Set secrets from Bridgerton season 3
Filming for the third season of Bridgerton began in July 2022 and almost two years later we're finally seeing our favourite members of the 'ton' back on Netflix.
The new season of the romance period drama centres around Penelope Featherington's attempts to join the marriage mart after giving up on her long-held crush on Colin Bridgerton, all while she continues her double life as Lady Whistledown and navigates her rift with former best friend Eloise Bridgerton. But storylines aside, we're all about the aesthetics, from the beautiful floral-entwined entrance gate and trailing wisteria on the Bridgerton house to the curated colour palettes in the homes of the high society. But what's the secret to bringing these looks to life?
Having been art director on two seasons of the period drama, Alison Gartshore steps into a new role as production designer for season three. Bridgerton is bigger and better this season or rather, an 'embellishment' on the previous one, describes Alison, as the production crew have 'turned up the dial to 11 rather than keeping it at 10'.
Alison says having themes for all the extravagant balls has helped to push the boundaries and be more theatrical with the production. 'The colour is a little bit more flamboyant and the ballrooms have been slightly elevated in terms of the scale and what we've done with them,' Alison tells us. 'And because we had themes this year for the balls, that's helped us to have a hook. We've been able to really play with those themes and hopefully people will love it.'
Speaking exclusively to House Beautiful, Alison shares with us all the behind the scenes action on what makes Bridgerton one of Netflix's most popular shows, plus she talks through some exciting new features for season three and reveals the on-set decorating tricks used to get the Regency look.
1. There are some new locations for season three
AG: We went to Grimsthorpe Castle Park and Gardens for one of the ballroom scenes, which is up in Lincolnshire. Another new one was Kingston Bagpuize House, which is Will and Alice's new home. We also did a rather big full moon ball sequence at Osterley House. We see a lot of that house, which is exciting, it's a beautiful place. Wrest Park, we've used some bits before, but the main sequence of rooms I don't think we've ever been in, so that's another new, rather lavish location for us.
2. Will and Alice’s new home is purposely dated
AG: Will and Alice inherit their home. We felt that we had to give it a slightly older feel because it had come down through from an ancient aunt, so when they first arrive, they're faced with a home that is not quite as up to date as everyone else's family home because they need to stamp their mark on it. It's just as it's been handed down to them. We chose Kingston Bagpuize House for their home – it's a beautiful house and the architecture is a slightly older version of Georgian than the Regency that we're all used to seeing.
3. New room alert: Kate and Anthony’s bedroom is fresh and vibrant
AG: We have new spaces for the Bridgerton house. We have Kate and Anthony's bedroom and dressing room and Kate's study, and there's also a shared boys' study too. Kate and Anthony got married at the end of season two and when we started thinking about their new space, we felt that it was fitting that they had a set of rooms which were elevated to their new position [as head of the family, taking over from Violet Bridgerton].
They're a young couple, they're in love, it's very romantic, and so we felt that it needed to be a fresh, vibrant, young look. It's within the Bridgerton palette but bringing a bit of Kate colours from season two, which were the sunset tones, the spicy, warm colours that we had for Kate and Edwina. We sort of married the colours together and created a space which I think is beautiful. It films really well – it's still Bridgerton, but it's a bit younger and fresher.
4. On set, Lady Featherington is known as the Versace of the Bridgerton world
AG: With the iconic Bridgertons the colour palette is soft pale blues, champagnes and creams, pale pinks, they're very pastel. It's very classic architecture, so the height of Regency architecture in terms of very fine lines, nothing too fancy for them. They're classic, they're old money, they're a very classy family.
Lady Featherington has very, shall we say, particular taste. We sort of affectionately call her the Versace of the Bridgerton world because she likes her bold colours and citrus colours. Compared to the Bridgertons, the Featheringtons' spaces have much more yellows and greens.
5. Filming in stately homes comes with restrictions
AG: We're often shooting in stately homes so we have to abide by their rules. We aren't usually allowed to touch any of their interiors – we can't change the colour, we can't repaint, we can't move things around. If we do need to redress the space, we have to have a specialist team of art handlers who are only people allowed to touch some of the magnificent paintings and works of art. So it's a lot of logistics before you even get to the dressing stage, and then it's a week or two's worth of frantic dressing to make sure everything's there in time for the shoot.
6. There’s a lot of covering up on location too...
AG: We have to cover over anything that's modern. For example, new radiators, light switches, plug sockets, anything like that. Sometimes we have to build in to their space to provide another doorway or disguise a certain thing that we can't see because it's too late and period.
