Bridget Jones Is Back – And So Are Her Knickers

The day has come: Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy has landed. But before you get swept away by the nostalgia, plotlines and a pool-drenched Leo Woodall, make sure to take a moment for the onscreen wardrobe. ‘There are a couple of easter eggs in there,’ hints Bridget Jones costume designer Molly Emma Rowe. ‘Hopefully people will see those and enjoy them.’ Ahead of the film’s release, we caught up with Rowe to find out where Bridget finds herself now – and how she uses her clothes to tell the latest chapter in her story.

Costume Designer Molly Emma Rowe On Finding Bridget Jones In Her 50s

When Renée Zellweger onto screens as Bridget Jones, audiences could nothing but fall – and fall hard – for the chaotic thirty-something British woman. And now, over 20 years on three more films later, we are just as keen to peek into her life.

‘The Bridget Jones franchise is very rare – I can’t think of many examples where a film franchise has come back to the same story, decades on, and given audiences the chance to see the same person playing the same character,’ muses Molly Emma Rowe. The costume designer is fresh from the London premiere of Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, and is gearing up for the film’s imminent release in cinemas.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason © 2004 Universal Studios and Studio Canal and Miramax Film Corp. All Rights Reserved.

For Rowe, whose previous credits include The Swimmers, A Town Called Malice and A Discovery Of Witches, this might have been her first experience working with Bridget – but not her first time finding her. ‘I grew up with Helen [Fielding]’s columns, and I grew up with the book and the first films,’ she notes. ‘But this is my first Bridget Jones experience. I still feel very overwhelmed, actually.

‘Many, many, many people see themselves in [Bridget]. So what I wanted to do – or what I felt I needed to do – was understand who Bridget is, without my bias on top, without me projecting and thinking “she’s me.”’

This involved going back to the source – ‘I watched all of the films. A lot.’ – to find out what made Bridget, well, Bridget. ‘It felt very important to respect everybody’s work in creating Bridget up until now,’ adds Rowe. ‘I was never going to come in and be like, “this is the new Bridget.”

‘That meant speaking to Renée [Zellweger]. She has such a strong sense of who Bridget is, what she wears – why she wears things – and how she wears them. So, Renée was really the beginning of the story for me.’

Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) & Shazzer (Sally Phillips) in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy © Universal Studios

Staying True To Bridget Jones

Throughout the film’s making, Rowe worked closely with Zellweger to map out Bridget’s next steps – all while making sure her signature Bridget-ness remained recognisable. ‘When I work, I think a lot about character and backstory and authenticity. Why people have things and where they’re from,’ says the designer. ‘I just wanted Renée to feel like I was helping move on Bridget’s story in a way that was authentic to her, and that the audience weren’t going to question.

‘I wanted to find a place where we’ve moved Bridget into her 50s, but she’s still absolutely Bridget,’ she continues. ‘The things that are synonymous with her – short skirts, little cropped cardigans – she still wears those things. Like, why would she not wear them? Nobody has a massive movie makeover when they enter their 40s or 50s. You know what your style is and you work within that.’

This train of thought entailed a trip to the Bridget Jones archives, where Rowe was able to pull numerous pieces from previous films back into the spotlight. Largely without Zellweger knowing. ‘I retrieved lots of things that I wanted to look at bringing back [for the new film]. But I didn’t tell Renée until she came in for her first fitting. It ended up being really emotional.

‘I brought out the grey hooded coat and the purple scarf that Bridget wears to the turkey-curry buffet. I think Renée was really taken back to making that first film. She kept saying that there was DNA from 20 years ago in these pieces.’

Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy © Universal Studios

Other items that were recreated for Mad About The Boy – like Bridget’s penguin pyjamas, Tiffany heart necklace, pink button-up cardigan and the green christening dress – all serve to remind us that this is still the same Bridget we know and love.

