Dressing Bridget Jones in her 50s: The 'Frazzled Englishwoman' grows up | CNN

Published 3 months ago• 3 minute read

Actor Renée Zellweger returns as Bridget Jones in the new film directed by Michael Morris.

(a version of the pajama top is worn by Jones on a school run in the new film). “The original ones no longer exist, so we had to recreate them,” explained Rowe. “We color-tested loads of reds on screen to make sure that after filming it would still look like the original red. That required fading out (the fabric), pulling threads and breaking buttons, to make them look like they’d been worn and washed over 20 years.”

Much of the clothing worn by Bridget Jones was thrifted from consignment and charity stores in North London, where her character lives.

That was a key premise of the clothes worn by Jones: “Fashion is cyclical. You might find things that you’ve worn many years ago that you try out again later. We saw Bridget doing that,” noted Rowe. Many of the pieces Zellweger wore in the film were thrifted from charity and consignment stores, such as Mary’s Living and Giving in Hampstead, the north London neighborhood where her character lives. “Mark died four years ago and Bridget’s not out buying clothes. She’s struggling to keep it together, which is one of the reasons why nothing (in her life) looks new,” Rowe said.

Coping with grief and its subsequent impact on how one dresses was another focal point. Rowe drew on her personal experience having lost her father as a teenager, a “confusing time” that changed how her mother dressed. “My mom wore a lot of his clothes during that period. I think it was like reaching for a comfort blanket.” That inspired the oversized bobbly gray cardigan and shirts, monogrammed with Mark Darcy’s initials, which Jones is seen wearing throughout. For Rowe, it also added a nuanced perspective that wasn’t part of the script: “We could create the idea of what Mark Darcy might have been wearing at home with Bridget and the kids, which is not something you ever see on screen.”

The gray cardigan and green dress, along with other clothing in Bridget Jones's wardrobe, has meaning.

“Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” also follows the recent releases of films that center on women in their 50s, such as “The Substance,” the provocative horror-comedy starring Demi Moore as a former A-lister past her prime and drawn to the potential benefits of a mysterious new drug, and “Babygirl,” an erotic thriller featuring Nicole Kidman as a high-flying CEO who begins an illicit affair with a young intern. It’s a welcome development after years of inequality in the representation of middle-aged and older females in film and television (female characters aged 50 and above continue to have a limited presence on screen and are far less likely to have a romantic storyline, according to a 2024 report by the Geena Davis Institute in collaboration with the NextFifty Initiative.)

If Rowe has a message for viewers, it’s that she hopes they’ll be “empowered to feel comfortable in their vulnerabilities,” she said. “To be a woman approaching or in her 50s and having these kinds of films to watch is very inspiring.”