Although we are a period show, we're not – we do our best and we do try to be within the timeframe of the Regency-Georgian era, but we stretch it a little bit. I mean, Bridgerton is a pastiche, it's not purely period, obviously with the costuming, they use a lot of amazing fabrics, which are modern, and we play with colour quite a lot as well. But the heart of it is rooted in the Regency era, so we have to try and make sure that we're not seeing, for example, a statue that's clearly Victorian and has Victorian dress on, so in that instance, we would cover that over and we'd have to find a way of building something around it so that it looked like it was part of the room. We do a lot of covering up on location.
7. They source furniture from eBay and antique dealers
AG: Sourcing all the furniture is a big task. We do have a massive prop store ourselves, which we've built up now across three seasons, which we keep changing and altering to make it look new and fresh for a different set. We do that by reupholstering and repainting the furniture itself, so it might be mahogany woodgrain one day and cream and gilt the next day, so we have to keep recycling things because we always have to work within our budget.
Because we run for such a long period of time in the year, for us to hire furniture from the prop stores is a very expensive way of doing it, so where we can, we try and buy. We buy from all sorts of different places: we scour the markets, we scour eBay, we scour all the antique dealers. We have a range of vintage antiques and proper Georgian furniture, but we also use reproduction because actually, if we reupholster it in the right way, it does just as well for us for the purposes of filming. And obviously, some of the original furniture is hugely expensive, so we wouldn't be able to use real everywhere, just here and there where it's necessary.
8. The most fragile furniture? The piano in the Bridgerton drawing room
AG: The pianola that we have in the Bridgerton drawing room, that's a hire piece and it is an original piece. It's incredibly fragile and it has to be handled with the utmost care. More or less every time it gets used we have to have the piano tuner who comes in and tunes it on the day of the shoot, and it gets played, and then the next time we use it, it has to be retuned again because it so quickly loses its tune. It detunes itself just by sitting there doing nothing!
9. But the most rare furniture? The drawing room in the Featherington house
AG: The drawing room furniture in the Featherington house is quite iconic. It's the style of Regency designer Thomas Hope, so it has the sphinxes and gilding on the arms. It's quite Egyptian-orientated. That's something that we hire in every time because we couldn't afford to buy that stuff, it's very, very rare. To buy it would be a huge amount of money and to even find it would be incredibly difficult, so we do rely on the props houses quite heavily for some pieces.
10. Silk flowers are used in abundance
AG: The florals are a huge part of Bridgerton. It's a very floral heavy-show and whenever we approach a scene, we have to think about the flowers that we're going to put into the scene. We film throughout the year, so you can recce in March and then by the time you come to film it, it might be June or July, and by then the planting has completely changed. You always have to plan to accommodate the look that you want, whatever the season is when you come to film it, so we do a lot of work with the specialist greens company who are palmbrokers for us.
The flowers we use are probably in their hundreds of thousands, I would imagine. We use an awful lot. By large we use silk flowers, they're very good, quite high-quality silk flowers, simply because sometimes the conditions are very hot and real flowers just wouldn't last through a day's filming if it happens to be a hot location in the summer. We tend to use silk flowers where we can so that we've got longevity during filming.
11. But real flowers are a must for close-up shots...
AG: We certainly use real flowers if it's a wedding bouquet or hand posy or a hand prop. Or if it's very close in action and the camera is very close to a display, then we would make sure that it was real. You do need real flowers for certain scenarios, but not across the board.
12. They try to recycle as much as they can
AG: We recycle our silk flowers. So we put a display together and then as soon as that's finished, we take it all apart and put them back in their boxes ready for the next time that we need those particular flowers and those particular colours. We have a huge backstock of florals that we keep reimagining into different things.
We have to bear in mind, although the film industry isn't a very sustainable industry to be in, you do have to try and be sustainable and recycle as much as you can, where you can. So we do that across the board for everything, the florals, all the trims that we buy for the upholstery, it all gets taken off and reused. Fabrics are often recycled and if there's anything that we can't recycle, then we make sure it goes out to charity or a scrapstore scheme.
13. Filming the balls are a big challenge
AG: We decide on the look of the ball first and foremost, and then we start to get into the detail of it, do the research, and think about how we can alter a space that we are on location. It's an enormous setup – all the ball scenes are really heavily involved and we often have Queen Charlotte in the scene, so we have to design a space specifically for the Queen and her entourage. We also need a space for the musicians for the live music and space for the dancing, as well as all the other stuff that goes on around the edge of it, all the conversations and the action that actually happens.
They're always enormous setups for us and the amount of work that goes into the balls are quite phenomenal. It keeps us busy! The set decoration team are very stretched for the ball scenes, led by Natalie Papageorgiadis, who's our set decorator, and she does an amazing job of putting all those kinds of finishing touches into the sets, like the floral displays and the food.
Bridgerton Season 3 Part 1 is available on Netflix from this Thursday. Part 2 launches on Netflix on 13th June.
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