How Wednesday Addams became a gothic style icon

Tim Burton has made his TV debut with Wednesday, based upon the character of Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family. The Netflix series follows the oldest child of the family, played by Jenna Ortega, as she attends Nevermore Academy.

Wednesday has always been a gothic style icon. Back in 2019, the character inspired designer Miuccia Prada. In her fall-winter fashion show, the models wore Wednesday’s characteristic braids, while they walked down the catwalk to the theme song from The Addams Family.

For the Netflix show, Burton enlisted one of his most regular collaborators, costume designer Colleen Atwood, to put together Wednesday’s wardrobe of clothes. In the series, while she still has the braids and loves the color black, Wednesday also wears designer fashion by the likes of Miu Miu, Prada and Alaïa.

She’s the living image of dark academia, a social media aesthetic inspired by old English boarding schools and Ivy League universities. She’s seen sporting Schiaparelli’s Claw Gloves, and even a coffin-shaped Thierry Mugler purse.

Like all the students at Nevermore Academy, she has to wear a uniform, although she does not wear the same one as her classmates. Hers is black and gray instead of blue and black, the school’s colors. She completes the uniform with Prada Monolith boots – a combination that makes her look like she’s just stepped out of a Thom Browne fashion show rather than the halls of Nevermore.

Outside of school, Wednesday has more varied outfits, such as biker-style shorts, A-line dresses, platform-heavy sneakers and wide blouses. The color palette remains largely the same, but there are some twists. She is seen wearing a black and white striped Miu Miu jacket as well as checkerboard print jackets, vests and shirts.

But it was a ruffle dress by designer Alaïa the went viral the day Wednesday premiered. In an interview for the US edition of Harper’s Bazaar, Atwood said that she found the elaborate gown in Alaïa’s Bond Street store in London.

While Wednesday’s style went unnoticed in older versions of The Addams Family, Burton’s character looks set to bring back the gothic style to the fore.