There’s been lots of chatter throughout the corners of the internet about the costumes featured in the Wuthering Heights teasers that have dropped in recent months, and personally priding myself as H! Fashion’s resident Wuthering Heights enthusiast, I'm here to tell you why.
I’m going to start by saying that I am classifying myself as said enthusiast because of one reason, and one reason only (and no, it’s not the fact that Jacob Elordi is our leading man in Emerald Fennell's adaptation). It’s because in year 10 of secondary school, I found myself with the rather hefty book wedged on my desk: ‘Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë’, the title read. Although I was academic, I was never one for taking passionately to the literature that the secondary school syllabus presented to us. We’d already dealt with John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’ and George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’, although both riveting reads in their own right, they struggled to hook this 15-year-old youth.
Warning: if you haven't read the book and don't want spoilers, brush over this next paragraph...
The book had me, a dark, storm-lashed love story about obsession, revenge, and passion that impacts the reader so deeply. I was hooked. It didn’t take me long, once classes were over, to find the 1998 film starring Robert Cavanah as Heathcliff and Orla Brady as Catherine to fuel my interests outside of the classroom. I was unpicking the story at its seams: Catherine’s decision to marry Edgar Linton instead of Heathcliff is the ultimate emotional fault line of the novel, turning love into bitterness and setting revenge in motion. Heathcliff’s return being wealthy, ruthless, and consumed by vengeance showed how wounded love hardens into cruelty across two generations. Catherine’s death, and Heathcliff’s haunting refusal to let her go crystallise the book’s core obsession with love that defies morality, society, and even the grave. A love story that had my heart and many throughout generations of fans and readers alike.
Fast forward to July 2024, and news broke that director Emerald Fennell was coming; the announcement included confirmation of Robbie and Jacob as leads, and music by Charli XCX (announced in the prime of Brat Summer): Perfect.
© Getty Images for Warner Bros.Many have been quick to comment on how an adaptation of a Brontë classic should be done in 2026, but me? I think Emerald, as director, could not have been a better match for the way we consume art and media in this generation. Hot off the heels of the success of Saltburn, where her bold visual style, razor-sharp control of tone, and her fearless handling of obsession, class tension, and moral discomfort, it felt like the intense story of Wuthering Heights had her name signed all over it, in my opinion.
Emerald Fennell excels at portraying obsessive, morally messy characters and relationships without softening their darkness. Her films lean into psychological intensity, power dynamics, and emotional extremity, exactly the terrain of Heathcliff and Catherine, while still making them feel disturbingly human rather than romanticised. She also has a sharp visual sensibility that could capture the novel’s gothic atmosphere and brutality, letting the moors, silence, and cruelty speak as loudly as the dialogue. A match made in cinematic heaven? I think so.
Waiting with bated breath, we’d been teased with some stills and movie posters dotted around tube stations and cities in the lead up to January 2026, but on the 10th, the film released the first stills featuring costumes by Jacqueline Durran. The drop of the imagery included some pivotal scenes with lead Margot adorned in a latex-looking dress (although not actually latex), a red velvet cape and a see-through wedding night gown - wrong for Wuthering Heights? No. Absolutely right for Emerald's adaptation.
© Warner BrosThe internet was quick to jump to all corners of the web where fans, trolls, people, bots (who knows at this point?!) were fast to comment that the costumes were not an accurate representation of Emily Brontë’s original novel, nor were they reminiscent of the period that Wuthering Heights is set.
And if you ask me, that’s exactly the point.
Emerald's take on "Wuthering Heights" is exactly that, her take. It’s also important to note that the name of the movie itself is spelt within quotation marks, signalling distance from the original novel whilst suggesting the film isn’t a faithful adaptation so much as a reinterpretation, commentary, or provocation. The quotes hint that what we're watching is about Wuthering Heights (its themes, mood, or cultural weight) rather than a straight retelling of Brontë’s story. In other words, it’s saying: this is a version, not the version.
© Warner BrosIn a recent interview, Emerald said, “I can’t say I'm making Wuthering Heights, it’s not possible. What I can say is that I'm making a version of it, a version that I remembered reading that isn’t quite real, and there’s a version that I wanted stuff to happen that never happened, and so it is Wuthering Heights and it isn’t.”
"I'm making a version of it, a version that I remembered reading that isn’t quite real, and there’s a version that I wanted stuff to happen that never happened, and so it is Wuthering Heights, and it isn’t.”
TikTok commentator and creator ‘Film Sis| Movie + TV Talk’ made a valuable point during a recent deep dive into Emerald's comments on how she interpreted the movie, explaining that we may need to open our minds as to which perspective the narrative is being told from, this could explain the casting, the naming conventions of the title and the costume choices themselves.
If I think back to that school girl that was almost headfirst into the novel, the story felt like some kind of fever dream, the first propelled into an intense and complex love story (because we’re not counting my pre-teen obsession with High School Musical, right?). And that intense and complex fever dream that a 15-year-old’s imagination brings to life within the pages of the Emily Brontë novel is exactly what Emerald is bringing to life through the direction, particularly with the costumes.
I can’t say 15-year-old Olivia was picturing late 18th to early 19th century fashions when in the depths of the story. It was the vivid colours of love, or the dark tones of disappearance that accompanied the literature in my mind, and that’s exactly why I believe Jacqueline Durran’s costume interpretation is genius. It brings to life the depths of my imagination from my first read, aligning with Emerald's interpretation of her fantasy of first reading.
© Warner BrosDurran’s costumes are clever because they work psychologically, not just historically. Just like the movie. Emerald recently said the upcoming film is not tied to a specific, rigid time period, but rather acts as a "fantasy of a fantasy" that focuses on the emotional experience of the story rather than historical accuracy.
Instead of romanticising the period, the clothes reflect power, repression, and emotional states. Catherine’s shifts in dress throughout the narrative mirror her movement between wildness and social constraint. The use of latex-looking fabrics and bold colour is genius because it quietly modernises Wuthering Heights without breaking its gothic core. The latex adds an unnatural sheen, suggesting control, restriction, and something almost suffocating, while the colour choices signal emotional states and power shifts rather than strict realism. Together, they make the characters feel trapped in their desires, turning costume into a visual language for obsession and repression instead of mere period accuracy.
Heathcliff’s darker, more severe clothing reinforces his outsider status and growing menace. The restraint and realism of the designs let character and tension dominate, making the costumes part of the storytelling rather than decoration.
It’s funny, I don’t recall the costumes in the 1998 Wuthering Heights film which is strange for me as not only did I watch it countless times to get my Cathy and Heathcliff fix but also because I pride myself on being able to remember key costumes, designers and their catwalk year within films (i’d particularly like you to quiz me on this), but I don’t recall this one. Now, I think that’s because in my fantasy and obsession with the novel as a teen, the costumes didn’t align to how I lived and breathed the passion of Cathy and Heathcliff, so I passed them off as purely parts of the movie. But now, I look forward to fully surrendering to "Wuthering Heights" as fantasy, experiencing it the way it was always meant to be absorbed, with the costumes speaking directly to the narrative in my mind.
