754758

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ANM0010.1177/1746847718754758AnimationKalmakurki

Article

animation:

Snow White and the Seven an interdisciplinary journal

2018, Vol. 13(1) 7­–19
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Beauty: The Components of

https://doi.org/10.1177/1746847718754758
DOI: 10.1177/1746847718754758
journals.sagepub.com/home/anm

Costume Design in Disney’s

Early Hand-Drawn Animated
Feature Films

Maarit Kalmakurki
Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

Abstract
Costumes in feature films can be deliberately used for narrative purposes to reveal or conceal
something related to the plot, functioning as a key element for cinematic storytelling. Costume
design in animation is an integral part of character creation; however, relatively little is known about
the design process. Previous research concentrates on either the history of hand-drawn animation,
the principles of making animated films or character construction. This article presents several key
components of the animators’ costume design process in Walt Disney’s animated feature films
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Cinderella (1950) and Sleeping Beauty (1959). The author
demonstrates that the costume design in these films was a multi-layered process. For example, for
Snow White, the costume silhouette of the final animation is visible in the early conceptual designs
whereas, for Cinderella or Princess Aurora, the principal character animators designed the final
costume. Additionally, the slow production time influenced the style of the costumes: small details
on costumes and complex constructions were not used as it would have taken too long for them
to be drawn. The article also reveals that animators used live-action filming and rotoscoping as
tools for designing costumes. Furthermore, costumes that were used in pre-production filming for
rotoscope were different in their construction from everyday garments. The work of a costume
designer existed in the character design process, although not as a separate profession. This article
aims to highlight the importance of characters’ costumes in Disney’s early hand-drawn animated
films and the different ways costumes have been designed for animated characters. 

Keywords
animation, costume, costume design, Walt Disney 

Corresponding author:
Maarit Kalmakurki, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Otakaari 7b, 02150 Espoo, Finland.
Email: maarit.kalmakurki@aalto.fi
8 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 13(1)

Introduction
Characters in live-action films wear costumes that have been designed in an intensive collaborative
process between the costume designer, the actor and the director. Without a single word, costumes
can convey the era of the film, the character’s personal style or social status. Costume can be used
deliberately for narrative purposes to reveal or conceal something related to the plot, functioning
as a key element for cinematic storytelling (Nadoolman Landis, 2012: 48). In animation, the role
of a costume in storytelling is just as important; for example, the change of Cinderella’s costume
for the ball was significant for the storytelling and part of the aesthetics of the film. However, cos-
tume design in animation is often not a separate task executed by a specialist costume designer but
is an integral part of character creation. The work of the costume designer is subsumed into the
character design process to such an extent that costume design and character creation are indistin-
guishable. As the examined cases in this article indicate, particularly in the early history of hand-
drawn animation, a professional costume designer was excluded from animated film productions
and substituted by other professionals who proposed ideas for characters’ costumes.
The history of hand-drawn animation has been extensively studied in past decades. Previous
studies and theories can be found describing the principles of making hand-drawn animated films
and constructing the characters. However, these studies have omitted the portrayal of the elements
that affected the costume design process and the final look of the costume. Therefore, relatively
little is known about the costume design process in hand-drawn animation and no comprehensive
literature, in-depth studies or theories exist on this subject. This article proposes examining the
elements that guided Disney animators in the character design process and the reasons for choosing
certain character costumes in Walt Disney’s first hand-drawn animated feature films Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Cinderella (1950) and Sleeping Beauty (1959).
Numerous academic publications discuss Walt Disney’s feature films from the perspective of
different disciplines; however, only a few mention costumes or integrate characters’ visual appear-
ances in the analysis. As a result, this article mainly uses sources that have taken this aspect into
account, such as Robin Allan’s Walt Disney and Europe (1999). This work reveals the European
influence in Walt Disney films, including European landscape, architecture, art and folk tales.
Some elements affecting the costume design choices can be traced from this publication. Similar
remarks can be found in John Canemaker’s Before Animation Begins (1996), which concentrates
on the conceptual designs for Disney’s animated films. Two publications by Charles Solomon, A
Wish Your Heart Makes (2015) and Once Upon a Dream (2014), discuss the development of
Disney’s animated feature films Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, respectively, providing some
insights into the films’ production processes and character costumes.
The main research materials used for this article were the feature films themselves and the extra
behind the scenes footage found exclusively on the limited editions of these DVDs. The hours of
audio recordings, videotaped materials and dozens of conceptual or character development draw-
ings made available on the DVD extras have been invaluable for this article’s analyses of character
costume design. The audio recordings include interviews and discussions by the Disney animators
and directors, while the videotaped materials include interviews with Disney animators in addition
to live-action footage shot during film productions. The documentary footage reveals that some of
the live-action film footage shot during pre-production was used for motion study and rotoscoping.
The pre-production drawings are mostly presented without an indication of the artist’s identity, and
most of the footage does not present a narrative about costume design; therefore, information is
drawn from more general production details. In addition, conversations with animation designer
Kelly Kimball1 and animation historian Charles Solomon have enriched the research materials.
Since the archives at the Disney studio have strict proprietary rights, this research relies on materi-
als collected from outside the company.
Kalmakurki 9

