Bridget Jones Is Back—And So Are Her Most Iconic Outfits

‘Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’ costume designer Molly Emma Rowe talks about dressing everyone’s favorite frazzled English women for 2025.

We all have a little Bridget Jones in us. Chaotic, imperfect, and occasionally embarrassing, she is nothing if not relatable. And her wardrobe proves it.

This is the character who accidentally wore a Playboy bunny outfit to a family garden party, who lounged around her home in a messy bun and penguin pajamas, who rocked a teeny tiny miniskirt while sliding down a firefighter pole on live TV, who, in a panic, dashed out of the house into the snow in nothing but a cardigan and animal print knickers. Bridget Jones may not be one of pop culture’s most fashion-forward icons, but we can’t help but like her “just the way she is.” 

Over the past two decades, the world has watched the beloved character, played by Renée Zellweger on the silver screen, move clumsily through life. In the first Bridget Jones, released in 2001, she confronts the misogynistic expectations society places on single women in their thirties while exploring two very different love interests in the form of Colin Firth’s Mark and Hugh Grant’s Daniel Cleaver. In 2004’s The Edge of Reason sequel, she navigates a new relationship with Mark. And in 2016’s Bridget Jones’s Baby, Bridget deals with an unexpected pregnancy.

Now, she is back for a fourth time in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.

Emotionally, this is the heaviest installment of the series yet. (Warning: Spoilers ahead.) After finally marrying the love of her life, Mark, Bridget finds herself raising their children alone after his tragic death. While trying to navigate grief, she encounters two new love interests: Roxster (Leo Woodhall), a 29-year-old pretty boy, and Mr. Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor), her son’s rather solemn science teacher. 

— “Renée is Bridget.”

Helping to bring Bridget and co. into this new chapter is costume designer Molly Emma Rowe. A self-proclaimed “Bridget Jones super fan,” Rowe knew she wanted to honor both the visual and thematic legacy of the original film while simultaneously bringing the characters into the modern age. She began by working with Renée Zellweger on nailing down the iconic Bridget Jones look.

“Renée is Bridget,” she says firmly. “She’s so invested in Bridget, who she is, what she wears, and where she buys clothes.”

Or rather, where she doesn’t buy her clothes. “Renée feels very strongly that Bridget doesn’t spend a lot of money on designer clothes,” Rowe goes on. “And she always gets things a little bit wrong. Maybe the fit is a little bit wrong, or the colors are a little bit wrong, or it just doesn’t quite go together. [We wanted] to make her feel like everybody else, I suppose.”

Over the past few years, the haphazard, unfailingly normal style that Rowe describes has been rediscovered and repurposed for TikTok’s “Frazzled English Woman” trend, which celebrates the Y2K trappings of classic British rom-com heroines. In addition to Bridget, The Holiday’s Iris, and Love Actually’s Juliet are often cited as examples. The starter pack contains an array of faded cardigans, messy updos, skinny scarves, well-used carry-all bags, and, for special occasions, a cute little miniskirt. 

— “She’s a whole mood, Bridget.”

But while Gen Z may have tried to package the Bridget look into an easy-to-follow formula, Rowe doesn’t think Bridget’s messiness can be curated in this paint-by-numbers way. Rather, dressing like Bridget is about getting into the spirit of the character. “She’s a whole mood, Bridget,” she says. “She’s quite eclectic. She puts things together that she likes, and it doesn’t always work, but she doesn’t care. But as chaotic as Bridget is, I think there’s something so confident. She doesn’t care what people think.”

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Universal Studios

To achieve the “Bridget mood,” Rowe focused on finding individual pieces that Bridget herself would really wear. One iconic Bridget piece that has appeared without fail in every film? The cropped cardigan. “She loves those little shrunken cardies,” Rowe laughs. “The ones that she wears in this film are from Brora. They’re all lovely cashmere.” 

In order to get Zellwegger’s stamp of approval on these new pieces (the actress was adamant that Bridget shouldn’t have any new clothes), Rowe sourced many of the cardigans from second-hand stores in Hampstead, the borough of London where Bridget lives in the film. “Then Renée would feel that, ‘Yes, she could have bought this,'” Rowe explains.  

— “She loves those little shrunken cardies.”

Rowe did sneak in a few brand new pieces—a jacket by London designer Marfa Stance, a dress by Victoria Beckham—but for the most part, she agreed with Zellwegger that most of her wardrobe should be old things Bridget has worn and re-worn over the years. 

“One thing that was really important to me was to bring some pieces back,” she says. “You know, we all have those things—things that went out of style, or you lost them when you moved house, and then you find them, and you start wearing them again. So, that felt like something quite fun to do—to show that Bridget has got these things [from her past] that have made their way back [into her wardrobe].”

Rowe dug through the archives at Universal and managed to source a few of the original costumes from the previous films, including Bridget’s gray hooded, belted coat and a plum scarf. “In Renée’s first fitting, I showed her some of these things. It was really emotional, actually, because she’s not seen them since she made the first movie,” recalls Rowe. “It really made it very clear that it was the right thing to do to bring back some of these key things.” 

Then, there were some pieces that Rowe painstakingly recreated. One such item was the sheer long-sleeve top that Bridget wears over a black bra with a miniskirt while flirting with Daniel at the office in the first film. “That was probably the most difficult thing to recreate of all time,” says Rowe. “It doesn’t exist anymore, and no one could remember what fabric it was.” In Mad About the Boy, Bridget considers wearing the exact look from the first film for her first date with Roxster—her friend Shazza (still wearing her famous paperboy hat, by the way) quickly shuts her down. Bridget opts for a cute flower dress and cardi combo instead. It’s so her.

During the same sequence, we get another sartorial nod to the original film—while getting dressed for the date, Bridget pulls out a pair of oversized shapewear, an allusion to the infamous “granny pants” she wore on her first date with Daniel two decades ago. The modern-day Bridget, though, opts instead for a lace thong. Clearly, she has learned the power of body positivity.

— “We were just trying to find these lovely Easter eggs.”

The film is packed full of similar nods to previous style moments from the Bridget Jones saga. In the opening scene, Bridget wears a green dress to a dinner party in reference to the dress she wore to her son’s christening in Bridget Jones’s Baby. Later, Bridget wears her iconic red penguin pajamas—this time, she wears them for a dance party with her kids instead of a mopey singalong to “All By Myself.” She also still has the same Tiffany necklace (although Rowe added a new charm) and the same work bag. 

One scene in particular feels like a real visual gesture to the original film. Bridget finds herself running out into the snow to follow the man she loves. Sound familiar? “We really wanted to find something for that outfit that felt like the first film,” Rowe says. “We had a lot of ideas.” First, she tried a tiger print skirt, a nod to Bridget’s underwear in the original. Eventually, she chose a blue silk blouse as a reference to the tank top from the first film.

In the final scene, Bridget hosts a New Year’s Eve party—and, of course, she dons a cute festive headpiece for the occasion. Meanwhile, her son sports his late father’s iconic reindeer jumper. It’s this kind of thoughtful visual nostalgia that makes Mad About the Boy feel like a true ode to the spirit of the original. “We were just trying to find these lovely Easter eggs,” Rowe says. “I really hope that those resonate with people, and they can see how invested we are in honoring Bridget and in bringing her back.”