Here's Why Glinda's Iconic Bubble Dress inWickedIs a Different Color Than the Broadway Gown (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Glinda’s bubble dress inWickedsteals the show from the moment the Good Witch lands on screen.

How could a blonde witch in a bubblenotgrab your attention?

WhenAriana Grandeas Glinda the Good Witch floats into Munchkinland in the first few minutes ofWicked, she does so in her frothy pink statement dress. Broadway fans may have been surprised to see her in such a pink confection, because when Glinda floats onto the stage, her dress is a vastly different color — it’s actually blue.

Ariana Grande in Wicked.Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures

Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures

“I guess my closest connection to the story ofThe Wizard of Ozwas the film,” says costume designer Paul Tazewell of the 1939 movie. “When I think of the iconic Glinda, it is Billie Burke as Glinda in that pink dress and how she arrives in the bubble. So I really wanted to pursue the possibility of using pink. I mean, there were legal issues with using pink for the Broadway design just because of studios, and we were given clearance to use the pink to be reflective of Glinda, thankfully.”

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Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West, Judy Garland as Dorothy, and Billie Burke as Glinda the Good Witch in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ (1939).y Mgm/Kobal/Shutterstock

y Mgm/Kobal/Shutterstock

“I was also intent on creating a similar quality of silhouette,” Tazewell tells PEOPLE of looking toThe Wizard of Ozto create the updated Glinda dress. “There’s a fairy princess quality in Ariana as Glinda in that dress. It’s sparkly and it is covered with bubble imagery that swirls around her. So it has all of those qualities that are magical and give you that sense of the Good Witch of the North in a very strong way, but it’s re-envisioned, it’s turning it on its head.”

Tazewell says he didn’t want the dress to feel “old-fashioned,” despite calling back to the 1930s but instead “embraced the spirit” of how he and the audience feels when they would see Glinda in the original film.

Glinda’s bubble dress.Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures

The dress itself took an incredible amount of time and work to make. The dress required 137 pattern pieces to put together. For the bodice, the team spent 225 hours hand-beading more than 20,000 beads. The end result is the show-stopping creation that Grande wears with her towering crown and spectacular wand while she and the munchkins sing “No One Mourns the Wicked.”

bubble dress sketch.Courtesy of Paul Tazewell

Courtesy of Paul Tazewell

Wickedis in theaters now.

Go behind the scenes of the film with PEOPLE’s new special issue, availablehere.

source: people.com