it was a purposeful choice to keep them in one color,” she says. “So India would be in her natural hair tones, and Golda would always be in silvers and grays.”
During this period in history, the makeup trends were based on the appearance of flawless skin. “They just didn’t know how to achieve it back then,” says Collins. “So, we did bring flawless skin into the show by using powder, but we did use the right tone for the right skin tone.”
Click the video above to watch the full interview.
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