Penelope Featherington: A Lady of Wit and Business
Penelope: Nicola Coughlan
Costume Designer: Sophie Canale
The foil to the refined Bridgertons are their London neighbors the Featheringtons. The Featheringtons are showy and garnish. They have “new money” vibe. They revel in bright colors with extreme amounts of embellishments and details like feathers.
The youngest of the Featheringtons is Penelope. In season two she’s in her second year on the marriage mart, secretly in love with Colin Bridgerton and is best friends with Eloise Bridgerton. However now that Eloise is out in society, she poises a difficulties to Penelope’s Lady Whistledown operation especially since Eloise is obsessed with unmasking the gossip-writer.
Feathington Family Fashions
All the families of Bridgerton have their unique sense of styles. The Bridgertons opts for pale pastel tones especially blues, the Sharmas, a new addition in season two, wear jewel tones while the Featherintons wears bright shocks of citrus colors.
This a repost of my own article originally on Hubpages
Penelope’s Best Costumes
In season two Penelope still wears lot of yellows that are highly embellished but there is a notable improvement to her wardrobe. Many of her costumes are softer shades of yellows, pinks and and few other colors.
The cuts of her costumes are also a marked improvement. Many of them accommodate her figure much better than in season one. However her outfits can easily be ruined by the styling even though her styling is mostly much improved this season.
This is a ranking of Penelope’s 10 best costumes from season two. Mostly the outfits were ranked on memorability, aesthetics and how they reflect her character. Memorability is a key factor because some of Penelope’s outfits and styling can be fussy and overdone. However, her costumes are on the whole more refined in season two than in season one.
And theres is an honorable mention
List is subject to change. And Spoilers through season 2
10. The Featherington Ball Gown
Season two culminates in the Featherington Ball. At the start of the ball everything is looking up for Penelope. Her friendship with Eloise seems to have returned to where it was prior to Lady Whistledown. She dances with Colin and he tells her that he will always look after her and that she is special to him.
All this comes crashing down around her as Eloise finally realizes Penelope’s secret is causing a huge blow-up between the two ladies and Colin callously proclaims to a group of suitors that he would never dream of courting her. These relationship dynamics will lead to Penelope’s prominent storyline in season three.
Her ballgown is a bit of a throwback to season one, just with a slightly more flattering cut to the bodice. The color is her trademark yellow with a netted overlay decorated with silver and gold appliqués featuring sequins and beading. There are also several 3D appliqués at the neckline, waistline, and the back of the gown.
There is no denying that many memorable scenes happen while she wears this costume, it’s just brought down by the hairstyle which looks like her mother’s taste.
9. The Feathered Dinner Gown
The Featherington plotline revolves around the new Lord Featherington, a distant cousin, and their on-going money troubles. While the Featheringtons are in the dark about the new lord’s money woes, Portia is scheming to get him to married the eldest Featherington daughter, Prudence, to secure the house. However, the new lord is courting Bridgerton’s resident mean-girl, Cressida Cowper.
The dueling schemes are on full display at dinner between the Featheringtons and Cowpers. Penelope’s gown—which is only seen from the waist up, unfortunately—is her most Featherington look as she is also admitting her own scheme. The gown is adorned with gold rhinestones on leaf appliqués, gold pearls, and willowy strands of feathers. Smaller pearls trim the waistline and the outfit is complemented by butterfly jewelry.
8. The Pink Strolling Outfit
Eloise and Penelope go out strolling most days. However, Eloise likes associating with more rebellious-minded people in a ‘favorable” area of London. In fact, she starts giving excuses to people in order to slip away, sometimes less discreetly than she thinks.
On one such occasion she puts off a stroll with Penelope, whose outfit is a sweet pink ensemble with subtle polka-dot pattern overlay. The shorted puffed sleeved bodice cover is made from a small checked pink and white tweed. It is decorated with white and pink 3D flowers.
She has a reticule made from the same fabric as the bodice cover, also with the same floral details. She wears a daisy necklace and earrings along with some white lace wrist gloves.
7. The Yellow & Pink Patterned Promenade Dress
One of the favored activities in the Ton is promenading, which is walking leisurely in public. While promenading with rest of Bridgerton, Penelope wears a lovely yellow and pink patterned dress. It has no embellishments which lets the pretty pattern shine. It’s rather chic and playful with the large-scale design on the fabric.
