The release of the 2026 film adaptation of Wuthering Heights is one of the biggest movie moments so far this year.
But away from actress Margot Robbie's impeccable press tour wardrobe, or her co-star Jacob Elordi's irrepressible charm, it's the eye-catching costumes in the film that have attracted attention, ever since the trailer for the Oscar-winning director Emerald Fennell's take on Emily Brontë's Gothic romance set on the blustery Yorkshire moors was released last year.
© Warner BrosFeaturing wet-look dresses, heavy crucifixes and plenty of red, the wardrobe for the story of the doomed love between Heathcliff (Jacob) and Cathy (Margot) was masterminded by Jacqueline Durran.
Jacob's costumes
Her costumes even shocked Jacob Elordi, she revealed in a recent conversation with Emerald at the Victoria and Albert Museum, ahead of the film's release.
"The thing about Jacob is that the minute he put on the sample shapes of the Georgian costume, he was just so devastatingly handsome," Jacqueline recalled. "I mean, he was literally made to wear this costume."
"Even he went, 'Oh wow'," added Emerald.
Jacob's costumes, which were inspired by a 19th-century book called The Costumes of Yorkshire, were the exception to the rule for the film that Emerald had been dreaming about making since childhood, where many of the looks were inspired by an amalgamation of different sources.
"He had a much greater historical foundation than some of the other costumes," Jacqueline said.
Margot Robbie's wardrobe
© Jaap BuitendijkThe audience first meets Cathy and her adopted brother Heathcliff as they grow up together at Wuthering Heights. But it was the first costume that adult Cathy wore, a German milkmaid-style, that caused Jacqueline the most headaches.
"If you want to know which was hardest, it was this one," she smiled. "This was the only one we had lots of iterations of, when we were like, it's not quite there.
"It was like, what would you imagine a romantic heroine to look like?" Emerald added, referring to "beautiful fairytale images" that she'd collected. It also needed to accommodate some gore. "Blood needed to come up the skirt, and so there's this clever little red line that the blood seeps up a bit later."
The film follows Cathy as she goes from poverty alongside Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights to wealth as she marries Edgar Linton, the owner of neighbouring Thrushcross Grange.
The designer recalled two images from the references Emerald had collected for Cathy's wedding-night outfit, which she called "the wedding present". The shiny, transparent costume was derived from a Fifties image of "a woman sitting wrapped in cellophane with a big red ribbon around her" and a Thierry Mugler gown. "The shine, the plasticity, everything came from that."
The movie
As Wuthering Heights blows into cinemas and the cast attends premieres across the globe, Margot has gone "method" with her red-carpet dressing – something that stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo also channelled for their press tours of Wicked.
Under the guidance of her stylist Andrew Mukamal, who worked with the actress on her Barbie tour, nearly every public appearance has been punctuated with a sartorial nod to the film and its gothic theme.
Andrew also commissioned matching signet rings for Jacob and Margot, which were made by Cece Jewellery and engraved with a quote from the novel: "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."
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