Jeff Goldblum in Wicked (2024)
Vitals
Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard of Oz
Emerald City in the land of Oz, circa 1900
Film: Wicked: Part I
Release Date: November 22, 2024
Director: Jon M. Chu
Costume Designer: Paul Tazewell
Tailor: Martin Nicholls
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Congratulations to Wicked costume designer Paul Tazewell, who received the Academy Award for Best Costume Design during last night’s Oscars ceremony. Jon M. Chu’s first installment adapting this mega-hit Broadway musical was nominated for ten Academy Awards, also winning for Best Production Design.
The musical itself was adapted by Stephen Schwartz from Gregory Macguire’s 1995 novel Wicked, a revisionist expansion of the universe that L. Frank Baum developed in his “Oz” books and had been immortalized in the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz. The stage and screen musical adaptations of Wicked refrain from some of the novel’s darker elements in favor of maintaining the colorful fantasy associated with the story.
We don’t actually meet the wizard until the final act of Wicked, nearly two hours into the 160-minute movie. After an intimidating introduction as a gravely, disembodied voice behind a massive robotic face, the wizard reveals himself to be a man as Jeff Goldblum strides out and introduces himself to fledgling witches Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda Upland (Ariana Grande).
Goldblum’s characteristic quirky charm and genial warmth initially endear the witches to the wizard, though his eventual motives prove him to be far more avaricious than avuncular.
What’d He Wear?
No time period is given for the on-screen action, but many costumes reflect fashions at the turn of the 20th century, aligning with the original May 1900 publication of L. Frank Baum’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Made by London tailor Martin Nicholls, the wizard’s frock coat, fancy waistcoat, button boots, wing collar, and cravat are all signatures of turn-of-the-century style. Consistent with costume designer Paul Tazewell describing the wizard as “the complete showman” to Marie-Claire Chappet for Harpers’ Bazaar, each garment features a dizzying pattern that clashes when worn together for an image that appropriately dazzles and distracts. His jewel-toned shades of green echo the verdant shades of his Emerald City domain, while the golden accents throughout recall Gilded Age decadence and the wizard’s own vanity.
“Sorry about all that, I didn’t mean to startle you,” the wizard apologizes for the introduction, adding “I think it’s a bit much, but folks have come to expect it!”
Frock coats were a staple of gentlemen’s attire through the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Defined broadly as fitted coats with a full knee-length skirt, frock coats evolved through the 19th century to suit the needs and decorum of its wearers, with both single- and double-breasted variants emerging. As shorter-cut lounge jackets became popular for daily wear, the frock coat was increasingly reserved for more formal daytime ceremonies.
The choice suits His Ozness, who allows the knee-length skirt to swing around him like a cape as he initially charms Elphaba and Glinda and glides through his “sandbox”. The wool cloth of his frock coat is patterned in an intricate two-toned green geometric design that appears as a shimmering emerald-green. The wide shoulders are padded, and a horizontal seam encircles the waist just below the buttoning point. The single-breasted coat has a single blazer-like ornamental gilt button to close over his waist, matching the two decorative buttons positioned over the rear tails. The sleeves are roped at the shoulders and finished with wide dark-green velvet cuffs, matching his dark-green velvet collar.
The lower half of the broad peak lapels are semi-faced, split into satin silk-faced portions running along the inside and self-faced edges detailed with five non-functioning buttonholes along each side that create an elegant visual symmetry. This recalls the Victorian era practice of cutting the lapels separately, with the inner fabric folding over to the front to form a small silk triangle while the outer portion was cut from two strips of the body fabric. The decorative buttonholes along each edge were also a Victorian flourish, supplanted during the Edwardian era by the single boutonnière buttonhole that remains standard on men’s tailored jackets today.
Many sartorial flourishes on the wizard’s frock coat are customized for his character, hardly ever typical of the style. While many Victorian frock coats lacked outer pockets, the wizard has two hip pockets and a breast pocket, all set-in with a jauntily curved jetted opening and detailed with gold-embroidered lines of varying lengths pointing out from the lower row of jetting like jagged teeth.
All that we clearly see of the wizard’s shirt are the stiff white wing collar and cuffs, recalling the era when these were considered the most presentable parts of men’s shirts and thus were detachable so that they could be rigorously cleaned and starched. The single cuffs are worn with links—gold squares with a emerald square-cut stone, of course—though the wizard wears them overlapping like button-fastened barrel cuffs rather than “kissing” like single or double cuffs.
