2017 Beauty and the Beast Costumes Vs. 1991's Animation

By The Comic Professor

The lure of 2017’s Beauty and the Beast costumes can be traced all the way back to the original animated film. Disney has been winning the hearts of people of all ages with its animated feature, Beauty and the Beast, ever since it hit theaters for the first time back in 1991. A little more than 25 years since its release, Disney is back at it again with the same goal with a live-action reincarnation of its 1991 classic. Beauty and the Beast (2017), starring Emma Watson as Belle, Dan Stevens as the Beast, Luke Evans as Gaston and Josh Gad as LeFou, hit theaters on March 17th, 2017. Not only did Disney manage to win hearts, but also break some box-office records along the way.

Product #s in order from left to right: WC51870, WC41112, WC54395, WC54393

Beauty and the Beast (2017) and Beauty and the Beast (1991) had a few distinct dissimilarities. However, most of those dissimilarities arose from changes made to the story or the characters. In spite of all of those changes, the live-action movie looked and felt similar to the animated one and the credit for that goes to the Academy Award winning costume designer, Jacqueline Durran. In order to draw a parallel between an animated movie and its live-action version, they must look the same visually and the easiest way to do that is by making the costumes worn by the characters resemble the originals. Durran has succeeded in doing just that.

It’s every little girl’s dream of becoming a Disney princess someday and wearing dresses that the likes of Belle, Cinderella or Elsa wear. Emma Watson got to fulfill that dream. She also got to wear what Belle wore in Beauty and the Beast (1991). Belle’s classic blue and white dress and the yellow gown both made it to the 2017 movie. Both the costumes were designed in such a way that at first glance they look similar to the costumes from the animated Beauty and the Beast. However, they are not quite the same. A lot more details have been added to Emma Watson’s costume. In defense of 2017 Beauty and the Beast costumes, the details were added to the costumes to make it look a bit more realistic and not like something that an animated character should wear.

The same goes for Dan Steven’s costume. Dan Stevens’ Beast got his blue and yellow jacket in this movie. This one also had a bit more details added to it. It complimented so well with Emma’s yellow gown. The costumes worn by Emma Watson and Dan Stevens in that particular dance scene managed to narrow the gap between the two movies.

As for the supporting characters, Gaston had two specific costumes in the 1991 animated movie. In the live-action movie, however, we get to see Gaston wear only one of those costumes throughout the duration of the film. The reason behind this is pretty obvious. One of those costumes is something a sane human would probably never wear, while the other one is more realistic. The only character that didn’t get a costume, which was in line with its animated costume, is LeFou. The reason behind could be that the animated LeFou wasn’t as important or popular as Josh Gad’s version. So, the designers knew that if they made some changes to LeFou’s costumes it would go unnoticed.

Beauty and the Beast (2017) did a great job with its costumes. They look the same, yet so different. The subtle changes made to the costumes were a welcome addition. We don’t know what the movie would have looked like if Disney chose not to stick to the classic costumes—and we don’t want to either.