How the Liberty Design Team Brought the Wicked Fabric Collection To Life
Liberty designer Hannah McCloskey on transforming the film into fabrics
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How the Liberty Design Team Brought the Wicked Fabric Collection To Life
Liberty designer Hannah McCloskey on transforming the film into fabrics
This Christmas, Liberty has collaborated with Universal Pictures to celebrate the most breathtaking film of the year: Wicked. The film - which you can watch in cinemas now - tells the tale of two witches, Elphaba (played by Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda (Ariana Grande) discovering themselves in the world of Oz.
Adapted from the musical, the film is a stunning feat of design and craftsmanship. Each scene is like an artwork, rich in imaginative detail, much of which was created by hand. For example, the field of tulips in Munchkinland was grown in Norfolk, especially for the film.
To complete the celebration, Liberty and Wicked have also dreamed up an exclusive fabric collection, combining the best of Liberty’s archive with Wicked's extraordinary magic. Here, Liberty designer Hannah McCloskey describes the process of bringing the designs to life.
Can you describe how you felt when the brief first landed on your desk?
It was really exciting! Partly because we couldn’t tell anyone about the project at the beginning, but also because it was such a great opportunity to work on a design inspired by a film – and in particular a film which has so much creativity in the sets and costumes for us to draw inspiration from. I remember seeing Wicked when I was younger and loving the stage production, so it was very exciting to bring it to life in our fabrics!
What were your first impressions when you previewed the film?
We were really lucky to get a preview of the film early. We were really inspired by the sets, the costumes and the attention to detail. All I could think about was how they made it look so real. When they told us that lots of the scenes were built in real life - like the nine million tulips which were planted to create the fields of Munchkinland - I was even more blown away!
What details stood out to you?
We noticed there was a really strong art nouveau theme, which is a big part of Liberty’s heritage, and one of our key design pillars. So for example, in the ‘Dazzling Ozmopolitan’ design we’ve incorporated the emerald city gates, which provides this really lovely art deco geometry, which sits in the background of the design. And weaving through this, we’ve got the tree of life, which also features lots of symbols from the film. We’ve got the tulips and the bougainvillea, the emeralds, and then also the stars which are from Glinda’s tiara.
What was your starting point for the fabrics?
We wanted to create designs which had the magic of Wicked but also still felt very ‘Liberty’, so we started by looking at the common threads between the two. We loved the focus on flowers in the film, in particular the tulip fields and floating poppies, and since florals are such an important design style for Liberty, we knew we wanted them to become a key feature of the prints. As is often our starting point to any design brief, we looked in our archive to help us narrow down our ideas, and formulate a strong design direction.
Were there any challenges along the way?
I think the main challenge was doing justice to the film and its amazing craftsmanship. I wanted to make sure the final designs felt authentic and captured the magic of Wicked.
How long did the fabric design and production take end-to-end, and can you describe the process?
The process begins with research and on this occasion, this meant working closely with the team at Universal Pictures to understand the key themes and motifs from the film, to incorporate these into our designs. After looking into Liberty’s own archive of over 60,000 designs, we decided on a print direction which combined elements from past Liberty designs and new motifs from Wicked.
During the design process, we experimented with different layouts and scales, and then finally looked at colour, where we took inspiration from Glinda and Elphaba’s costumes. The designs and colourways were then sent to our mill in Italy to test print onto our Tana Lawn fabric base. This whole process took around three months from start to finish!
Both designs have two colourways. One with more darker, jewel-like colours to celebrate Elphaba, and then a prettier option which is supposed to represent Glinda.
The film is all about detail and easter eggs. Which is your favourite detail in the fabrics you designed?
I love the stars and bubbles from Glinda’s tiara that we scattered throughout the design ‘Dazzling Ozmopolitan’ because they really sparkle and give the design that magical look, particularly in the darker colourway.
What can you imagine Glinda and Elphaba creating with the fabrics?
I can imagine Glinda in an amazing voluminous dress with big sleeves and a large gathered skirt. Whereas I think Elphaba would create a beautiful cloak in the darker and richer-coloured designs.
Shop the fabrics in-store, and learn more about the Liberty x Wicked collaboration below.