I’ll admit to being stupefied by the wizard’s Escher-like cravat situation. Made from a dark-green self-striped silk, the cravat is elaborately knotted around his neck. The exposed portion of his chest above the waistcoat opening may be an extension of the cravat or it could be the shirt’s body made from the matching material; whatever this is, it petals around his chest in overlapping layers that strip down to his ornate gold stickpin with a single emerald shining from the center—shaped like an all-knowing eye, foreshadowing his ambitions for Oz becoming a surveillance state thanks to the flying monkeys unknowingly activated by Elphie’s spell.
The wizard’s fancy jacquard-woven waistcoat features a busy green-and-gold embroidered design against the dark-green ground. The shawl collar rolls to mid-chest, above the six emerald gem-like buttons that the wizard wears fully fastened up the single-breasted front. An ostentatious gold chain drapes across the waistcoat, resplendent in emerald-set baubles and bars and presumably connected to a pocket watch tucked into one of the welted pockets on each side.
The wizard’s trousers smartly contrast with the rest of his outfit while maintaining tonal coordination, horizontally striped in two shades of green with the lighter shade more prominent. These stripes are overlaid with thin, textural stripes in the lighter shade of green, creating a snakeskin-like scaly finish. Like the embroidery around his frock coat pockets and on his waistcoat, these stripes follow irregular directions, occasionally presenting as jagged “W”s down his legs.
The trousers rise appropriately high enough for the top to be covered by the waistband, concealing the suspension method though outfits in this context would typically rely on either suspenders (braces) or self-suspension like side-tabs or a fitted waistband. Styled with side pockets, these reverse-pleated trousers have a tapered cut down to the plain-hemmed bottoms.
“You could look at any shoe, any button—you could touch any of them—and they tell our story,” director Jon M. Chu explained to Marley Marius for Vogue of the intentionality behind each character’s costumes, right down to their footwear.
Button boots were a popular men’s style through the Victorian and Edwardian eras, functioning just as described with front- or side-positioned panels that close with a series of buttons. The wizard’s green two-toned boots have pointed toe-caps, pointed insteps, and heel quarters in his go-to shade of emerald-green, bordered by gold leather piping that separates these sections from the contrasting lighter chartreuse-toned suede vamps. Six gold-toned buttons fasten up the side of each leather instep panel and ankle-high shaft. This is an interesting inversion of traditional button boots, which were constructed of patent or calf leather uppers with softer suede button-up panels.
Seen in promotional and on-set photography but not on screen, the wizard’s ribbed socks are also dark emerald-green.
The wizard wears a ring on his right pinky that follows his expected configuration of a golden metal base and band and emerald-green stone setting.
This is likely the wizard’s usual attire, as the miniature figure of himself within his sandbox model of “the Oz of Tomorrow” is dressed identically, right down to the two-toned button boots.
How to Get the Look
Jeff Goldblum in Wicked (2024)
The wizard’s wardrobe combines the traditional aspects Edwardian frock coat formalwear—popular during the time when L. Frank Baum established his character in The Wizard of Oz—with his peacocking showmanship, replacing this dress code’s typically staid colors with vibrant greens and gold accents.
- Emerald-green geometric-patterned wool single-button frock coat with dark-green velvet collar, semi-silk-faced peak lapels with five decorative buttonholes along each side, curved jetted breast and hip pockets with gold-embroidered accents, dark-green velvet cuffs, and two decorative gilt buttons above back tails
- White stiff wing collar and white single cuffs
- Gold square cuff links with single square-cut emerald stones
- Dark-green self-striped cravat
- Gold eye-shaped stickpin with single emerald stone
- Dark-green with green-and-gold embroidered jacquard-woven single-breasted fancy waistcoat with shawl collar, six emerald buttons, and welted pockets
- Gold pocket watch on gold chain with emerald-set baubles and bars
- Green two-tone textural-checked reverse-pleated trousers with side pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms
- Chartreuse-green suede ankle-high button boots with gold-piped pointed emerald leather toe-caps, six-button instep panels, and heel quarters
- Emerald-green ribbed socks
- Gold pinky ring with emerald stone
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
The best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.
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