Live-action filming and conceptual design as part of designing

costumes for animation
Whilst studying the creation of costumes in the early feature film productions at Disney, two main
aspects appear. First, conceptual designs include suggestions for the characters’ costumes. At
Disney, visual development and inspirational sketch artists making the conceptual designs had
great creative freedom when trying to achieve the best possible solution for the story.2 Following
the overall production process, animators then used these conceptual designs as a source of inspira-
tion when the film and the characters were further developed. Conceptual designs were also used
for ‘the appearance of the characters and their relationships, the action’s locale, a sequence’s mood
and color, costume and set designs’ (Canemaker, 1996: ix). A costume designer’s work was part of
the character development process even though a professional costume designer was not employed
to do this.
Second, since the production of Disney’s first animated feature film Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs, the aim of the company was to develop a higher standard of visual realism in animation,
driven in large part by Walt Disney’s vision of having his films represent the ‘illusion of life’
(Telotte, 2008: 159). This included the depiction of scenery, characters and their costumes. To
achieve this realism in animation, motion studies with live-action filming were conducted with
actors at the Disney animation studios. Through this process, the animators at Disney could exam-
ine the movement of the fabric and the costume silhouette on a person, and the process enabled
closer examination of the costume (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 2001). The pre-production
live-action filming and rotoscoping assisted animators in enhancing the realism of the films. It
enabled animators to study the movement, texture, weight, layering and folding patterns of certain
fabrics, and their naturalistic depictions evolved over the course of the three films examined here.
For example, in Snow White, natural fabric creases (such as when a character bends an elbow or
when wide hems fold) are mostly drawn with simple lines, while costume movements in Sleeping
Beauty are depicted more through the play of light and shadow, offering a more realistic sense of
the costumes’ materiality. As I will argue, the live-action and rotoscoping techniques used in these
films also had a significant effect on the visual representation of the costume in their final
versions.

Costume development in Disney’s Snow White and the Seven

Dwarfs (1937)
Disney’s feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs includes scenes from the Brothers Grimm
folk tale (Schneewittchen, 1812), Broadway stage conventions3 of the story and some features of
Shakespeare (Allan, 1999: 37–38). Walt Disney used these sources to suit his own vision of the
feature film.4 Possibly to strengthen the European style in the animation, Disney employed
European migrants, such as Swedish illustrator Gustaf Tenggren, Swiss artist Albert Hurter and
Hungarian artist Ferdinand Horvath, to make conceptual designs for Snow White (Allan, 1999:
47–48; Canemaker, 1996: 28). The later hand-drawn animated films examined in this article were
adapted from European art by American animation artists, for example, Mary Blair or Eyvind
Earle.
Artists Tenggren, Hurter and Horvath took inspirations for the character development and
their costumes from illustrations of Snow White by European artists including Rie Cramer,
Ludvig Richter and Moritz Von Schwind. When comparing Richter’s illustration of Snow White,
in which she wears a dark bodice with a square neck and white short puffed sleeves, and one of
the early character development designs of Snow White,5 many similarities are revealed: the
length and volume of the skirt and also the colouring and structure of the costume. In addition,
10 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 13(1)

Allan (1999: 38–39) points out that the lady in Richter’s illustration has blonde hair, and so does
Snow White in this character development design. Surprisingly, it has been designed in contra-
diction to the script, in which the magic mirror depicts Snow White with: ‘hair black as ebony,
skin white as snow’. Furthermore, Allan suggests that the Prince’s costume originates from one
of Richter’s illustrations Beschaulischen und Erbaulischen (1851–1855), in which a young man
wears a romantic hero’s costume, including a jerkin, a cap with feathers and a sword (p. 40).
According to Snow White’s character development sketches examined from the behind the
scenes material in the DVD release, it seems that the visual appearance of the character was devel-
oped in several phases. In addition to the character development designs in which Snow White has
blonde hair, some of the early sketches depict her wearing a blue gown with a white bodice, or, the
opposite, a white gown with a blue bodice. She also appears in a white skirt, a yellow bodice and
a blue waistcoat, which is open at the front. These character development drawings also include
various bodice lengths and period styles, ranging from Empire to Edwardian. Interestingly,
although the costume styles vary in the drawings, each design has the same sleeve style as in the
final animated film. Artists drew a surprising number of designs for Snow White until her costume
was finally decided.
As so many artists worked on the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, it is difficult
to trace the person responsible for the costumes for Snow White or for those of the other characters.
Although Gustaf Tenggren was employed as the art director for the film, it seems that the designs
of the characters and their costumes were the results of collaborations between Albert Hurter and
David Hand. This can be seen from two of the story meeting notes at Disney, in which the supervis-
ing director David Hand states:

