Everything the 'Bridgerton' Cast and Designers Have Revealed About the Extravagant Costumes

The outfits are a mix of Regency era and modern-day looks

When creating the costumes for Bridgerton, costume designer Ellen Mirojnick told Vogue that she looked at the Regency period in London for silhouettes and shapes, but modern-day fashion for the color palette and the fabrications.

"I looked at the Regency period in London through drawings and paintings. We got a flavor of it and then it was about looking at the different silhouettes and shapes while knowing that this had to be aspirational, as opposed to historically accurate," Mirojnick told the publication.

"We knew that we had to shift the color palette and the fabrications, so from the 19th century, I immediately went to the 1950s and 1960s. The Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition at [London's] Victoria & Albert Museum provided a wealth of inspiration. We looked at Dior dresses, from the New Look [1947] to the present day."

The feathers are a nod to the bonnets of the time period

While bonnets were all the rage in the Regency era, the show opted not to use them on the show. Instead, they gave a nod to them with various hair accessories.

"We took that half-moon shape and created these straw [pieces] accented with flowers or feathers that sit on top of the head. Another no-no were muslin dresses. There's a limpness to them that we didn't want," Mirojnick told Vogue.

The process of design to execution for costumes is about 40 days

Charithra Chandran (Edwina Sharma) tells PEOPLE that the process of "design to execution" for the costumes is about 40 days. "It was like the first time I felt really emotional on set was when I tried on my first dress," she says.

Mirojnick previously told Vogue that creating the costumes for season 1 "took five months to prepare before [they] went to shoot."

7,500 costume pieces were designed and created in season 1

Mirojnick told Vogue that in season 1, the costume team ended up creating "about 7,500 pieces — from hats to shawls, to overcoats — that made up the [estimated] 5,000 costumes that went before the camera."

Daphne had 104 dresses in season 1

Of those 5,000 costumes, Daphne Bridgerton (played by Phoebe Dynevor) had a total of 104 costumes, Mirojnick revealed to Vogue.

Most of the corsets used on the show were half corsets

Many of the cast members have talked about how uncomfortable the corsets were on the show, but as Harper's Bazaar points out, many cast members only were half corsets, which extend to the top of the ribs.

"The corsets were made so that there is a pushup and a blossoming effect on top of the top of the neck line," Mirojnick told the publication.

Queen Charlotte's outfits are double corseted

There's a lot that goes into Queen Charlotte's extravagent looks. "I'm double corseted so I have the traditional corset and then in the coat, there's a corset that I have to wear," Golda Rosheuvel, who plays the royal on the show, tells PEOPLE.

With so many different components going into her looks, Rosheuvel adds that she has to "a lot of training" to be able to carry herself in her costumes, including working out three times a week, eating healthy, and getting a lot of fresh air.

"I have to be match fit because it is a whole heap of strain, a whole heap of tension, [and] a whole heap of restriction on the body," she adds.

The costumes are actually pretty comfortable

Despite the corsets being somewhat painful at times, Claudia Jessie (Eloise Bridgerton) tells PEOPLE that "the costumes themselves are very comfortable."

"The action is going on underneath," she adds. "What I do have is Spanx tights and then a mic pack on my thigh, so actually, my biggest struggle is going for a wee."

The Bridgerton family's muted color palette symbolizes their prominence in society

"They're the prominent family of the social season so we wanted their color palette to be powdery — these pale blues, silvers, and greens that feel like whispers of color," Mirojnick told Vogue.

The Featherington family's bright color palette symbolizes their brazenness

Directly contrasting the Bridgerton family, the Featheringtons wear bright colors beccause they want to be seen. "The Featheringtons are new money and [the mother] Portia [played by Polly Walker] needs to marry her daughters off," Mirojnick explained to Vogue.

"She sets the tone for them as a family and their color palette is overly citrus because she wants those girls to be seen. It might be too much, but that's not on purpose. She thinks they look beautiful. Portia wears these prints and often you're not sure if she's more like Joan Collins or Elizabeth Taylor. They're bolder, brighter and more brazen than everyone else, and everything is overly embellished. They just don't know any better."

Daphne's purple wardrobe symbolizes her marriage to Simon

While each family member has a specific color palette, the characters' individual costumes are also purposeful.

"As Daphne gets older, the colors become duskier. The pinks and blues are richer and the silvers deepen as she grows and matures. She begins as a porcelain doll and becomes a woman," Mirojnick told Vogue.

Once she marries Simon (Regé-Jean Page), she begins wearing more purple, which symbolizes the mixture of her family's blue hues and Simon's red wardrobe.

Eloise's outfits are supposed to juxtapose Daphne's

Unlike her sister Daphne, Eloise's character is a nonconformist when it comes to society's ideals of what a woman should be, and her outfits portray that. "She resisted society, either with the length of her dresses or the simplicity of how she presented herself and the tailored-ness of her clothes compared to all the other women in the show," Mirojnik told HelloGiggles. "She hated the bows, the frills, the lace—anything that was prissy. She's always buttoned up."

Mirojnik adds that Eloise's outfits also "ride the line of masculine and feminine," noting, "Her inserts were made of a self-stripe pattern, which is more masculine than feminine." She continues, "There was one jacket in particular that she wore at the modiste, which was taken from a man's takeaway."

Penelope's yellow outfits foreshadow her secret identity

As HelloGiggles points out, Penelope (Nicola Coughlan)'s yellow outfits symbolize her lack of courage or her being too "yellow-bellied" to express her true feelings for Colin.

The publication points out that like the Featheringtons, she wears bright colors, but her outfits are less "garish" and "obnoxious" as her sisters and mother. This perhaps foreshadows of her role as Lady Whistledown, since she's able to blend in with the crowd and not be identified as the infamous gossip writer.

Queen Charlotte's many looks portray the "gaudiness of the society"

"The remit for the queen was that she didn't have any continuity," Rosheuvel explains in a Netflix clip. "So every single shot that you see her in, she's in something different. So that drove a kind of character choice as well about the gaudiness of the society."

The scoop necks play into the sexiness of the show

"We paid a lot of attention to the scooped necklines and how they fit the bust, as opposed to having a [straight] line that doesn't allow you to see the body," Mirojnick told Vogue.

"This show is sexy, fun and far more accessible than your average restrained period drama and it's important for the openness of the necklines to reflect that. When you go into a close-up, there's so much skin. It exudes beauty."

Simone Ashley's corset made her tear her shoulder

During an interview with Glamour UK, Simone Ashley (Kate Sharma) opened up about the "interesting" experience of wearing a corset every day while filming season 2.

"On my first day, I was like, 'OK, first day as a leading lady, got to eat lots of food, be really energized,' " she recounted. "So, I had this massive portion of salmon and that's when I needed to be sick, basically because I was wearing the corset."

She added, "I realized when you wear the corset, you just don't eat. It changes your body. I had a smaller waist very momentarily. Then the minute you stop wearing it, you're just back to how your body is. I had a lot of pain with the corset, too, I think I tore my shoulder at one point!"