Fashion & Beauty

New TV dramas dress up with haute historical looks

DESIGNS ON ‘DRACULA’

Set in Victorian England, “Dracula” premieres Oct. 25 and stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the iconic immortal who descends upon London in the guise of an American entrepreneur pushing technological advancement while slaking a thirst for revenge.

“Dracula” leading ladies Jessica de Gouw as Mina Murray (from left), Victoria Smurfit as Lady Jayne Wetherby and Katie McGrath as Lucy Westenra.Jonathon Hession/NBC

“It was mammoth, it was absolutely unrelenting!” Annie Symons says of creating costumes for the show, which boasts a particularly large cast of extras and, naturally, gore galore. “People get killed left, right and center — you’re not making one [costume], you’re making multiples at such a speed.”

Not that Symons is afraid of history books, or blood; the British designer won an Emmy for her work on 2011’s BBC adaptation of “Great Expectations” and counts a TV version of “Sweeney Todd” among her list of credits.

In re-imagining the look of pop culture’s most enduring undead, Symons referenced fashion plates and magazines from several eras in shaping her vision. Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Schiaparelli, and Yves Saint Laurent are among her biggest inspirations.

Runway Inspiration: Alexander McQueen. “I adore the theatricality and subtext of McQueen,” says “Dracula” costume designer Annie Symons.Getty Images

“When you look at the 1890s, which is when the story is set, the shapes are extreme. They border on the grotesque,” Symons explains of the difficulty in filming more authentic costumes.

“So I looked at the essence of those shapes and their closest fit and it seemed to be the 1940s. I played around with scale and silhouettes, and somewhere between the two got Dracula.”

Symons insists the story’s men are as visually strong and impactful as the women, especially Rhys Meyers. “He knows a lot about clothes,” says Symons of the former “Tudors” star. “He knows what suits him and he wears it very well.”

But the show’s leading female characters, Mina Murray (Jessica de Gouw) and Lucy Westenra (Katie McGrath), are sure to widen eyes with their vibrant, billowing, ruffled gowns.

BODY OF ‘WONDER’

The Look: Lowe as Alice in “Alice in Wonderland.”Jeff Weddell/ABC

England in the late 19th century is also the jumping- off point for ABC’s “Once Upon a Time in Wonderland,” which premiered Thursday. But Alice isn’t the apron-tied schoolgirl befuddled by the curiouser and curiouser. Here, she’s a quick-witted, swordslinging heroine played by Sophie Lowe, who ventures back down the rabbit hole to find the swarthy genie (Peter Gadiot) with whom she fell in love and prove she’s not a lunatic.

The show — and the costumes — also hop freely from period to fantasy to present day.

“It’s a general sweep of Victorian,” says costume designer Eduardo Castro, who’s dressed everyone from fashion nerd America Ferrera in “Ugly Betty” to colorful detectives in the ’80s classic “Miami Vice” to Aishwarya Rai in 2004’s dazzling Bollywood version of “Pride & Prejudice.”

Technical constraints even inspired an update on Alice’s classic dress.

Runway Inspiration: Valentino. The late 19th century was all about lace, a big motif on the runways this season.Getty Images

“We couldn’t use the iconic blue [from the Disney cartoon] because we’re using blue screen,” Castro says. “And I remembered I’d seen a blouse over in Dolce & Gabbana. It was white silk with long sleeves, and I said, ‘That’s the blouse! If we dye it and shorten it, that’s it.’ ”

The resulting lavender top was paired with a tulle floral-embroidered skirt in the pilot episode in a look that’s about as frilly as Alice gets.

For period Alice, Castro looks to runway from Valentino, whose recent collections have sparked a renaissance of neo-Victorian primness and austerity. For more rough-and-tumble ensembles, Castro picks well-made pieces from Helmut Lang, Gucci and Prada, his go-to label — reworking them into outfits that look good and the actors can actually move in.

“These costumes have to do so much,” says Castro, who will consult with the show’s producers so that the costume supports the narrative while telling a story of its own. “They say, ‘She’s romantic, she’s kick-ass, she’s this and that!’ And I say, ‘Oh God!’

“So it just can’t be a dress. It has to be a dress that transforms into something that’s a little bit more.”

FASHION ‘REIGN’

Jenessa Grant (left) plays Aylee, one of Mary’s well-born besties, and doesn’t look too unlike any girl you’d see on the street.Christos Kalohoridis/The CW

“Reign,” premiering Thursday, is The CW’s first foray into 16th-century subject matter. The plot follows the young Mary, Queen of Scots, played by Adelaide Kane, as she arrives from a convent and joins the political conspiracies and sexual intrigue of the French court. The juice thickens as Mary is torn between Prince Francis (Toby Regbo), to whom she’s betrothed, and his bastard half-bother Bash (Torrance Coombs).

“They by no means wanted or envisioned it to be a strictly historical costume show,” says costumer Meredith Markworth- Pollack.

It’s “Gossip Girl” for the “Game of Thrones” set, and for Markworth-Pollack, who helped dress the “Gossip Girl” cast for six seasons, it was a dream job with a special set of creative challenges.

“In the beginning, I thought, ‘I’m not necessarily stuck within the limits of what history will let us do,’ ” she says. “And then I realized pretty quickly this could be trickier, because where do you draw the line? Like, are they going to be walking around in miniskirts?”

Miniskirts, no, but flower crowns à la Lana Del Rey, yes! In fact, the show’s timing couldn’t have been better for Markworth-Pollack, who finds as many resources in contemporary fashion trends as she does with vintage and handmade fare.

Runway Inspiration: Alexander McQueen. “We were all kind of pleased and surprised at what a current trend that is,” Markworth-Pollack says of the regal movement in fashion now.Getty Images

Instead of bulky crowns or tiaras, Kane and her ladies-in-waiting sport the type of pretty headpieces popularized by brands such as Jennifer Behr that currently festoon the accessories wall at Topshop.

Markworth-Pollack will also cut and alter finds from fashion designers who evoke the same modern yet poetic mood she seeks to create, capitalizing on the current tenor of regal romanticism present at Dolce & Gabbana and Alexander McQueen.

“We took this J. Mendel dress and added inserts of chiffon to make it flowier; we added . . . a little ruffle to it,” she says of a dress for Kane. “We just reworked it to make it our own, but we were drawn to it because it has this romantic element straight off the rack.”

While Markworth-Pollack finds sturdy footing in the present, the young actresses she clothes seem more impressed with the past, sartorially speaking.

“They feel really lucky to be on a show like this, where they know they’re not just wearing jeans and a tank top to work every day,” she says of Kane and her character’s noble BFFs. “I was really surprised because I thought they were going to be fighting us on the corsets, and they love them! — for the most part . . .”