December 1st 1936

He [Albert Hurter] is to control the keying of the character throughout the picture – is that clear? … Albert
knows the character of the picture better than anyone. (Allan, 1999: 46)

January 25th 1937

When you layout men get the rough well built … give it to Albert [Hurter] before the animator gets it
… He [Albert] dresses them up. We take them back and shoot them in for the animators. Before final
colouring Albert gets them again. That keeps the key of the picture and the characters. (Canemaker,
1996: 22–23)

Hurter and Hand were probably responsible for having all the characters animated properly and for
seeing that everyone looked the same in each scene of the film. Nevertheless, Hurter was known
especially for his talent for drawing conceptual designs, which helped the lead animators Grim
Natwick and Norman Ferguson complete the character animation (Canemaker, 1996: 15).
Therefore, Natwick and Ferguson used Tenggren and Hurter’s conceptual designs to create Snow
White’s final costume. The animator team Natwick and Ferguson also probably adapted Tenggren
and Hurter’s conceptual designs as, in animation, costumes have to be greatly simplified in order
to be efficient enough for production (Kimball, 2016b). It was common practice at Disney for art-
ists not to sign their work, and thus when examining Snow White’s character development designs,
it is difficult to determine exactly which artist drew which designs. However, a few designs, in
which Snow White runs through the forest, can be identified as Tenggren’s. Her costume in one of
these illustrations is similar in style to the one that appears in the finished feature film, but the
neckline and centre front of her bodice are different, and her skirt does not have as full a draped
hem as in the final animation.
Kalmakurki 11

In addition to the character of Snow White, Walt Disney had his own vision for the other char-
acters in the film. He guided Art Babbit, the lead animator of the evil Queen, to design the character
as a combination of Big Bad Wolf and Lady Macbeth. He also wanted Babbit to use Benda masks6
as a reference to the Queen’s face and headdress and add a high collar to her costume (Allan, 1999:
52–55). Walt Disney also suggested in a meeting that ‘Everything about her [Queen] is ugly,
scrawny and angular; nothing graceful as with Snow White’ (Allan, 1999: 47).7 In the final anima-
tion, a black Benda mask type of headdress is framing the Queen’s face, which creates a strong
effect, in contrast to her white stand-up collar. The Queen’s appearance was also described in the
following manner: ‘As she gesticulates melodramatically her cloak flares up in the wind like the
batlike cloak of Dracula’ (p. 55).8 This supposedly refers to her long circular black cape, which
appears in many scenes as very effective. These suggestions also support the contrast between the
characters in the film, the division between the good and the bad.
Furthermore, in Disney animation, celebrities were used as an inspiration for the facial expres-
sion of the character. The actress Zazu Pitts is suggested as being the inspiration for the look of
Snow White (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 2001). There are similarities in their eyes, lips,
the shape of the face and in the colour and the length of their hair. Furthermore, Allan suggests that
the Queen in Snow White resembles Joan Crawford (pp. 52, 55). This is visible in her white face,
lips and lidded eyes. Photos of Crawford in the 1930s and the Queen in the animated film share
similar facial expressions and features, which supports this remark.
After years of labour in conceptual design, live-action filming and rotoscoping were used to
complete the character designs, including the most accurate depiction of the costume and its
materials. This appears in the case of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as when the Disney
Studios began the production, Walt Disney was not satisfied with the animators’ way of depicting
humans. The animators at Disney joined life drawing classes and studied not only human motion
but also the movement of different materials and garments. They also studied the play of light and
shadow on moving fabric (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 2001). Human gestures and the
costumes for the character of Snow White were also carefully studied through live-action filming
(Smith, 1987: 39). The person who performed as the model for the character of Snow White was
the daughter of a Hollywood choreographer, dancer Marge Champion. After Disney scouts dis-
covered her at her father’s dance studio, she began her employment at Disney in 1934 (Ghez,
2014: 44). The studio worked on Snow White’s live-action filming for three years before its pre-
miere in 1937.
Before Marge Champion started working in the film production, she was called to Disney for a
costume fitting, even though there was no costume department at Disney (Ghez, 2014: 44; Solomon,
2016, personal communication). The structure of Snow White’s costume seems to be different
from everyday wear, suggesting that it was especially made for this purpose, yet it remains unknown
who provided her dress. The light yellow dress includes dark ribbon that is sewn on the centre front
of the bodice, on the details on the puffed sleeves as well as on the edges of the fabric. This was
possibly done to more visibly mark these lines and details when the animators drew the actor in
movement. These dark ribbons also helped the animators to define shadow and assisted in thinking
about colour saturation and hue and in defining weight and texture.
The top of this dress is still archived at the Walt Disney Studios. Marge Champion explains in
an interview that when she examined the dress in 2013, she found that it had two lines of hooks and
eyes, suggesting that the size had been altered (Ghez, 2014: 45). It is unknown whether the altera-
tion was done for Champion or another model, either prior to or after her time at Disney. The
alteration could be also done for someone else who wore the costume when Champion was absent
from the filming. It also remains unclear who made the costume alterations or where they took
place.
12 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 13(1)

