By Brigette Barrager
2014-2018
Medium: Marker, Pencil, Photoshop
Tangled Rapunzel Costume Designs
I love designing costumes, so when I was approached by Disney Television Animation to do some costume designs for Tangled the Series, I only remember thinking “duh! Of course!”
I was already familiar with the show and its three season story arc after having worked on concepts for the character of Cassandra, so it was easy to jump back in, albeit on a very different assignment. This time it was all about Rapunzel.
In the series she goes out into the world, exploring and adventuring, and she needed a change of costume for that. You surely CAN go adventuring in a princess dress, but it didn’t feel quite right for Rapunzel. They had been toying with the idea of putting her in pants of some kind, adding belts, or a jacket – something to make her look more the part of an adventurous princess. Details were also important for her new look: elements like embroidery, edging, buttons, pattern. Symbols of her newfound freedom like birds, butterflies, and of course some sun shapes (for the kingdom of Corona) were to be considered, too. I took a lot of notes during our kick off meeting and then set to work on playing with combinations of garments for Rapunzel.
I tried all kinds of different pants, leggings, corsets, capes, capelets, belts, sashes, bags – I could have gone on and on! And, to some extent, I did!
It was decided that pants really did change her silhouette too much, so she kept her skirt. After a round of notes, I took the chosen iteration of the costume into color. We wanted to see how the costume would look with and without a cape over it.
Rapunzel also needed a new hairstyle for her very, very long hair to go with her new adventure-friendly outfit. I was more than happy to come up with iterations for possible ways she might style her long hair to keep it contained, as well as some accessories and adornments. I know the bird barrette concept made it into the show!
Rapunzel required another costume change, one that was totally opposite from the first: she needed some formal gowns to wear when attending to royal matters. The sun motif was to be on full display in these designs.
The story also required that she have a very formal, very stuffy, very NOT at all Rapunzel costume. These costumes were meant to have the effect of being so ceremonial and stuffy that they looked totally out of place on Rapunzel. She can barely move in such a tight, heavy, huge dress! I’m not sure if any of these made it into the show, but they were a lot of fun to do. The Rapunzel world is “fairytale”, so it’s appropriate to use a mix of different costume eras to create a fantasy effect.
All visual work on this page is the property of Disney.
