Dressed: The History of Fashion · Dressed Media

Magic by Design: Behind the Seams of Wicked with Costume Designer Paul Tazewell (Dressed Classic)

November 13, 2025·1 hr 2 min·5 clips

Paul Tazewell explains how Elphaba's struggle reflects his own life as a person of color in America.

April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary host Paul Tazewell on Dressed: The History of Fashion to discuss his costume design work on the film adaptation of Wicked. The hosts establish Tazewell's credentials: nine Tony nominations with a win for Hamilton, a first Oscar nomination for West Side Story under Steven Spielberg, and credits including Harriet, The Color Purple, Suffs, Death Becomes Her, the musical Guys and Dolls, The Miracle Worker, and Jesus Christ Superstar revivals. Tazewell did not design the costumes for the original Broadway production of Wicked, a task handled by Susan Helferty, and was therefore free to interpret the world anew for the film, which stars Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda. He describes his earliest memory of the power of clothing as draping a bedsheet as a toga at age five on Saturday mornings, followed by a more specific formative influence: the transformation scene in Disney's Cinderella, which he returns to repeatedly as a touchstone. He describes the Cinderella transformation as a metaphor for how clothing changes not just appearance but how a person takes up space and represents themselves to the world, and says that sense of magical transformation has informed his design imagination ever since. The hosts discuss the press tour for Wicked, during which Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande engaged in what is now called method dressing, dressing in character or character-inspired outfits throughout public appearances. Tazewell says he was not prepared for the level of press attention given to costume design on this film, and that he is grateful for the spotlight on the craft and on the entire costumes team. He frames the increased attention on costume design as an opportunity to show audiences how integral the work is to the storytelling process, noting that when costume design is done correctly it is seamless and therefore often unnoticed. The conversation explores how a designer approaches a property already deeply associated with a specific visual identity from the stage, and how Tazewell balanced honoring the source material with creating something cinematically new.

As heard by us

Paul Tazewell turns Wicked's familiar world into a lesson in costume storytelling.

Paul Tazewell's stop on Dressed keeps its focus on the costume logic behind Wicked: how to honor a story shaped by Broadway and the 1939 film without letting the clothes feel inherited.

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Why you'd press play

Hear how Wicked's costumes balance the 1939 film, Broadway history, and the designer's own path into the work.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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