It took more than 7,000 garments to reimagine 19th century Italian society in Netflix’s The Leopard | Canada Voices

When Tom Shankland took the director’s chair for The Leopard, Netflix’s latest period drama, he wasn’t just adapting a classic – he was challenging history.

Set against Italy’s impending unification in the 1860s, the series reimagines Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s classic novel with a focus on the women of the noble Sicilian Salina family: Princess Maria Stella, wife of the Prince of Salina (aka The Leopard); his love-torn daughter, Concetta; and his ambitious niece-by-marriage, Angelica (played by Deva Cassel, daughter of Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel). While Luchino Visconti’s lush 1963 film adaptation centered on the head of the family, the patriarchal Prince, and his nephew Tancredi, Shankland’s six-episode saga reframes the story with a focus on how women navigated society – often through their attire.

At the core of The Leopard’s Netflix remix lies a crystal ball: the costumes. More than 7,000 meticulously crafted garments, including 350 evening gowns, 500-plus military uniforms, and more than 2,500 pairs of shoes and countless accessories were made from scratch to ensure historical authenticity and visual grandeur.

The costumes serve as a portal into Italy’s fragmented past and disappearing class distinctions. This generational contrast is echoed in the costume design team itself, which played a pivotal role in the series’ success. Carlo Poggioli and Edoardo Russo, the two department leads chosen for the job, have an age difference of more than 30 years. For the series, Poggioli, a 66-year-old veteran costumer who apprenticed under The Leopard’s original designer, Piero Tosi, collaborated with 35-year-old Edoardo Russo, a rising talent in Italy’s costume industry. Both cite The Leopard as the most ambitious project of their careers.

“It took us more than a year to begin actually developing these costumes – ones that would last a full season and the heat of Sicily,” Russo says from his home in Milan. “We couldn’t dare take Visconti or Tosi’s same path. We had to really think of ways to make this current but keep the historical accuracy … without trying to outdo what has already been done.”

Unlike Tosi, who famously “listened” to fabrics while sleeping with them before shaping his designs, Russo and Poggioli took a more strategic approach. They studied hundreds of historical texts and their mood boards took inspiration from Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s paintings of deities and affluent 19th-century families. Their most valuable reference, however, came from a visit to Palermo’s Casa Museo Raffaello Piraino, which houses more than 5,000 historical garments and fashion accessories.

Colour choices were carefully considered – tailored to an actor’s complexion or occasion in the film (party and funeral scenes being the most outlandish). Russo says the boning of the gowns required rigilene (a type of plastic) and light crinoline so the actresses could have more freedom to sway, gesture and fully embody their roles without heaviness or constraint.

For Sardinian actress Astrid Meloni, who plays Princess Maria Stella, the matriarch of the Salina family, costumes served as both barriers and thresholds for her character. “At first glance, Maria may seem like a woman of the times, deprived of power because of obvious patriarchal forces, but her dresses give her a larger-than-life presence, creating boundaries for her,” she says. The 43-year-old, who completed a psychology degree before becoming one of Italy’s most sought-after actors, adds, “Maria Stella is not easily accessible because of all the crinoline and the dark shades she wears. Her gowns do 40 per cent of my work for me in my scenes.”

Meloni says that the costume duo purposely styled her character to exude a sense of superiority by increasing the volume of her dress to symbolize Maria Stella’s social distance and higher rank. The relationship between Maria Stella and her clothes mirrored the complex rift in Italy’s path to unification, embodying the clash between the old aristocracy and the rising bourgeoisie. In this way, her dresses were not just aesthetic choices but deliberate narrative tools.

Russo says the use of taffeta and faille for evening wear in The Leopard epitomizes luxury, formality and past Bourbon aristocratic opulence. In contrast, the concentration of fabrics such as cotton, muslin and linen – for daytime attire – exudes the simplicity and practicality required to endure Sicily’s high temperatures.

All the clothing worn by The Leopard’s female characters – primarily Concetta, Angelica and Maria Stella – required roughly 10 meters of fabric to create silhouettes that were, as Russo says, “as layered as their roles.” Designs dictated behavior and posture; the evening wear for all of The Leopard’s daughters featured tight bodices that forced the actresses into statuesque stances.

The same formula applied to the men’s wardrobe: jackets were cinched at the waist and padded at the shoulders to reinforce rigid masculinity, while belly bands ensured a physique that appeared to be distinguished. As the story unfolded, so did the silhouettes.

“We opened up the soldier’s shirts, let them get sweaty and dusty because that’s what happens when you are out in the sun all day, fighting or travelling,” Russo says. For Garibaldi’s men, the costume team streamlined the uniforms, taking cues from modern tailoring. “The sartorial constructions are authentic and imitate what Garibaldi’s men were wearing but we bent a few rules,” Russo says. “We used less padding and made the waistcoats less structured so it felt elegant and modern since these fighters represent a new era.”

The costumes in the ballroom scenes are a prime example of Sicilian society wearing their revolution on their sleeves. The sultry Angelica Sedàra, a mayor’s daughter who marries up into The Leopard’s familia, wears a cherry pink ball gown in the series’ final episode during a pivotal moment. “It was [chosen] to represent her win over the old noble society that would never have accepted her. This colour glittered on her like a proclamation. It was as close to the colour of Garibaldi’s rebel troupes as we could get,” Russo says.

Paired with a silver laurel crown – a clear homage to Olympians whose victories were celebrated with the same wreath – her look boldly declares victory as a new generation triumphing over former Bourbon powers-that-be. While the old guard may view Angelica as vulgar, she stands in stark contrast to her nemesis, Concetta, who favours muted colors, reflecting her restraint, and loyalty to her Prince/father, upholding his outdated ideologies.

Already inspiring Leopard-themed parties in Italy and set to be a major trend at next year’s Venice Carnival, Shankland sums up the impact of Russo and Poggioli’s work in the newly released documentary Making The Leopard: “When you see the actors wearing Carlo and Edoardo’s costumes, you realize they’re not dressed for a fashion show … you can truly feel they have a life, a history.”