Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy costume designer Molly Emma Rowe went back to the franchise's archives and re-used one of the character's jackets from the first film.
Rowe wanted to unearth a particular grey jacket to create a "cyclical" moment between the 2001 original, Bridget Jones's Diary, and a poignant scene between Renée Zellweger and Colin Firth in the new fourth film.
"The jacket that she wears over the green dress (at the beginning of Mad About the Boy) is actually the jacket from the first film that she wears in the very first scene when we meet Bridget on her way to the turkey curry buffet, so that was a really nice thing," Rowe told People. "I got it out of the archives because I think fashion is cyclical. I think that we reach for things that we liked. We come across them in our wardrobe, and you give them a whirl, and it felt like a nice thing to do."
Rowe explained that she was selective about which pieces to bring back from previous films, especially as some clothes had been lost over the past 24 years.
For example, the costume designer wanted to bring back Bridget's sheer top and black bra combo as a nod to the first film. When she discovered the original was gone, she had to recreate it for Mad About the Boy.
"I spent so much time - a whole flight back from L.A. - literally just watching that scene to try and work out what fabric it was, how it was cut, how it was made," Rowe divulged. "I'm pretty sure it was probably something from Topshop that was bought in 2001. I'm sure they didn't think that nearly 30 years later it would be a legacy look. It's not exactly the same, and I know it's not the same, but we had a load of different variations that then we camera tested and we were like, 'Yes, this one looks the most like it.'"
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is now showing in U.K. cinemas and streaming in the U.S. on Peacock.
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