When the trailer for Emerald Fennell’s highly-anticipated Wuthering Heights adaptation, starring Margot Robbie as Cathy and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, lastly dropped—two issues grew to become abundantly clear: This isn’t a movie involved with historic accuracy, and the viewers is in for a visually gorgeous deal with. Fennell has said the movie is not a direct adaptation of Emily Brontë’s traditional novel, as an alternative a model of how studying the ebook made her really feel. Because it’s by the lens of a teenage woman, every part is heightened: the intercourse, the romance, the costumes, and the gorgeous magnificence appears to be like.

Fennell tasked Siân Miller to steer the hair and make-up course (the 2 beforehand labored collectively on Saltburn), giving her full freedom to dial up the appears to be like past traditional regency braids and refined blush. “[It became clear] this was going to be a fever dream; a fantasy seen by the eyes of a 14 12 months outdated. This was going to be an eclectic mixture of so many issues,” Miller tells Byrdie. The outcome? A candy-colored spectacle, full with face gems, corseted braids, and plenty and plenty of blush.

Forward, Miller shares all of the secrets and techniques behind the movie’s hair and make-up, together with the blink-if-you’ll miss it hair symbolism and her key merchandise.

The Inspiration

Miller says she discovered the deemphasis on historic accuracy each liberating and intimidating. Fennell got here armed with pages and pages of temper boards that Miller likens to “a murals”—every part from film stills to positive artwork references, structure, and pictures of grass stained knees. “It actually helps to construct the world in your thoughts,” says Miller. From there, Miller labored intently with the costume and manufacturing designers to create a unified visible language for the movie.

The story takes place over a number of years, and the sweetness appears to be like had been key in displaying each the passage of time and the characters’ improvement. Miller approached the movie in three main sections: Wuthering Heights, The Grange, and the ultimate act. Within the first part of the movie, the place Cathy and Heathcliff run wild on the moors, the group used fake freckles, windswept blush, and free-flowing hair to replicate that. As soon as Cathy strikes to the elegant Grange, the appears to be like had been dialed as much as replicate the opulence of her environment. Suppose: playful lip colours, bejeweled eyes, and gold freckles. Miller was impressed by ’90s runway appears to be like together with Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen, and Pat McGrath’s make-up for Dior’s Fall/Winter 2007 and 2009 exhibits.

The Make-up

For the opening act, “We went off the truth that they dwell in Wuthering Heights, and [the house] is remoted and it is uncovered. From childhood, there’s nothing to do. The Moors are their playground,” Miller shares. For the look, she needed “sheer pores and skin, flush tones uncovered, freckles, and wild-and-free hair.” Pure-looking pores and skin and a “weather-beaten” flush was key for all of the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff included.

For Cathy, “it was very a lot ‘much less is extra.'” She and Robbie’s private make-up artist, Nana Fischer, skipped eyeshadow and mascara, as an alternative letting the pure definition across the actor’s eyes shine. The primary components of her look had been impressed by the “pomegranate make-up” pattern with heavy berry blush and pretend freckles, which she created utilizing {custom} freckle masks and an airbrush machine on each Miller and Charlotte Mellington, who performs younger Cathy. That manner, the freckles could be an identical on each actors in addition to from scene to scene.

When Cathy strikes to The Grange, the neighboring property the place she meets her eventual husband Edgar Linton, the look modifications but once more. “We knocked the freckles again as a result of she’s now residing a extra indoor, sheltered life. “There’s much more opulence, much more gown up,” Miller says. That is when these runway references are available in, as do bolder colours and fascinating textures.

For merchandise, Miller used Chanel basis on the entire solid. For Cathy’s Moor flush she used the Chanel No. 1 Lip and Cheek Balm, and palettes from Le Maquillage Skilled. “As a result of that is an Emerald Fennell movie, I all the time have one thing that may create a little bit of sheen or perspiration.” That features Paw Paw ointment, Elizabeth Arden’s Eight Hour Cream, and an atomizer sprayer.

The Hair Symbolism

Miller created between 35-40 hairstyles for Robbie over the course of the movie, utilizing two bespoke wigs custom-matched to her colour—it was essential to Fennell that she was blonde—in addition to half-wig piece within the again, six bespoke switches, “a few clusters,” and at the very least seven meters of weft. Fennell needed plenty of appears to be like within the brief capturing schedule, so Miller developed a plug-and-play system. “I needed it to be like Lego, the place you might have a elementary foundation. You might leap-frog wigs; one off, one on.”

Whereas the make-up primarily mirrored the passage of time, Cathy’s hair revealed extra of her character improvement. As soon as she strikes into The Grange, she trades moor-blown waves for polished kinds not doable with out the assistance of a servant. In an already-copied look from the trailer, Cathy wears intricate braids corseted with purple ribbons. Miller factors out that within the earlier scenes, Cathy is seen sporting a leather-based corset laced within the entrance, since there have been no servants to lace it for her within the again. “In fact, she went to the Grange, and every part’s finished from the again, as a result of you have got any person that will help you. The hair is mimicking that change in life-style.” Within the scene, the digicam follows Cathy from the again, and he or she’s lead into Isabella’s ribbon room full of garments made to her measurements. “It is a assertion about standing, and it actually contrasts to the place she’s come from.”

As time passes, Cathy turns into far more extreme and even merciless, which is mirrored in what Miller calls her “horns,” a tackle ’40s Victory Rolls. Cathy will get meaner and more durable, her robes are much less full and floaty, “and that is the place we get into the these rolls,” says Miller. “The silhouette, it is much less delicate, it is extra extreme.” The look itself was impressed by a grainy photocopy of a picture of Vivienne Lee from Gone With the Wind that each Miller and Emerald liked, however represents her devilish flip as properly.

Different symbolic particulars embody what Miller calls a “vagina plait” at the back of one in every of Cathy’s hairstyles throughout a sexually-charged scene (it additionally coincides with a crack forming in a wall in Wuthering Heights). There’s additionally Cathy’s marriage ceremony hair, although principally coated by her attractive veil. Miller created a chainmail formation with the hair, a logo of the cage she’s constructed by betraying her coronary heart and marrying Linton even supposing she loves Heathcliff. “She’s trapped herself, however there’s this entice, albeit willingly. She’s walked into this with open eyes, however there’s remorse, and so that is what that [represents]” says Miller.

Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff Transformation

Heathcliff has a extra overt transformation than Cathy, going from rugged farmhand to wealthy gentleman. However first, Miller needed to take Jacob Elordi from trendy heartthrob to farmhand. Her first notice to him? “Develop every part.” He got here in with a “fantastic beard,” and Miller had a {custom} wig made by Samuel James wigs in London for his lengthy, flowing locks.

Make-up was key to creating Heathcliff’s character look lived-in. Miller used a {custom} combine of professional palettes and the Make Up For Ever cream palettes to create “floor in dust” and “a flush from the weather” throughout his physique. She additionally rubbed floor in blood onto his arms—”it isn’t apparent, nevertheless it’s there”—to nod to his farm labor. Fake scars on his again and a lacking tooth accomplished his look.

For Heathcliff’s grand return, Miller needed him to seem like the “quintessential romantic hero.” “That unbelievable distinction, that is what we needed to indicate. He actually grows into these garments and into that half, whereas [in the beginning] he is hiding behind that hair.” She saved the flush tones in his pores and skin and minimize Eloridi’s hair right into a traditional Regency model minimize, and added an 18 karat gold tooth.