The fairy-tale celebration took meticulous collaboration between costumes, production design, and more.
Bridgerton is no stranger to over-the-top events. But the masquerade ball in the opening episode of Season 4 is the pinnacle of the franchise’s social gatherings. “The masquerade ball gives the opportunity to the costume, makeup, and set designers to create a whole fantastical world that feels a little different from the stuff we’ve seen before,” says Luke Thompson, who plays Season 4’s leading man Benedict Bridgerton. “No surprise, they absolutely grabbed it and ran with it.”
The magical event is where Benedict first lays eyes on the Lady in Silver, igniting the central romance of Season 4, which is inspired by Julia Quinn’s third book, An Offer from a Gentleman. What he doesn’t know at the time is that the Lady in Silver is actually Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha), a maid from another estate. Sophie sneaks into the festivities after years spent yearning to observe the grandeur of the ton. Used to the drudgery of domestic work, Sophie is so earnestly dazzled by the event that she catches Benedict’s attention.
The masquerade is the perfect backdrop for the start of Benedict and Sophie’s epic romance: “You feel like you’re in a dream space, and it really plays into our theme this season of fantasy versus reality,” says showrunner Jess Brownell, who also wrote Episode 1. “This is a moment where you are meant to feel like you’re in a fantasy. It really launches that journey for us.” Thompson agrees, adding. “By virtue of being masked, there’s something more mysterious, sexier,” he says. “Everyone’s playing a game and not showing all their cards.”
That tension — between reality and sumptuous escapism, between our true selves and the ones we present to society — lingers throughout the latest installment, as Benedict tries to unmask his Lady in Silver, and Sophie Baek tries to conceal who she really is. As Sophie puts it in the Season 4, Part 1 trailer, “He does not want to find me, he wants to find the lady in the silver gown, and she is not real.”
For Ha, who is new to the franchise, the experience of filming this scene was truly magical. “My favorite thing about the costume is that underneath, they have embellished all these crystals and gemstones so that it can sparkle when I move,” she describes. “I remember seeing this super wide shot of us on the terrace with the lighting, and when we were dancing, you could actually see the dress sparkle under the moonlight.”
Just as Season 4 pulls back the curtain on all the work that goes on behind the scenes, Tudum dives deep into how the Bridgerton team pulled off such a production. Keep reading to unmask every detail of the masquerade ball.
You’re Cordially Invited
Lady Violet Bridgerton’s (Ruth Gemmell) ball is the most precisely planned and lavishly hewn event of the season. When crafting the invitation for such an affair, however, the props team found inspiration in unexpected materials: They used Shrinky Dink plastic, iridescent nail polish, and paint to create a mother-of-pearl sheen.
Starting from Scratch
The production design team, led by Alison Gartshore, built what Brownell describes as a “Midsummer Night’s Dream type feeling,” down to the most intricate details. For example, wealthy Regency-era families used to embellish their floors and walls with elaborate landscapes: At the masquerade ball, the Bridgertons’ floor features a sprawling night sky with Cassiopeia, the star constellation of love. “The floors were painted to look like you’re above the clouds — the curtains, the glitter,” adds Brownell, which only heightens the feeling that you’re in a dream.
Lighting was an integral tool in showcasing the stunning set they created, and to find the balance between sexiness and scale. Director of photography Jeffrey Jur explains, “It had to be lit to feel sexy and intimate, but epic at the same time. Jess, the showrunner, said she wanted it to look mysterious and sexy.”
Bridgerton Blue
The Bridgertons’ classic hue gets an upgrade for the masquerade ball. “We had the idea to create ombré fabric to give the Bridgerton blue various shades, and you’ll see this reflected in the drapery of the ballroom,” says Gartshore of darkening the signature color. “It goes from the colors of the midnight sky at dusk to midnight blue to twilight blue. The wallpaper is Damascus blue.”
