In light of the new Harry Potter tour at the Warner Bros. studio in London which opened on the weekend I thought I would honor the wonderful costumes in the enchanting films for the first blog post of the week. I guess you could call it an early Easter present from moi if you like.

To get you pumped for some Harry Potter greatness, have a watch of this 36 second video of the making of the studio itself: 

How exciting!

She sure does love her pink clothes, it’s difficult to imagine Dolores Umbridge in any other colour, but don’t let the pink fool you. Usually pink is associated with warmth, love and care – this lady doesn’t know the meaning of these words – the clothes are a real masque of what she really is, pure evil. The shade of pink in the above image is interesting though, it’s not a soft, shy colour – the magenta tone portrays her power and authority well within Hogwarts. The shades of pink started off soft and gentle by using angora wool which created an ora and glow around her silhouette but as her power increased the pink became a more intense colour. The woolen dress-jacket is collarless and features a velvet asymmetrical bow (looking a little worse for wear here) with 3/4 length flared sleeves, also donning velvet bows near the cuff. Actress Imelda Staunton wore a fat suit underneath this ensemble to produce her unusual body shape.

I personally can’t imagine anybody more perfect to play Bellatrix Lestrange than Helena Bonham Carter who has a big say in the costumes she wears to play the cunning death eater. Helena and  the costume designer of 6 out of the 8 films Jany Termime worked closely together to determine the look of Bellatrix who is noticeably attractive despite her ragged clothes and messy hair. The initial costume idea was to have Bellatrix wearing a sack due to her 14 years in Azkaban prison but Helena wanted her to look feminine and shapely. The sleeves are made from a fine knitted fabric to avoid tearing and the leather bodice was laced at the back in a similar fashion to a corset with parts of her arms on show which Helena wanted in order for Bellatrix to look slightly sexy.

Robbie Coltrane portrays the friendly giant, Hagrid and to help with the illusion of him being a giant every detail had to be handmade much bigger than usual including all buttons and stitching which were then made to look more distressed by the costume breakdown department. Hagrid’s clothes were produced in earthy colours to fit in with his woodland surroundings on the outer-grounds of Hogwarts and were again fitted over a fat suit to help emphasise his large size which even had its own cooling system. Ever notice Hagrid’s heavy, stomping walk? This was a deliberate characteristic with his specially made boots being bigger enough to fit his trainers into them. 

Voldemort wore a silk Habotai over robe in a poisonous green colour to coincide with his allegiance with Slytherin and the silk was the perfect material as the draping sculpted the particular way in which he moves. Underneath the over-robe he wore a heavy cross-over-robe with long, wide draped sleeves in a very slightly lighter green, both dyed more than once to create an uneven effect of both light and green shades. 50 metres of silk was used to create Voldemort’s costume which is the same length as half of a football field. Ralph Fiennes who plays the ‘Dark Lord’ has admitted to tripping over the overly long robes and to wearing tights underneath which were then cut to stockings as the gussets of the tights constantly fell down, causing difficulty in walking. Now, that’s a funny image but maybe not as funny as the image of him flashing his stockings to the stunt men if they were acting too ‘macho’ which Ralph also admitted to.

Part 2 coming soon …