Dianne Pilkington discusses costume changes for Glinda in Wicked

I have nine costume changes, but only seven actual different costumes. I start off in this costume here which is Glinda at her most powerful, her most public figure, so it' s the hugest costume that I wear, it has quite a large queenly ruff, and very big sleeves, a huge skirt, it' s very corseted, and it' s completely full length, and this is what' s known as the bubble frock, this is the one that I fly in. This is at the end of her story; we go back in time to her school uniform. Which is like a Chanel number, complete with bag, she always has a bag, when she hasn' t got a wand she got a bag, very important with the accessories, it has a full kick skirt, it moves so beautifully, really goes with the character. At the beginning when she' s younger, and when she' s a student, she' s very couture, but it' s softer, the hemlines are quite short, and shoulders are quite narrow. This is every girl' s first party flock, or it should be, again you have the heavily beaded handbag, this is her going out type of outfit, very ruffly, when you move, it kicks out, it moves fantastically, there' s a pair of shoes that go with it, sparkly high heels shoes, these are really high and very narrow. A great piece of advice I had at the beginning of my career, ask for your shoes as soon as you possibly can, because the way that you stand in your heels, or a pair of strongly constructed shoes, is going to be completely different form how you stand in a pair of flipflops, adjusts your character quite a lot. Then I go to the Emerald City where everything is green apart from me, the hemlines are getting longer, more important I guess, she' s going somewhere where she is hoping to be a public figure, she' s hoping to be noticed, so it' s slightly grander and a little less frilly than the stuff she' s worn before, as she gets more important it' s the ancient thing, the skirts got bigger, the more important you were, by the end of it, she' s got huge long skirts, which are quite wide. Then we go into Act Two, by this point, she is a public figure, she' s become very much a spokesperson, this is what I like to call my Eva Peron outfit, it' s in two pieces, the skirt is, as you can see, is getting fuller and slightly longer, it' s got a huge train on the back which is like a rainbow, which I love. Everything in Oz is slightly lop-sided, there' s only one arm to the top, what you can see hanging up there there' s a glove for my other arm, everything is slightly off centre, even the crowns that go with the other dresses, they don' t quite fall centre, they shoot off in different directions, they' re quite cool. Already, the collars are getting bigger, shoulders getting wider, Waists are getting narrower, and she' s getting grander. I then get engaged, I have an engagement party, this is her first full ball dress, it' s along the same lines as the bubble dress, she' s getting there, she' s growing up, she' s becoming more of a public figure, it' s the green of Oz, and it has this lovely thing, I used to love this when I was a little girl, that slashed open thing, looks like you have the underskirt, a slashed open bodice and then finally she' s goes back into the bubble dress, with the huge wand and the huge crown and she' s finally made it into her public figure.