In addition to the dress worn for the live-action filming, Disney studios had also prepared a foot-
ball helmet to mimic the head proportion in relation to the body, which in Disney animations are
always larger. Marge Champion used it on her first day of the filming; however, it was extremely hot
and difficult to wear. Therefore, the animator team decided to leave it after she had worn it for a few
hours. Prior to her work, Champion also examined pre-designed storyboards for the animation,
which guided her performance in the filming. She mainly acted in a simple studio with limited scen-
ery, for example, having a clothes line to visualize the edge of the forest where she was running.
Animators paid attention to her dress when she was moving to depict the material as accurately as
possible. Apparently, sometimes she had to repeat the movement so that the animators could exam-
ine it better (pp. 44–47). The limited background scenery and the fact that Marge Champion’s cos-
tume appears the way it did in the final animation indicate that at this stage of the pre-production
filming for rotoscoping, her costume played a more important role than the backgrounds.
The live-action footage can be examined from the extra material on two Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs’ limited edition DVD releases. This footage shows Marge Champion wearing a slightly dif-
ferent costume, which suggests that the animators tested different costume colours and shapes on her
in real life. For example, one film shows Marge Champion wearing a yellow gown with a white
stand-up collar. These colours do not match with the final animation. In another film, Snow White’s
costume is featured as a bright yellow bodice and a pale yellow skirt. What was not used in the live-
action filming was her dark blue bodice, which she wears in the final animation. The filming demon-
strated to the animators that her dress could not be one single colour, as the dark blue bodice divides
the body and makes the figure easier to animate. It is also visually more appealing. The final colours
of Snow White’s costume were decided after lighting tests were done during the filming (Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs, 2001). All in all, live-action filming and rotoscoping played an important part
and was used as a versatile tool when animators designed Snow White’s costume.
Actors were often invited to bring garments with them to the live-action filming sessions for
assistance in the composition of the costumes. For example, when Marge Champion was absent
from performing Snow White, Disney animator Ward Kimball’s wife Betty replaced her. She did
not use the same dress as Champion wore since she was asked to bring a puffed-sleeve top and
full-length skirt for the filming. In the case of filming the dwarf character Dopey, a Vaudeville actor
Eddie Collins was asked to bring baggy clothes from home (Kimball, 2016a). Marge Champion
also acted the character Dopey; she wore a long baggy coat to resemble the animated character
(Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 2001).
The weight and drape of Snow White’s filmed and rotoscoped costume materials function in
a similar way to her costume in the animation, which consists of a dress with a blue bodice and
white stand-up collar. The dress includes a pale yellow skirt and puffed pale blue sleeves and red
fabric pulled through the slashing on the sleeve. Slashing was highly popular in many parts of
garments starting from the Italian Renaissance and continuing to the 16th century; however, the
rest of her dress does not support the fashion from these periods. The cut of her bodice and the
silhouette and length of her dress show some features of the everyday fashion of the 1930s.
Furthermore, some elements of the beauty standards of the 1930s can be seen in Snow White’s
character, for example, in her wavy hair. As the key artist behind the looks of Snow White’s
costume cannot be traced, this analysis reveals the central roles of a continuously evolving con-
ceptual design process and the use of live-action filming and rotoscoping in the development of
this well-known costume.

Character development and costumes in Cinderella

In a similar way to the other analysed films, Disney’s version of Cinderella was a combination of
different versions of the Cinderella story. For example, this time, Disney was mainly influenced by
Kalmakurki 13