Dressing the Drama
Each costume tells a singular, detailed story about its wearer’s Season 4 arc, and the scope of work was breathtaking. The costume team— including designers John Glaser, Dougie Hawkes, and George Sayer — created a whopping 172 looks for the ball, many of which included pieces from as far back as the 1930s. The teams also found inspiration in plants and animals.
Benedict’s all-black ensemble is simple, but striking. “We based Benedict’s masquerade ball look on Shakespeare in Love. He has to wear the clothing; it can’t wear him. The goal is that you don’t remember what he’s wearing to the ball — you remember him,” say Glaser, Hawkes, and Sayer. His look at the masquerade kicks off a season of more minimalist fits: “[For] Benedict’s look this season, we loosened him up, changed his color palette to dark teals and blues,” the team adds. “It’s not a fancy Bridgerton boy, it’s a sexy Bridgerton man. [He’s wearing] open shirts, and he’s in the phase of being cavalier.”
For Sophie, the Lady in Silver, assistant designer Sayer took a modern approach from glove to toe. For her gown, the team used Italian silver lamé chiffon and hand-layered sequins and frills for maximum onscreen sparkle. Six people worked on the piece at once, continuously layering handmade frills. Sophie’s gloves play a pivotal role, since they’re Benedict’s only souvenir from the night. While Regency-era gloves were typically made of leather, the costume team craved something with more sparkle, opting for old satin instead. The glove’s monogram blends Dior’s logo and Sophie’s family’s crest; as we learn in Season 4, Sophie is the secret daughter of the late Lord Penwood (Arthur Lee) and his maid. Lastly, her shoes are silver modified Jimmy Choos.
Season 3’s leading man Colin Bridgerton’s (Luke Newton) costume embodies the team’s playful, fan-forward approach: he brings back his infamous sexy pirate look: “It’s really important to the fans. It’s a moment that they’ve loved from the books,” says Newton. “I knew it was going to be one of those iconic moments that people will later look back on. It’s even more flamboyant than we’ve seen previously, and there’s an element of fun to it as well. Some of the costumes aren’t necessarily what you would think people would have in the Regency era at a masquerade ball.” Nicola Coughlan, who plays his character’s wife Penelope, seems to agree: “Colin’s return to the sexy pirate is fantastic. Fans didn’t get to see enough of it,” she says. “I’m like, ‘Why not more?’ Seasons 5, 6, 7 — let’s bring the pirate back every time.”
Beyond Bridgerton’s major players, the costume team also created 172 looks for the background actors who populate the masquerade. Keep an eye out for performers outfitted as chess pieces, a sheep, a horse, the sun, and so much more.
Choosing the masquerade costumes
Because the masquerade called for outfits outside the characters’ typical garb, they could be playful, signaling something about their inner selves that they might not otherwise communicate in their everyday clothes.
“Some of them are drawn from the book, others are tweaked a bit based on where our ensemble is at,” Brownell says. For example, in An Offer from a Gentleman, Penelope dons a leprechaun costume. However, the writer explains, the gossip columnist and her husband Colin are “at such a different place this season than they are in Benedict’s book.” So their matching pirate attire instead pays homage to their Season 3 romance.
Eloise Bridgerton (Claudia Jessie), on the other hand, follows the source material. “That was just the perfect call from Julia Quinn in terms of Eloise being a Regency feminist,” says Brownell. Ever practical, Francesca (Hannah Dodd) and Lord John Stirling (Victor Alli) don half masks and traditional evening wear. Young Hyacinth Bridgerton (Florence Hunt) is crashing her mother’s gathering, so her mask must obscure her real identity.
And then there’s Benedict, whose look announces him as Season 4’s leading man. Despite his minimalist effort, the second son “still gets to be a sexy swaggering guy in all black,” says Brownell. And, of course, Sophie goes as the Lady in Silver. As a maid, the ball is a rare chance for Sophie to don something extravagant, so the team went all out. As Brownell puts it, “We wanted to feel like she got a moment to feel beautiful and to feel like a princess.”