And the (as Daniel Cleaver so eloquently put it all those years ago) absolutely enormous pants? ‘The pants do feature, is what I’ll say,’ laughs Molly. ‘But no spoilers.’

She does tell us, however, that there was a lot of planning to find a very specific pair of pants for our Bridget. ‘We wanted to find knickers which looked like the original ones,’ she says. ‘I think they came from Ridley Road Market in the end – like one of those very old-fashioned underwear stalls.’

From Spinsterhood To Widowhood

But the team also wanted to show audiences how time has shifted since we last saw her. Some items appear slightly tired and threadbare, like they’ve been lived in, and others have slight differences in the design so that they evoke just enough memory without being too same-y. ‘We wanted to only just sprinkle these moments in, so it wasn’t just hit after hit,’ she tells us. ‘We wanted to make it feel a bit more embedded in reality.’

Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) and Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy © Universal Studios

And Bridget does indeed go through a major life change during this time: the death of her husband, Mark Darcy (played by Colin Firth). Rowe tells us that clothing plays a crucial role in telling the story of Bridget’s grief, and how she continues to carry Mark with her in her next chapter of life.

Rowe and Zellweger had the opportunity to imagine Bridget and Mark’s life onscreen, in the years between films, and the impact it would have had on her wardrobe choices when she became a widow. And for the costume designer, this image took on a personal note. ‘My father died when I was young, so I drew from that,’ she says. ‘I thought a lot about my mum… she wore lots of my father’s clothes while she was going through her grief.

‘It’s something that a lot of people do, but we don’t talk about it outright in the film. We meet Bridget deep in the middle of her grief. She’s not really been buying clothes for four years – since Mark died.’

Some of the items that represent this idea include an oversized grey cashmere men’s cardigan quite a lot throughout the film (‘we imagine that that’s what Mark wore around the house, and Bridget held onto it’) and a shirt with an ‘MD’ monogram (‘she wears it to Hampstead Heath when she gets stuck up the tree… it’s not even on camera, but it was part of helping Renée really be able to embody Bridget’s experience’), which both highlight her ongoing connection to Mark – despite Firth’s absence from the film.

And the film addresses this period of change for Bridget: the moment when grief bleeds into new beginnings.

Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy © Universal Studios

New Era… And New Men (Kind Of)

Now, we say ‘new men’ – but we know one of them already. The general consensus on finding out that Hugh Grant – and, as a consequence, the charmingly naughty Daniel Cleaver – would be back (after a plane crash, funeral and revival) for Mad About The Boy was excitement.

But where is Daniel Cleaver two decades on from the first film? To find this out, Rowe once again went to the source. ‘It was really important for me to speak with Hugh and understand who Daniel is from his point of view,’ she says.

In sartorial terms, this translated to traditional tailoring and high-end cult brands. First stop: Savile Row. ‘Speaking with Hugh, I found that tailor Richard James created the Daniel Cleaver look back in the day. Richard doesn’t cut anymore, so my tailor very kindly helped me track down a tailor who worked for Richard – this really lovely bespoke tailor called Ben Clark… What I wanted to do was give Hugh some confidence that somebody who understood Richard’s work would be recreating some of it. He felt like the right person to make Daniel’s suits.’

Rowe also had many of Grant’s shirts from older films recreated for the new instalment, so that they tap into the character’s original wardrobe design. ‘Hugh had loads of his shirts from the original film, and he lent them to me so that my shirt cutter, Deema Abi-Chahine, could recreate them,’ she says. ‘They have a very unusually large collar stand, which is why all his shirts sit around his face. And when the buttons are open, they don’t flare out like the 70s – they sit so gorgeous and lounge lizard-y.

‘We made a lot of different to see what we liked, but I really wanted to recreate the lilac shirt with the blue suit from that lift scene from the earlier films. We did that for his first outfit [in Mad About The Boy].’

