‘Bridgerton’: Beyoncé Inspired The Hairstyle For an Important Character
Bridgerton remains a trending series on Netflix and viewers can’t get enough of it. The costumes throughout the series’ first season are a big topic. But Queen Charlotte’s famous afro is also generating buzz. As it turns out, Queen Bey herself, Beyoncé, is the inspiration for Queen Charlotte’s fro.
Queen Charlotte in ‘Bridgerton’
Most characters in the Bridgerton series are fictional, but Queen Charlotte was a real-life figure and is not featured in the Bridgerton novels. Guyanese-British actor Golda Rosheuvel plays Queen Charlotte, who was a real person.
Queen Charlotte was the wife of King George III. According to PBS, some historians believe Queen Charlotte was a descendant of a Portuguese royal family with African ancestry.
In Bridgerton, Queen Charlotte is a social butterfly who revels in society scandals and stays aware of everything that takes place throughout the town. Her approval from the women in the town is vyed after, though its hard to earn.
When Queen Charlotte’s nephew Prince Friedrich of Prussia arrives to town, she immediately tries to set him up with Daphne, the most sought-after single in the town. However, Daphne’s heart is already smitten with someone else.
Queen Charlotte’s personal woes are also explored, including what appears to be a drug habit and her husband’s declining health.
As for what Rosheuvel thinks about her role, she marvels at the idea of a Black queen fighting for social change, telling Insider, “It’s so empowering for an actress to have that background and that feeling that a person in the 1800s could have been fighting for her people and could have been fighting for representation.”
Queen Charlotte’s Beyoncé inspired hair in ‘Bridgerton’
Apparently, Beyoncé’s influence goes beyond the present-day because the hair department working on Bridgerton felt one of Beyoncé’s classic looks was fit for the Regency-style Netflix series.
In one episode, Queen Charlotte stuns with a massive afro. Per Bridgerton’s makeup and hair designer Marc Pilcher, the inspiration for the look is courtesy of Beyoncé’s famous fro in her first feature film role.
“When I researched Queen Charlotte and found out that she was of African descent, it gave me so much more scope to create her beautiful looks,” Pilcher told Vogue. “I used the silhouettes of the period but in a celebration of her ethnicity, I used locks, braids and Afro-textured styles. Her giant Afro was in the shape of a Gainsborough wig, but influenced by Beyoncé as Foxxy Cleopatra in Austin Powers in Goldmember.”
Related: ‘Bridgerton’ Costume Designer Reveals Wardrobe ‘No-No’ Besides Bonnets
He shared a similar explanation with Essence, saying:
I was picking through some images and then I saw Beyoncé Knowles in Austin Powers Goldmember and that’s when I thought, ‘That’s what I want.’ I wanted the biggest afro someone had ever seen. That wig in particular was actually four or five wigs all placed together. So we had the wigs for the ringlets and then the we bought afros and then straightened them out and reset them on curls sticks and brushed them through so that we would get the best volume of afro, then sewed them on top of each other just to get that beautiful shape.
Marc Pilcher, ESSENCE Magazine
Pilcher revealed to Essence that the wig took three or four weeks to create but the outcome was worth it.
