A Closer Look at the Victorian Era Costumes

in ‘The Essex Serpent’

Costume designer Jane Petrie talks how the characters’ emotional journeys
are conveyed through their wardrobe.

ByLAYLA ILCHIPlus Icon

Costume designer Jane Petrie took a multifaceted approach to creating

the costumes for Apple TV+’s Victorian Era drama “The Essex Serpent” —
both referencing the period broadly and using the show’s wardrobes to help
drive the characters’ emotional journeys.

Based on the 2016 Sarah Perry novel of the same name, “The Essex
Serpent” tells the story of the newly widowed Cora (played by Claire
Danes), who relocates from London to a small village in Essex in 1893 after
becoming intrigued with the town’s conspiracy that a mythical snake was
terrorizing the area. The series follows Cora on her self-discovery journey
after her abusive husband’s death and through her newfound romantic
relationship with the town’s vicar, played by Tom Hiddleston. The series
airs its finale on Apple TV+ on Friday.
“In the beginning, her style is Michael’s style really,” she said. “The first
time we meet her she’s wearing a black and gold shirt that’s similar to a
Japanese vibe. And then when she goes to Essex, her costumes kind of open
and soften. She starts relaxing for the first time in years.”
Petrie explained the shift in Cora’s costumes is meant to reflect how she’s
transitioning from a life where her abusive husband controlled her to now
being on her own and making her own choices.

Aside from Cora, the vicar’s wife Stella (played by Clémence Poésy) also has
her character conveyed through her costumes. In contrast to Cora’s London
attire, Petrie explained Stella’s wardrobe was meant to look homemade to
reflect the character’s warm and comforting nature.

Petrie explained she took inspiration from Gustav Klimt’s

wife, fashion designer Emilie Flöge for Stella’s character, mimicking the
figure’s loose, patterned dresses. The costume designer also opted to dress
Stella mostly in blue, which was meant to reflect the character’s gentle
nature.

Petrie started her approach to the series’ costumes by broadly looking at the
Victorian Era and finding where the characters fit in given the locations of
London and Essex. She explained that both cities had their own style, with
London exhibiting more modern and couture-like fashion , while Essex had
a more homely and casual vibe.

“There’s a little bit of a push with some of the styling, notably when Cora
goes fossil hunting and she’s got that really great hat and trousers,” Petrie
said. “They’re not accurate, but I think it’s a push maybe for that look so
close to London. It wasn’t anything that I hadn’t found when I was looking
at pioneer women or women going into the gold rush.”
For Cora, Petrie wanted to convey the character’s emotional journey
through her costumes. The series starts off by focusing on Cora
immediately after her husband Michael’s death. Viewers see the character
in black or dark-colored clothing with high necklines, rigid shoulders and
intricate ornamentation.

As the series goes on and Cora spends more time in Essex finding herself,
Petrie transitions to dressing the character in more casual and less
restricted clothing.

“You can tell that a lot of her clothes are handmade, where Cora’s looked
like — although they are handmade — they’re certainly high couture,” Petrie
said. “Stella’s has a homeliness to them that isn’t there in Cora’s wardrobe,
and then they reflect her emotional journey into blue as well as the colors
get more and more intense.”

Despite the differences between the characters, Petrie hopes that their
respective journeys and friendship were furthered by the costume choices.

“The message in the costumes is the relationship between each of them is so

clear — the relationship they have with each other and with the characters
around them, who they are and where they come from,” she said. “It’s on
the page and it’s a very well written script, so I know they’re not going to
cross pollinate. They are very well defined characters.”