Hugh Grant as Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. © Universal Studios/Studio Canal/Miramax Film Corp

And for newer items in Daniel’s wardrobe, Rowe consulted Grant himself. ‘It was about understanding who Daniel was and why he chose certain things,’ she explains. ‘Like Hugh suggested Panerai would be a good watch brand because it’s very niche. It makes very expensive, beautiful watches, but it’s one of those very in-the-know brands. It felt like something that Daniel would know about.

‘And then the other thing that Hugh really wanted to do was look at spectacles, use them to subtly say that Daniel has his own vulnerabilities. We went through several pairs of spectacles and sunglasses from Cutler & Gross to get a really nice shape on him.’

The other men on the scene, however, were completely new creations that Rowe could work on from scratch.

The costume designer wanted Mr Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Roxter (Leo Woodall) to really sit in a visual category of their own, so that they could be differentiated from the franchise’s other male leads. ‘It was really important for me to create a character that was not similar to Daniel, and not similar to Mark Darcy either,’ notes Rowe. ‘And it felt nice to create someone that was really new for Bridget.’

Mr. Walliker (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy © Universal Studios

The first of Bridget’s new bachelors is her children’s teacher, Mr Wallaker. ‘I thought a lot about Mr Wallaker as a school teacher – those old fashioned ideas of our old geography teachers and English teachers. Cords and tweeds and quite cosy fabrics… but I wanted to really update that image.

‘I was thinking a lot about friends of mine who are teachers, and they’re really cool, so I wanted to kind of give him a bit of a cool edge,’ she adds. ‘He wears denim shirts, but with woollen ties and tweed blazers and cords. It’s a very updated, tailored version of your typical teacher.’

Rowe was also thinking a lot about how Mr Wallaker’s clothing choices could offer small tells on how his character is perceived by others in the film. Colour especially became a tool to show his warmth – despite his numerous spars with Bridget. ‘We chose a lot of oranges and greens, because while he appears very strict and uncompromising, the kids love him,’ explains the designer. ‘This also meant we choose lots of knits and denims and softer materials, things that hopefully echoed how he’s very approachable to the kids. They aren’t scared of him at all. They think he’s wonderful.’

Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) & Roxster (Leo Woodall) in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy © Universal Studios

And then there’s Roxster, Bridget’s new boytoy. ‘He’s another character that I wanted to make sure we’d never seen anything like in the Bridget world before,’ says Rowe.

The designer describes Roxster as someone who ‘doesn’t think about dressing – he’s far too busy thinking about garbage and recycling and the planet.’ Instead, he sticks to timeless (but youthful) men’s classics – aka, ‘jeans and a T-shirt.’

And, being a younger man, Rowe wanted to explore how his backstory (and differing economic status) might shape his wardrobe choices. ‘He’s doesn’t have the kind of disposable income that many of our other characters do, so we made sure that we see him in the same things over and over again. It’s very important for me to create a wardrobe that fits in with the socio economics of every character as well. It was really fun to do that with Roxster, because he’s such a totally different character from the others.’

Is 2025 Ready For Bridget Jones?

As our conversation draws to a close, we can’t help but brooch the topic of whether Bridget Jones – and, in particular, the pillars of 00s superficiality – is still relevant to today’s audience. But as Rowe reminds us, Bridget has had a lot of time to grow.

‘I think everyone needs to be a bit more Bridget,’ says Rowe. ‘I’ve always thought that she’s really positive. I know that that’s a discussion that seems to be big at the moment: whether people see her as really positive or really negative. And, from speaking to Helen, it’s a satirical take on how awful it is to be a woman – and it always has been.

‘I think Bridget is a positive role model,’ she adds. ‘She questions herself – and she’s often questioned by society – but ultimately she just gets on with life.’

WATCH

You can catch Molly Emma Rowe’s work in Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, in cinemas 13 February 2025.

(As for what to expect when you settle down in the cinema, Rowe says: ‘My main piece of advice is to take some tissues. It’s a bit of a roller coaster.’)

Images courtesy of Universal Pictures