As Disney retains rolling out live-action variations of its basic animated films, costume and manufacturing designers maintain going through the problem of creating engaging animated pictures look equally good in the true world.
Contemplate the Disney Princess characters: All of them have iconic clothes that look beautiful of their unique animated outings (besides Aladdin’s Jasmine, who rocks a pants-and-crop-top mixture). In animation, these robes are all spectacular. However how do they match up in stay motion?
To date, seven princesses from the official Disney Princess lineup have gotten live-action remake films. The newest, Snow White, offers its protagonist a deeply… disappointing wardrobe, which prompted us to look again and see which remake crew did and didn’t perceive the task.
- I solely included theatrically launched Disney live-action films — sorry to the Descendants-verse and the Brandy Cinderella!
- I’m solely contemplating princesses from the official Disney Princess lineup. This implies Jasmine makes the minimize, regardless that she isn’t the titular character in Aladdin, however Mia Wasikowska as Alice in Tim Burton’s tackle Alice in Wonderland doesn’t. Take it up with Disney!
- Some characters have multiple Defining Robe. I’ll be evaluating their wardrobes as an entire, wherein case a satisfactory additional outfit may make up for a horrible major gown. Or not!
- No sequel clothes included. Sorry, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil!
I’m additionally not essentially on the lookout for constancy to the animated model. Typically that’s not a superb factor (cough, Snow White, cough). The outfits ought to merely look good, even when they aren’t essentially direct replicas.
So as from worst to finest, listed here are all of the live-action Disney Princesses and their wardrobes, ranked.
7. Snow White in Snow White (2025)
Designer: Sandy Powell; Princess: Rachel Zegler
I’ve seen Halloween costumes that look higher than this gown. I really feel like I can inform precisely what kind of thick, foam-like materials makes up the sleeves. I’m additionally zeroing in on a budget vinyl stuff within the collar that’s suspended between some stiff wires. The skirt is that this plastic-looking tulle monstrosity that’s a shade of yellow not even within the unique animation.
Sure, the unique Snow White gown does have some questionable shade decisions, however the live-action resolution is not to crank the saturation up on the purple, blue, and yellow. Snow White’s plot-relevant necklace — a present from her father with 4 bland adjectives to ✨ encourage ✨ her — appears to be like like one thing I may order off Etsy for $20. It’s simply lazy! I don’t know the place Snow White’s almost $300 million funds went, but it surely definitely was not the wardrobe.
Snow’s different clothes on this film are so briefly worn and so unremarkable that they’ll’t save the travesty of the primary one.
6. Belle in Magnificence and the Beast (2017)
Costume designer: Jacqueline Durran; Princess: Emma Watson
Belle’s core wardrobe isn’t horrible. The blue-and-white gown she wears within the village really appears to be like like a pleasant up to date model of her animated going-to-town outfit. And her purple winter cloak has some beautiful embroidery. However with regards to her massive showstopping robe, the one she wears in the course of the romantic ballroom scene — woof.
For starters, not like her different clothes, it appears to be like so distinctly fashionable. And never even in a enjoyable, anachronistic manner! I don’t give a hoot about whether or not or not she wore a corset, however its tiering and silhouette simply appears to be like extra like late-2010s promenade gown than 18th-century French ballgown.
Her finale gown is fortunately a bit higher, no less than by way of the form, however the sample appears to be like like a tea towel I’d discover in a grandma’s kitchen.
5. Jasmine in Aladdin (2019)
Costume designer: Michael Wilkinson; Princess: Naomi Scott
I’m a bit torn about Jasmine’s outfits, that are so gaudy and excessive, they nearly really feel like a parody of the unique film. However then once more, all the film performs into that aesthetic, so her appears to be like do cohesively slot in. The turquoise ensemble that almost all straight imitates her animated counterpart is the perfect, for the reason that others begin to encroach on discordant shade clashing. They is perhaps splashy, however no less than they don’t look low-cost!
They do, nevertheless, look extra like they belong within the Broadway present — vibrant and glittery, so even audiences within the low-cost seats can recognize them. However up shut, they appear a bit of too intense.
Costume designer: Bina Daigeler; Princess: Liu Yifei
For essentially the most half, Mulan’s wardrobe is understandably utilitarian. In any case, she spends many of the film within the army, sporting an official uniform. It really works! She has one different gown — the robe she wears when her household hauls her off to see the matchmaker. It’s completely different from the animated model, but it surely nonetheless serves the aim of displaying that Mulan isn’t comfy in a elaborate gown.
3. Ariel in The Little Mermaid (2023)
Costume designer: Colleen Atwood; Princess: Halle Bailey
Ariel principally will get two clothes when she’s in human kind, and each of them are callbacks to her animated film robes, whereas nonetheless becoming in with the brand new film’s visible aesthetic. One is the blue gown she wears whereas exploring the city with Eric, which within the film appears to be like prefer it’s product of a really gentle, breathable materials that’s nonetheless tremendous cute. It’s now a fairly seafoam inexperienced, and the beachy design feels proper in step with the Caribbean-inspired setting!
The opposite is the pink ballgown she wears to dinner with Eric and Grimsby, the one the place she makes use of a fork to comb her hair. Let’s be actual: The unique vibrant pink gown by no means actually labored with Ariel’s ketchup-red hair. However the stay motion mutes the colours a bit, making it the softer pink of a conch shell. It’s undoubtedly presupposed to be impressed by that pink ballgown with the puffy sleeves, but it surely has its personal distinct look, evoking seafaring pirate-y apparel.
2. Aurora in Maleficent (2014)
Costume designer: Ellen Mirojnick; Princess: Elle Fanning
Maleficent is informed from the perspective of Angelina Jolie’s eponymous darkish fairy, however the robes her adopted daughter Aurora wears undoubtedly give main-character vitality. They actually match the film’s darkish medieval-fantasy aesthetic, with delicate embroidery and extra muted (however nonetheless beautiful) shade palettes. The blue robe she’s sporting when she pricks her finger within the citadel doesn’t appear like the animated model, but it surely has a beautiful, elegant silhouette, and it really works higher on this context, for the reason that character isn’t dressed up for a ball.
She ends the film in a very beautiful gold robe with some intricate floral detailing, which actually hammers residence the entire “little one raised by fairies in a magical forest” vibe!
1. Cinderella in Cinderella (2015)
Costume designer: …additionally Sandy Powell; Princess: Lily James
I’ve this understandably ridiculous principle that each cent of the live-action-Disney-movie costume funds, previous, future, and current, went to Cinderella, leaving nothing for another Disney live-action redux. This has to be the case, as a result of apparently the costume designer behind the travesty that’s the 2025 Snow White is additionally accountable for Cinderella, and I genuinely can not consider one other clarification as to why the distinction in high quality between the 2 is so huge.
Each costume Cinderella wears — even her servant-girl outfit! — appears to be like so ethereal. The pink gown her stepsisters destroy is gorgeous, and the marriage gown she wears within the finale, with its beautiful flower accents, is totally gorgeous.
However the pièce de résistance is her iconic ballgown. It’s clearly impressed by the animated film, however Powell gave it an id of its personal. It appears to be like like a watercolor portray come to life, and strikes with such class that it’s onerous to not gawk at Cinderella as she glides throughout the ballroom. No surprise everybody within the kingdom instantly falls in love together with her, the prince included.
Maybe Powell knew her Disney live-action remake profession peaked in 2015, and he or she didn’t elevate a finger for the 2025 Snow White? I get it. Why mess with perfection?