Charles Perrault’s version of Cinderella, first published in 1697, and the same tale by the Brothers
Grimm (1857). Starting in 1940, various story artists at Disney worked on developing the story,
although Mary Blair was hired as the main conceptual designer for the production. The style of the
film was again inspired by Europe, where Blair travelled for a research trip with Disney story artist
John Hench. According to Allan (1999: 207–209), their depictions of French country houses, farms
and castles are all present in the film. However, as seen later in this article, Blair’s ideas for
Cinderella’s costumes are not visible in the final animation.
In Solomon’s (2015) book A Wish Your Heart Makes, which traces the various incarnations of
the Cinderella character over the centuries, none of the book’s illustrations show the features
adapted to the final character in Disney’s animation. Most of them resembled the artistic style of
their era. For example, Arthur Rackham’s depiction of Cinderella from 1913 shows her in a long
and lightweight Art Nouveau style gown. Furthermore, in an engraving by an unknown artist from
the 16th century, Cinderella wears a tight-fitting bodice, full-length skirt and a cloak typical of the
era (pp. 13–23). This suggests that the former illustrations of Cinderella did not influence the ani-
mation artists when they designed her costume.
Cinderella’s costume went through a number of design stages. Mary Blair’s early character
development designs depict Cinderella in several styles with diverse colours or costumes from dif-
ferent periods, such as Empire and Rococo. However, none of these suggestions are visible in her
costume in the final animation. For example, at one stage Blair’s design for Cinderella’s ball gown
was a black gown with late 16th-century style leg o’mutton sleeves and a Spanish farthingale skirt.
Blair included a sleeveless long coat, resembling a Spanish ropa (although shorter in length), to be
worn over the dress. Blair’s early designs of Cinderella’s house dress and both her ball gowns dif-
fer greatly in style, colour and silhouette from those used in the film. Thus Mary Blair’s conceptual
designs were used as inspirations to develop the visual style of the film but not Cinderella’s cos-
tume itself. Prior to Mary Blair, a Disney animation studio artist Bianca Majolie worked on the
character of Cinderella. In her character development sketches from the very early years of the
film’s production, Cinderella wears a ball gown that does not resemble the costume in the final
film.9
Despite the numerous conceptual designs Mary Blair prepared for Cinderella, it seems that
Cinderella’s lead animator Marc Davis decided her final costume. His sketches for the character
resemble the final animation more than Blair’s or other artists; for example, the pink ball gown
that Cinderella’s animal friends make for her and the transformation of the gown after the twin
sisters tear it (see Deja, 2016: 350). Apparently, some Disney animators found it difficult to use
Blair’s conceptual designs as an inspiration for Cinderella. Her use of colour was very strong, and
the drawing style was flat and two-dimensional. This was not easy to adapt for animation, espe-
cially at Disney, where they aimed in their films for a realistic life-like depiction. Even so, Walt
Disney wanted to use Blair as one of the key conceptual artists (Canemaker, 1996: 129). Davis
said:

Mary [Blair] did things on marvellous flat planes. Walt appreciated this and wanted to see this, but he, not
being an artist himself, was never able to instruct the men [other animators] on how to use this … And it
was tragic because she did things that were so marvellous and never got on the screen. (Canemaker, 1996:
133)

Solomon (2015: 63) argues that Cinderella, the Prince and the Stepmother had to be believable
characters in their appearance. This demanded that the animators create even more realistic designs
in the animation. In contrast, the more comic characters such as Cinderella’s stepsisters, or the
Grand Duke and the King exhibit caricatured movements and personalities. It can also be argued
that these comic features are visible in their costumes. For example, the Grand Duke has
14 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 13(1)

exaggerated epaulettes and an hourglass figure highlighted with a tight belt on the waistline. His
tallness is juxtaposed with the short and chubby King, which is emphasized with tight-fitting hose.
The King’s hose resemble a tulip shape, which enforces the caricatured look. This way, their cos-
tumes had been designed to support the characters’ personalities.
Due to several unsuccessful film productions10 and Cinderella being produced after the war, the
budget for the film was lower than that of previous Disney features. In order to cut costs, Disney
used live-action filming for all the scenes in the animation, not only for guiding the drawing of the
characters but also for the layout and cutting of the film. This enabled the animators to work more
efficiently without making unnecessary scenes. Some of the filmed footage was used for rotoscop-
ing (Cinderella, 2005; Solomon, 2015: 40). Several still pictures can be found from the live-action
filming, in which actors are wearing proper costumes and wigs.
In the live-action filming, actress Helene Stanley was used in the role of Cinderella. Examining
the still pictures taken during the pre-production filming of the scenes in which she wears the ball
gown reveals that the gown is not the same in every picture, nor exactly the same as in the final
animation. For example, Cinderella’s ball gown has two different versions: one is used in the scene
in which she steps into the carriage with Fairy Godmother. Stanley’s gown is of a single colour
together with white sleeves and a white puffed top layer of the skirt. The shiny material of this cos-
tume resembles silk, which was probably the material Mark Davis wanted to depict in the anima-
tion. It does not have as full a hem as Cinderella’s gown has in the final animation. Another version
of this gown is used when she dances at the ball with Prince Charming. In this scene, her top is a
darker colour than the bottom of her gown. Both of the ball gowns are made with shiny materials,
which are depicted quite well in the hand-drawn animation. Unlike Snow White’s rotoscoped cos-
tume, the pre-production footage indicates that Cinderella’s ball gowns did not have dark coloured
ribbons sewn on the seams, edges and details of the garments. However, Cinderella’s live-action
house dress had these features. This costume includes a simple dress and an apron with dark ribbon
sewn into its seams, centre front and edges. This live-action costume fabric matches with the simple
style and flat colour tones of her house dress costume in the hand-drawn animation.
Although no source has verified that there was a separate costume department at the Disney stu-
dio, which would have prepared costumes for the filming purposes, some of the live-action filming
costumes for Cinderella had to be provided by the company. Many of the costumes in the filming are
different from everyday wear. Actresses wear ball gowns resembling the period of the 1860s; there-
fore, it is unlikely that they came from their own personal wardrobes. In addition, they wear wigs and
headdresses, which are clearly not their own, having no resemblance to the fashion of the 1940s.
In the final animation, Cinderella has three different costumes. At first, she has a house dress, in
which the subtle brown colours and the light grey apron serve to convey the honesty and innocence
of the character. The ball gown that Cinderella’s animal friends make for her has pink tones, and it
contrasts well with the one the Fairy Godmother creates for her with her magic. Her costumes
combined the simple style of Mary Blair’s conceptual designs and the principal animator Marc
Davis’s imagination and talent. The design of the ball gown is often considered as ‘timeless’ and as
the quintessential dress for a Western princess; however, it was very much of its time with a strong
link to 1949 Dior ball gowns and the style of Dior’s New Look.