The queen rarely doesn’t go all out, and her position in the ton proves ornate enough to double as her costume: she dresses as the queen she is. Her right-hand man, Brimsley (Hugh Sachs), opts for a military getup. Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) dresses up as Zeus, the Greek god of the sky, thunder, and lightning — only so does her brother Lord Marcus Anderson (Daniel Francis). Alice (Emma Naomi) and Will Mondrich (Martins Imhangbe) pair up as Cleopatra and Mark Antony.
The way each Penwood house newcomer dresses signals what they’ll bring to Season 4: Lady Araminta Gun (Katie Leung) wraps herself in mourning blacks; sweet Posy Li (Isabella Wei) transforms into a mermaid; and Rosamund Li (Michelle Mao), who thinks very highly of herself, becomes Catherine the Great.
As the host of such a Midsummer Night’s Dream–inspired event, it’s only right that Violet dresses as Titania, the queen of the fairies in Shakespeare’s play.
Making the Masks
Each intricately designed mask had to tell a distinct story for its owner, and required cross-department collaboration between the milliners, jewelers, costume designers, and hair and make-up teams. “A mask is such a personal thing, because everybody’s face is very different,” says assistant milliner Lottie Fenby. “People’s eyes are different shapes. To be able to have something that sits on [someone’s] face in a comfortable way, and yet conveys the character, very much determined the shape that would be chosen.”
The masks that required metalwork or leatherwork landed with the jewelry team, and the millinery team took the others. Both teams worked with the costume designers on the existing color palette. “I might add in colors from the dress or from the research that we do around it,” adds head milliner Sarah Blackmore. “I collect a lot of jewelry and beads, so a color might come from a swatch that I found or a piece of jewelry, and I might take it in a slightly different direction.” For the dancers spotted twirling through the Bridgerton ballroom, the jewelry department hand-painted shiny white molded masks to look like porcelain.
The masks were so well done that even Newton was fooled. “Even in the green room or whilst we were waiting to travel to set, I didn’t know who some people were — especially people who had new wigs, fully masked,” he says. “There was a moment where you discovered who each person was as they revealed their mask, which was surreal because it really felt like we were in the scene.”
Masking the Lady in Silver
The Lady in Silver’s mask required the most attention. “We had lots of different ideas, and we worked very closely with hair and makeup. It was a harder piece to work on because it had to do a lot more than the other masks,” says Blackmore. Unlike the rest of the key partygoers, Sophie is a new character in need of introduction. However, she must also be a bit of a mystery to attract Benedict’s interest.
“This mask had to disguise who [Sophie] is, so we needed it to cover enough of her face but not too much of it,” Blackmore continues. “Obviously, the viewer wants to be able to understand who she is, but we want it to be believable that Benedict might not know.”
“The idea is that she made it really quickly before she came to the masquerade,” adds Brownell. “This look had to have been thrown together, but we tried to give it magical little touches.”
For such a crucial piece, the disparate crafts teams had to be in lock-step. “The combination of teams is very important because the embellishers work very closely with the millinery department,” says head embellisher Maria Elena Gomez Patino. “To make sure the dress and mask coordinated, we used the same elements, and crystals and lace. For Sophie’s dress, we used lots of bugle beads and lots of crystal beads, some of them Swarovski, so it sparkled for the camera.”
For Ha, the mask completed her glittering look. “When I first tried it on with the mask and everything,” she says, “it was a Cinderella moment.”
Feeding the Frenzy
The ladies and gentlemen of the ton must be hungry after all the dancing and husband-hunting they endure at the event of the season. Home economist Lisa Heathcote looked to her collection of historical books for the menu: “For the bonbons and the sweets, I used Mrs. Mary Eales’s Receipts, which is the way they spelled recipes,” she says. “That’s a very flimsy little pamphlet by the confectioner to Queen Anne, published in the 1700s, and it’s got all sorts of lovely sweetie ideas and confectionery. I went to the Getty Museum. There was this astonishing, fantastic exhibition of feasts from medieval times up to now.”