6. The Diamond Ball Gown
To the Queen’s Diamond, Penelope and her family actually adhere to the dress code by wearing metallics. Penelope’s gold gown is embellished with rhinestone encrusted stars at the bodices. A shimmering sheer overlay adds an opulent glittery effect which is just lovely.
Her jewelry, tiara, hair ornaments match the starry motif. This early season two look is resplendent as a great combination of her family’s fashion with a hint of Penelope’s own playfully-refined tastes.
Fun fact: This gown was inspired by Kylie Minogue’ 2005 blue star-spangled tour dress.
5. The Cool Yellow Lace Dress
As part of her gossip business operation Penelope has to venture to a less favorable part of London. It’s there that she is spotted by Madame Delacroix, the modiste. Penelope worries about Delacroix’s discretion for her secrets and tries to assert it when they next speak.
Her dress in these scenes is cool-toned yellow with lace appliqué overlays in cool shades of pinks, yellow, blues, and grays. The lace has butterflies and flowers motifs. She wears butterfly earrings with a matching necklace, and her hair is quite pretty as well.
4. Wedding Guest Gown
Like the other members of the Ton, Penelope and her family attend the failed wedding of Anthony Bridgerton and Edwina Sharma, hosted by the Queen herself. Penelope’s outfit is a blend of her family’s style with her burgeoning sense of taste. The soft pastel yellow dress with a sheer white overlay. The bodice is decorated with white beaded flowers with rhinestones at the centers. There are also tiny white beads which diffuse down to just below the waistline.
Her jewelry is made of fake rubies which are part of her mother’s and cousin’s get-rich scheme. Her hair is done in a straighter style which is very flattering. Her wrist length gloves have sequins, which adds sparkle. It’s a simple yet very refined outfit that suits her very well.
3. The Daisy Dress
One of Penelope’s more ultra-feminine outfits is her daisy dress. She wears it during a private chat with Colin and also when she visits Eloise. It’s a simple yet refreshing outfit. It’s a bright yellow dress that is soften by the embroidered daisy overlay. Her hair style is pretty with looser curls and flowery hair accessories and floral jewelry. Penelope looks radiant and effortlessly cool in an elegant retro coquette way.
2. The Green Dress
Penelope, for the most part wears two colors on the regular: yellow and pink. There are a few outliers in season two as she wears orange pinks, one brown outfit, and a blue for maid disguise. However there is one color that she wears a few times in first two seasons that has a very clear symbolic significance: green. Green is the combination of yellow and blue or the Featherington and Bridgerton’s colors. Penelope wore green twice in season one, but only very briefly.
In season two she wears a green dress when arriving at Aubrey Hall: the Bridgerton’s Country estate. Her dress is a tea green shade with bright pink embroidered flowers and green leaves along the neckline and diffused down the dress to a higher concentration at the hem. The waistline is trimmed with a pink ribbon. She has a matching stole with the same floral design. It’s a soft pretty look that she wears in the hopes of appealing to a certain Bridgerton.
1. The Hearts and Flowers Ball Gown
As part of the Aubrey Hall visit, The Bridgertons host the Hearts and Flowers Ball. Like other balls, this one has a preferred dress code of shades of pink. Penelope’s ball gown is a made of various shades of pink with a floral beaded lace overlay. The bodice and sleeves are encrusted with 3D flowers that are heavily detailed with beads and sequins. The waistline is trimmed with a pink velvet ribbon studded with white rhinestones.
It’s clear that Penelope made an effort to look her best to impress Colin which is why she looks utterly gorgeous in this outfit. Too bad he skipped the ball. Hands-down, Penelope’s Hearts and Flowers ball gown is her best costume from the first two seasons of Bridgerton. It’s perfection! One of her best looks in the entire show, thus far.
Honorable Mention: The Bridesmaid Dress
Worn very briefly for her sister’s wedding, this yellow gown with a starfish-like design on the bodice and tiered pink ruffles on the skirt’s overlay is quiet flattering but it’s hardly showcased the show and Penelope has no lines in the scene nor focused on much either. It is unfortunately because it’s playful and pretty.
This dress is reused in season three prior to Penelope’s glamorous glow-up and you can see it much better than in season two.
This gown has the nickname of “The Babydoll Starfish.”
