Dressed: The History of Fashion · Dressed Media

Behind the Seams of “Wicked for Good” with Costume Designer Paul Tazewell

November 19, 2025·53 min·4 clips

Paul Tazewell reveals what it felt like to hear his name called at the Oscars.

Paul Tazewell is one of the most decorated costume designers in American entertainment, holding nine Tony nominations and one win for Hamilton, an Oscar for the first Wicked film, and credits including Steven Spielberg's West Side Story, Harriet, Jesus Christ Superstar, and most recently Death Becomes Her on Broadway. In this conversation with hosts April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary of Dressed: The History of Fashion, he discusses the costume design for Wicked for Good. The film picks up immediately after the first ended, with Elphaba jumping from the Emerald City tower into Defying Gravity. Tazewell describes how her costume at that moment — the best dress from Part One — has by the opening of Part Two been torn into tatters, paired with trousers, knee-high boots, and an upcycled sweeping coat. This evolution is intentional: it shows Elphaba fully embodying her role as advocate for the animals and accepting the exile the world has forced on her. The costume becomes armor and political statement simultaneously. Glinda, by contrast, has been captured in spectacular luxury as a political pawn inside Emerald City — dressed as a beautiful bird in a cage, her opulence concealing her manipulation by the Wizard and Madame Morrible. The two leads begin Part One as mirror images sharing the same silhouette in black and pink; their divergence in Part Two is tracked through the radical difference in their material circumstances. On the iconic Wizard of Oz characters: Tazewell grounded his designs in the original W.W. Denslow illustrations from L. Frank Baum's books, then built visual bridges between each character's pre-transformation costume and their archetypal form. The character Boq's silver bullion military livery foreshadows the Tin Man's body; the peaked shape of his shako cap becomes the funnel hat. The character Viero's gold bullion and embroidery transitions into the straw banding of the Scarecrow. Tazewell describes this as subtle storytelling — the correlations happen in the audience's peripheral vision rather than being flagged explicitly.

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