When fish-out-of-water Sophie first arrives at the ball, she almost topples a towering arrangement of sweets in her excitement: “We built a tower of bonbons that was phenomenally big, and it had to have action,” says home economist James Hayward. “The layers were all stacked. The whole thing had to be easily transported.”
Crafting bonbons in motion presented a tasty challenge. “The bonbons were made out of rolled fondant, but they had to be exact,” adds Hayward. “At first, we tried to make the base ones using polystyrene balls, but they looked too unnatural. Fondant is soft, so you have to do it a few weeks in advance to let it harden. But the top ones fall off in the scene, so they couldn’t be so hard that they’d break. We had to refrigerate them and dry them. It was a bit of fun, actually.”
In Full Bloom
Floral designer Phillip Corps crafted the flowers for the event, opting for a palette that would give the sense that “they were gathered from the gardens by the servants and put together in a very raw kind of way — very ethereal, very wild, very gathered, very natural,” he says. “We put some real branches mixed in amongst the fakes, which gave it a really lovely, different look. Every garland was created in an individual way.”
Scoring the Romance
In the words of Usher’s “DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love,” which music supervisor Justin Kamps transformed into a lush orchestral arrangement for Benedict and Sophie’s first exchange, there’s just “right now” for the central lovers. The song plays as Sophie realizes she must let Benedict in on her secret: She can’t dance — to Usher, Pitbull, or anyone else, for that matter. In addition to the signature string pop covers — which also include “Never Let You Go” by Third Eye Blind — strings track “Midnight in a Woodland Forest” is woven into the night’s aural landscape. The song, inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, lends an air of mystery and magic.
Season 4 newcomers Leung and Mao, who play mother and daughter Araminta and Rosamund, were bowled over by the effect music had on the scene. “When I stepped on set for the first time, I don’t think I was quite prepared for the scale of things,” says Mao. “Then you hear the music that they’ve chosen for the first time, and you still aren’t prepared for what you walk into.” Leung adds, describing the experience as “quite mystical.”
The higher the wig, the closer to God
In total, Nic Collins and the hair-and-makeup team assembled a stunning 160 wigs.
Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) never wears the same wig twice, and the pieces are so towering and intricate that the team had to build her a neck brace during previous seasons. Her wig for Lady Bridgerton’s masquerade ball takes her style to new creative heights: sprouting from her grey curls is a heart-shaped cage, woven with strands of hair and silver leaf. Inside the sculpture is a replica of the nuptial crown King George gifted her. The creation pays homage to the cosmos, symbolizing her love for her husband, who was an avid stargazer.
Eloise also debuts a similarly bold ’do. The independent fifth sibling sports a dark, blunt bob to complement her Joan of Arc costume. “I remember my first fitting,” says Jessie. “When there was a skeleton version of this unbelievable armor that Eloise wears as Joan of Arc. I had this really short, Kill Bill-style wig. It was so good.” Alice Mondrich (Emma Naomi) also wears a bob, a Cleopatra-style cut dripping with blue and gold beads.
Newlywed Penelope Bridgerton leaves her signature red waves behind for the night, favoring wavy blond tresses, embodying how relaxed she is in marital bliss. “I had this mad, long, blonde wig, and it was a bit strange because I looked more like I do in normal life,” says the actor, who topped her locks off with a wide-brimmed hat, which provides cover as she steps back into her role as Lady Whistledown to collect gossip for the queen. “I had the biggest hat at the ball.” Even Bridgerton matriarch Violet lets her hair down, as she, too, comes into her own outside of her children’s love lives.
No matter the construction, the powerful women of the ton’s locks become a playful and distinctive way for them to express themselves at the masquerade ball.
Watch the Bridgerton masquerade ball — and the romance it sparks — on Netflix, now streaming. And once you’re done, debrief with host Allison Hammond with Bridgerton: The Official Podcast.