‘A continuous illustration’: Costumes in Sleeping Beauty

The production of Sleeping Beauty began several years before the release of the film. The title was
registered in 1950, an outline for a plot in the film can be found as early as 1951, and the first sto-
ryboards were finished in 1952 (Allan, 1999: 233; Solomon, 2014: 27). Unlike the previous feature
films, the start of the production lacks Walt Disney’s direct influence, due to his concurrent inter-
ests in the development of the Disneyland theme park, the creation of the Disneyland television
Kalmakurki 15

programme and the release of many live-action films (Allan, 1999: 232; Solomon, 2014: 28).
However, he had clearly stated that the film had to be visually different from any of the previous
feature films (Sleeping Beauty, 2008).
An animation artist, Eyvind Earle, had worked at Disney for two years prior to being promoted
to the main artist in the production of Sleeping Beauty (Canemaker, 1996: 159). In his previous
artistic work, Earle was highly inspired by pre-Renaissance art, which was greatly used in the film.
Disney wished for ‘a continuous illustration’ as the visual style of the film, which Earle interpreted
by making the film’s backgrounds resemble a simplified medieval tapestry (Sleeping Beauty,
2003). For Sleeping Beauty, Earle took inspirations from medieval and Gothic paintings, tapestries
and architecture, especially works of Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Van Eyck and Dürer. However, the
utmost inspiration for him was Duc de Berry’s illuminated manuscript Très Riches Heures, a Book
of Hours (c. 1412–1416) (Allan, 1999: 233; Canemaker 1996: 160; Solomon, 2014: 30). Earle skil-
fully adapted this style to the backgrounds of the film, costumes and Gothic castles. Especially in
the Book of Hours, the miniature paintings April, May and August include depictions of medieval
people with clothes that have the same cut, style and silhouette as those seen in Sleeping Beauty.
Furthermore, the colour scheme in the costumes of the film is similar to the colouring in the Book
of Hours.
In addition to medieval and Renaissance art, a few other sources inspired the costumes in the
making of Sleeping Beauty. Allan (1999: 233–234) suggests that live-action feature films Henry V
(dir. Laurence Olivier, 1944) and Romeo and Juliet (dir. Renato Castellani, 1954) had also been a
source of inspiration for the landscapes and the costumes. In Henry V, women are mostly dressed
in the fashion of the late Middle Ages, wearing gowns with a wide oval shape neckline, high waist,
long draped skirts with trains and sleeves sweeping the ground. Their rondels and steeple head-
dresses include veils. Both films were released during the height of Sleeping Beauty’s production;
however, the Gothic interpretation could also be taken from European medieval art and does not
necessarily come from these films.
Sleeping Beauty shows a larger variety of characters and crowds of people than any of the pre-
ceding Disney films. They are all dressed in medieval fashion and the Gothic features are seen in
every principal character’s costume. For example, at the beginning of the film in Princess Aurora’s
christening scene, all guests are dressed in late medieval fashion. Women have long gowns called
kirtles, whose hems and sleeves sweep the floor. Most of them wear steeple hennin hats (tall coni-
cal shape headdresses) with fine veils. Men have short doublets and some include special roll pleat-
ing used during this period. Their costume ensembles also include tight-fitting hose, pointed shoes
called poulaines and some men have sugarloaf hats. Some parti-colouring is also seen in the cos-
tumes, which was common in the late Middle Ages. Due to Eyvind Earle’s elaborate detailing in
the background, the costumes became simplified and stood out from the environs.
Marc Davis became responsible for animating Sleeping Beauty’s two main characters, Princess
Aurora and Maleficent. He emphasized stylizing the characters more than in any of the previous
films (Sleeping Beauty, 2003). Therefore, neither of these characters’ costumes include any kind of
elaborate detailing or texturing on the fabrics. From the research sources used in this article, only
a few character development sketches and conceptual drawings are found for the Princess Aurora.
This suggests that the character did not undergo as many changes as Cinderella or Snow White,
which each have dozens of development sketches for their characters. Aurora was designed wear-
ing a medieval style, pink and rose parti-coloured dress during the early character development.
Nevertheless, the majority of the costume development designs show her in a dress similar to the
costume on the film.
In the final animation, Princess Aurora has two costumes, a grey dress with a black vest and a
scarf around her shoulders. In a similar way to Cinderella, this simple dress with earthy tones
respects the character’s kind personality. The everyday fashion of the 1950s might have influenced
16 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 13(1)

