Bridgerton's Botanical Ball Blooms with Intricate Set Design

In the lead-up to the release of Bridgerton's third season on Netflix, the show's production designer Alison Gartshore and her team were tasked with maintaining the established visual world of the series while pushing new boundaries. One of the ways they accomplished this was through the creation of new, elaborate ballroom sets, including a botanical ball featured in episode 6.

The botanical ball required the use of heaps of faux florals and a mechanical pop-up garden to wow the queen. Gartshore explains that the team only had three days to complete the set, resulting in a dance of their own between departments. "Every time the special effects people needed the box opening, we couldn't work on the outside to get it ready," she says. "We had to work with them and stand off when they wanted it open, and then when it was closed, we all jumped in with our paintbrushes and scalpels and glue, and it was just one of those things that we had to get done."

From start to finish, setting up the ballroom for the botanical ball took 10 to 12 weeks. The unfolding petal centerpiece was supposed to be straightforward, but as Gartshore jokes, "of course, the simplest things are never easy to do." The structure, which took a week to assemble, was built out of painted paper petals that would unfold and reveal a whole garden inside, with the special effects team engineering all the mechanics to ensure the leaves opened at the same time.