27 Facts About The "Outlander" Costumes You Probably Never Knew
So. Many. Corsets.
BuzzFeed Staff
BuzzFeed Staff
The costumes on this season of Outlander have been nothing short of spectacular.
And now, thanks to the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills, California, you can see all the iconic costumes from the show — up close and personal.
Last night, costume designer Terry Dresbach chatted about all her behind-the-scenes costuming secrets...
...and Sam Heughan (Jamie Fraser) and Caitriona Balfe (Claire Fraser) stopped by to chat as well.
Here's everything we learned:
1. All the costumes, no matter how elaborate, are handmade.
"We discovered pretty early on that there are no stores that sell 18th-century fabric, or buttons, or shoes, or hats, or pretty much anything 18th-century. So we had to make it all." —Terry Dresbach
2. The team created 10,000 garments for Season 2 alone.
"A garment being anything from a coat to a petticoat to a scarf to a wrap to a pair of shoes to a hat." —TD
3. Many of the pieces have been hand-painted and hand-embroidered by the costume team.
"We'll buy modern silks and then we'll embroider them." —TD
4. The team turned to hand-painting because otherwise, they would have spent their entire budget on fancy fabrics — which cost around $200 per yard.
"An average gown for a woman is 15 yards, right? One of these man's suits, these are like 8 or 9 yards. So it does start to add up." —TD
5. One of Louisa's dresses, for example, is made of painted muslin:
"This fabric cost $3 a yard. And I just wanted to see what we [could] do, and it is one of our most spectacular pieces." —TD
6. And the costumes are full of tiny details, whether you see them on screen or not.
"For us, it's all about the details. Whether or not you're going to see this all on camera or not — maybe you will, maybe you won't, but it doesn't matter — the actor knows it's there, we know it's there, it's done properly." —TD
7. Even the extras wear corsets.
"Our extras wore corsets. Everybody does it. There's no zippers, there's no Velcro." —TD
8. It was such detailed work, the team even embroidered buttons.
9. Master Raymond's coat is a nod to all the different illnesses of the time. Each panel is dedicated to a different disease.
"This is an example of what we came up with for yellow eye. So that little monster there with the yellow claw represents the yellow fever, the eye turns yellow, the green herb behind him is the herb that they thought would cure that disease." —TD
10. But if you peek around the back, you'll find it's basically just a heavily embroidered biker jacket.
11. The cast of Outlander have way more costume changes than most other TV shows.
"Usually when I was doing TV before, your lead actor might have six costumes for an episode. And supporting cast, one or two. Our supporting cast have 15 to 20 costumes over the course of six episodes. Our lead actor Caitriona has 30." —TD
12. Each costume takes "a couple of months" to make.
13. So there aren't any duplicates or back-up costumes. There's just one of each.
14. Which means the actors have to be super careful when they wear them.
"We're always throwing bibs on them. I learned many, many, many, many years ago to never to eat a meal with an actor because if I eat a meal with an actor they get so nervous that they always miss." —TD
15. (But Caitriona totally spilled coffee on the famous red dress from this season.)
"The last day I was wearing the red dress, I had been wearing it for about four or five days, and towards the end of the day I was like, 'I need a coffee.' My first sip…I got it on the dress. And I was like, 'OH MY GOD, GET ME A DRESSER RIGHT NOW.'" —Caitriona Balfe
16. (But it turned out OK.)
"I think we managed to fix it. That was a moment of sheer terror." —CB
17. One of Claire's outfits includes a chatelaine, which is basically an 18th-century "utility belt" for a woman.
"I just fell in love with that idea [of a chatelaine] and dug up an antique. That’s actually a Victorian piece, but we repurposed it and just made it a kind of dramatic bit of swag." —TD
18. The "signature piece" for Season 2 was not originally designed by Terry — it's actually a reimagined Dior Bar Suit.
19. It's Caitriona's favorite costume.
20. The fabric for the famous Dressage Dress comes from a fabric store in San Francisco.
"I said, you know, 'What have you got in the basement?'" —TD
21. And it was almost a couch instead of a dress.
"It was like, 'Do I do a couch in this? Drapes? Can I make it into a dress?' Because essentially, it's like a 1940s chintz." —TD
22. The crew had to create special, larger dressing-room doors for the cast, because the 18th-century skirts were so large they wouldn't fit through regular doors.
"When we got out on location it was easier because we were shooting in 18th-century buildings and they come with double-wide doors to accommodate costumes just like this." —TD
23. Caitriona films so much, they've created a 3D fit model of her to use for sizing next season.
"She's in every single scene so we are literally stealing moments with her. I'm done with that. I can't. For her it's exhausting, for us it's exhausting. What we've done for this upcoming year is we've made a 3D mannequin of her, so that will help us." —TD
24. Sam was almost naked underneath one of his costumes.
"We realized we had spent so much time on Caitriona's costume — when she wears the big floral dress — that we hadn't made anything for Sam to wear underneath [his] coat. So he was going to be in a coat and naked, which everyone probably would have been very excited about, but it would look very weird." —TD
25. Caitrionia and her dresser managed to get her dressing time down to 20 minutes — and, shockingly, the Paris outfits didn't take as long.
"Scotland takes longer. There’s more components even though they’re much easier-looking clothes, there’s more going on underneath. With the French stuff, there weren’t as many corsets and layers, so it didn’t take as long." —CB
26. Caitriona's favorite Jamie outfit this season was when he wore all black.
27. And Sam's favorite Claire outfit was...well...