the style of this dress as there are some similarities in the cut, such as the x-silhouette of her dress
or the style and the collar of her top. Later in the film, Princess Aurora wears a light blue dress;
however, it is not as strongly based on a medieval style as the other female characters’ dresses in
the film.
Marc Davis recalls difficulties in designing Maleficent as her character was limited to slow
restrained movements. She also stands in one posture and gives speeches holding her hands up.
Furthermore, she mostly avoids any physical contact with other humans. For her character design,
Davis drew inspiration from a Czechoslovakian art book11 depicting flame shapes and strong colours.
He envisioned Maleficent as a giant vampire bat (Sleeping Beauty, 2003). Maleficent’s early concept
designs show elements of 16th-century European fashion. Her costume has a tight-fitting bodice with
a millstone collar and her skirt has volume around the hem. She also wears a caul headdress. In the
early designs, Maleficent’s cape has features of flames, which remained in the final animation.
However, none of the details of the 16th-century fashion are seen in her costume in the final film.
In the final animation, Maleficent’s costume consists of a long cape, which has a multi-layered,
high stand-up collar. It is closed at the front and does not show her garments underneath. Her
horned headdress frames the face, like the face of the former evil characters, the Queen in Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs or the Stepmother in Cinderella. Maleficent’s colour scheme in the
final animation combines black and purple. The vertical seam lines and folds of her cape are drawn
in grey for more visibility. The lines are also drawn to match with Earle’s elaborate backgrounds.
Her costume has a clever design as the volume and colour of her cape stand out from the back-
ground, making the character appear powerful and commanding.
A combination of live-action reference filming and rotoscoping was again used in the produc-
tion of Sleeping Beauty. Helene Stanley, who had previously performed Cinderella, was hired
again by Disney to play the role of Princess Aurora. According to the pre-production footage,
Princess Aurora’s costume had reached the final design at the time of filming, as the dress in the
final animation and the live-action dress are alike. Of all the live-action filmed costumes examined
in this article, it is the only one that very closely resembles the costume in the final animation. It is
also the only one whose origins are known. Stanley’s costume for the character Aurora was pro-
vided by fashion designer Alice Estes Davis, the lead character animator Marc Davis’s wife. He
gave his wife guidelines for the construction of the dress: ‘Marc told me how he wanted the skirt
to flow when she turned and gave me a sketch of the costume’ (Solomon, 2014: 51; Solomon,
2016, personal communication).
The battle between Prince Philip and the dragon was also choreographed and filmed for refer-
ence and rotoscoping, although only still pictures remain from the live-action filming (Sleeping
Beauty, 2003). In some of the scenes, Prince Philip wears tight-fitting hose, a tunic, a hip-length
waistcoat with a belt and tall boots. There are also pictures in which Prince Philip wears a cloak.
Examination of the black and white still pictures reveals that every part of Prince Philip’s costume
seems to be of a different colour or tone. The reason for this is probably to emphasize the different
garments more clearly. In addition, as this same colouring continues in the finished animation, it
might have been an aesthetic choice to have every garment and accessory in a different colour.
Furthermore, one colour photograph exists from a scene in which Prince Philip kisses Princess
Aurora. It shows that the Prince wears a red cloak and green hose. In the final animation, the Prince
wears grey hose, which match with the other grey tones on the character. Additionally, the red
cloak stands out as the rest of the costume has subtle colouring.
In the existing colour photograph, Princess Aurora’s gown has a variety of subtle blue colours,
similar to the final animation. The vivid colours of the Book of Hours are not featured in Princess
Aurora’s costume, which is more subtle than the other characters’ dresses in the film. The colour
picture reveals little of the cut of her dress; therefore, it cannot be further examined. The ribbon
Kalmakurki 17

highlighting the details or seams of the garment, which is visible in many of the other films’ roto-
scoped costumes, is not seen in the Princess’s or Prince’s costumes.
Princess Aurora’s dress differs from the rest of the film’s costumes in terms of its style being
less derived from medieval fashions. Her look more closely resembles the American style of beauty
and post-war glamour, which the rest of the world aimed to copy. Her figure also bears some
resemblance to Mattel, Inc.’s hugely popular Barbie doll, whose production began at the beginning
of the 1950s. It seems that the main character and her costume were designed with different prin-
ciples and inspirations from the other characters in the film.
These three animated films have remained central to Walt Disney Studios’ legacy not only as
widespread and beloved ‘classics’ but also as a reference for the development process of other
feature films within the studio. All films used conceptual designing and live-action filming in
developing characters’ costumes. It is fascinating to see the amount of effort they made at Disney
to acquire so many special garments for live-action filming and rotoscoping purposes during the
pre-production of each film. It can be argued that costumes were important elements in the charac-
ter creation and visual representation of the character. Additionally, these classic Disney films have
remained artistic inspirations for their later productions. This is seen, for example, in Disney’s
computer animation Frozen (2013), which drew inspiration from Eyvind Earle’s illustrations for
Sleeping Beauty for the film’s costume palette (Solomon, 2013: 74).

