Photo by Brian Isom.
Published Feb 23, 2025
When it comes to finding inspiration, costumer Paul Tazewell keeps an open mind: Anything and everything has the potential to influence his work.
Recently, New York City’s rare pockets of greenery have had a particularly outsize influence on the prolific Tony- and Emmy-award winning designer. They’ve played significantly (if abstractly) into some of his creations for the film version of “Wicked.”
“There’s so much of nature that has been incorporated into the design. I know for a fact that both [Prospect Park] and the [Brooklyn] Botanic Garden are key in how my brain opened up to embrace that,” said Tazewell, a 30-year industry veteran.
The Prospect Heights resident — who’s up for an Academy Award next week — has also found great solace in the greenery surrounding his neighborhood. His husband died shortly before he moved into his current apartment, and having access to such lush oases has been “a lifesaver” and helped him grieve, Tazewell said.
In an abstract sense, Prospect Park is represented through some of the 24 looks Elphaba sports between “Wicked” and the second installment in its story, “Wicked: For Good,” which is set to hit theaters Nov. 25.
“The pattern of bark growing on the trees, that was definitely inspiring and led me to some of my ideas around Elphaba’s costumes,” Tazewell said. More than any other character in the film, he said, “from the very beginning I’ve aligned with Elphaba.”
Bits of New York are visible elsewhere in the two films’ more than 1,000 costumes, a feat that required a 140-person crew and some 137 pattern pieces, 225 hours of beading and 20,000 beads for Glinda’s pink bubble dress alone.
The brass work inside Rockefeller Center “was a huge inspiration for some of the ideas that I used for Madame Morrible,” Tazewell said. The Chrysler Building too.
(Glinda’s Ozdust Ballroom dress, however, was inspired by a pink and yellow ombre rose in London.)
“He was looking at stuff at a microscopic level,” said illustrator Phillip Boutté Jr., who worked closely with Tazewell on “Wicked.”
That included close-ups of plants, mathematical spirals and tornadoes, which all played into Tazewell’s design choices.
As a person and a boss, Boutté added, Tazewell “just really is genuinely the kindest human being.” The sentiment was echoed by Tazewell’s longtime assistant, Miodrag Guberinic, who was significantly involved in creating Glinda’s shoes and Elphaba’s hat, among other special projects.
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