Conclusion
This article aimed to investigate the different aspects affecting the creation of characters’ costumes
in Walt Disney’s early hand-drawn animated feature films. In hand-drawn animation, a character is
never drawn unclothed and then dressed up. Since the character is never drawn without a costume,
the design of costumes is not considered a separate part of the character animation. The films
examined in this article demonstrate that costume designs often considerably evolved over the
course of a film’s production and, particularly in the early stages of development, many artists were
responsible for researching the designs of costumes for the characters. However, in the case of
Cinderella and Princess Aurora, the early character development designs did not ultimately affect
the principal animator’s costume design choices. This article shows that the work of a costume
designer existed in the production, although not as a separate profession. Although the costume
creation is tightly integrated with the character animation process, the function of costume is simi-
lar in live-action films: to support the character’s personality.
This article is intended to benefit both scholars and practitioners within costume design and
animation fields. Raising the awareness of costume design processes in animation will assist in
further research on a scholarly level. Once animation practitioners can understand their contribu-
tions as designers to characters’ costumes, it will help to enhance the ways in which costumes are
designed in future animated films. Additionally, this analysis can be used in teaching animation to
highlight the importance of costume design in character creation or teaching costume design to
indicate a new profession in the field. It is also a welcome addition to the existing literature on the
history of Walt Disney’s animation.

Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Sofia Pantouvaki at Aalto University and
Professor Peter McNeill, University of Technology Sydney, Australia, for their comments for developing and
enriching the text. I wish to thank the members of the Costume in Focus (CiF) research group and the Research
Sauna course participants at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland, for their feedback on how to improve this
article. In addition, I would like to thank Professor Deborah Nadoolman Landis, UCLA, for introducing me
18 animation: an interdisciplinary journal 13(1)

to so many key people working in costume design. I am also truly grateful for the editor’s help and input, and
the anonymous peer reviewers’ constructive comments.

Funding
This work was supported by the Kone Foundation (grant number 088501) and was developed in the frame of
the Costume Methodologies research project.

Notes
  1. Kelly Kimball is the daughter of Ward Kimball who was one of the Disney’s ‘Nine Old Men’. Kimball
is a former Disney animator and has also worked at the DreamWorks animation studio. Her last works
included costume design for the hand-drawn animated feature film Prince of Egypt (DreamWorks,
1998), Road to El Dorado (DreamWorks, 2000) and early character design for the 3D-animated film
Shrek (DreamWorks, 2001).
  2. These artists were the predecessors for the profession of concept artist working in the contemporary film
industry.
  3. For example, in the Grimm Brothers’ tale, Snow White was not wearing a house dress and cleaning the
palace. This was used in the stage version (Allan, 1999: 38).
  4. Walt Disney travelled to Europe several times (in 1935, 1946, 1949 and 1951) searching for folk tales
and visual inspirations (Allan, 1999: 31). For example, in 1935 he brought back books with illustrations
he wanted to adapt into films (p. 207).
  5. Since artists at Disney hardly ever signed their work, it is not possible to indicate who made the character
development design discussed in this article.
  6. The name Benda Masks originates from Władysław Teodor Benda, who was a Polish-American painter
active during the production of Snow White. He is best known for creating masks for theatre and dance
productions. These masks were mostly pale, oval shape and included a head-dress.
  7. Walt Disney’s quote comes from story meetings dated 15 December 1936 and 5 March 1937.
  8. Walt Disney’s suggestion came from a general continuity conference held on 22 December 1936.
  9. Bianca Majolie’s conceptual designs of Cinderella can be found in Solomon (2015: 33) and Canemaker
(1996: 105).
10. Such as Dumbo (1941) and Fantasia (1940), which were financial losses for the company.
11. This information is from behind the scenes material on Sleeping Beauty (2003), which states that the
publisher and author of this art book are unknown.

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Kalmakurki 19

Author biography
Maarit Kalmakurki is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Film, Television and Scenography, Aalto
University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. Her doctoral dissertation investigates the costume design
process in 3D-animated feature films. Maarit is a scenographer and she has designed costumes and sets for
various theatre and opera productions in Finland. She has taught scenography, arts, fashion and dress history
in Finland and in the US. Her research interests combine film and stage costume history, dress history and the
use of technological tools in design processes.