The live-action Disney Princess dresses, ranked

As Disney retains rolling out live-action variations of its basic animated motion pictures, costume and manufacturing designers maintain going through the problem of constructing engaging animated pictures look equally good in the actual world.

Think about the Disney Princess characters: All of them have iconic clothes that look attractive of their unique animated outings (besides Aladdin’s Jasmine, who rocks a pants-and-crop-top mixture). In animation, these robes are all spectacular. However how do they match up in reside motion?

Up to now, seven princesses from the official Disney Princess lineup have gotten live-action remake motion pictures. The newest, Snow White, offers its protagonist a deeply… disappointing wardrobe, which prompted us to look again and see which remake workforce did and didn’t perceive the project.

Like several good rating, this one has a algorithm.

I’m additionally not essentially searching for constancy to the animated model. Typically that’s not a very good factor (cough, Snow White, cough). The outfits ought to merely look good, even when they aren’t essentially direct replicas.

So as from worst to finest, listed below are all of the live-action Disney Princesses and their wardrobes, ranked.

7. Snow White in Snow White (2025)

Designer: Sandy Powell; Princess: Rachel Zegler

I’ve seen Halloween costumes that look higher than this gown. I really feel like I can inform precisely what kind of thick, foam-like materials makes up the sleeves. I’m additionally zeroing in on a budget vinyl stuff within the collar that’s suspended between some stiff wires. The skirt is that this plastic-looking tulle monstrosity that’s a shade of yellow not even within the unique animation.

Sure, the unique Snow White gown does have some questionable colour decisions, however the live-action resolution is not to crank the saturation up on the crimson, blue, and yellow. Snow White’s plot-relevant necklace — a present from her father with 4 bland adjectives to ✨ encourage ✨ her — seems like one thing I may order off Etsy for $20. It’s simply lazy! I don’t know the place Snow White’s almost $300 million finances went, but it surely actually was not the wardrobe.

Snow’s different clothes on this film are so briefly worn and so unremarkable that they’ll’t save the travesty of the primary one.

6. Belle in Magnificence and the Beast (2017)

Costume designer: Jacqueline Durran; Princess: Emma Watson

Belle’s core wardrobe isn’t horrible. The blue-and-white gown she wears within the village truly seems like a pleasant up to date model of her animated going-to-town outfit. And her crimson winter cloak has some beautiful embroidery. However relating to her massive showstopping robe, the one she wears throughout the romantic ballroom scene — woof.

For starters, in contrast to her different clothes, it seems so distinctly trendy. And never even in a enjoyable, anachronistic manner! I don’t give a hoot about whether or not or not she wore a corset, however its tiering and silhouette simply seems extra like late-2010s promenade gown than 18th-century French ballgown.

Her finale gown is fortunately a bit higher, a minimum of when it comes to the form, however the sample seems like a tea towel I’d discover in a grandma’s kitchen.

5. Jasmine in Aladdin (2019)

Costume designer: Michael Wilkinson; Princess: Naomi Scott

I’m a bit torn about Jasmine’s outfits, that are so gaudy and excessive, they nearly really feel like a parody of the unique film. However then once more, the whole film performs into that aesthetic, so her seems do cohesively slot in. The turquoise ensemble that the majority immediately imitates her animated counterpart is one of the best, because the others begin to encroach on discordant colour clashing. They is perhaps splashy, however a minimum of they don’t look low-cost!

They do, nonetheless, look extra like they belong within the Broadway present — vibrant and glittery, so even audiences within the low-cost seats can recognize them. However up shut, they give the impression of being just a little too intense.

Costume designer: Bina Daigeler; Princess: Liu Yifei

For essentially the most half, Mulan’s wardrobe is understandably utilitarian. In any case, she spends many of the film within the army, carrying an official uniform. It really works! She has one different gown — the robe she wears when her household hauls her off to see the matchmaker. It’s totally different from the animated model, but it surely nonetheless serves the aim of displaying that Mulan isn’t snug in a flowery gown.

3. Ariel in The Little Mermaid (2023)

Costume designer: Colleen Atwood; Princess: Halle Bailey

Ariel mainly will get two clothes when she’s in human kind, and each of them are callbacks to her animated film robes, whereas nonetheless becoming in with the brand new film’s visible aesthetic. One is the blue gown she wears whereas exploring the city with Eric, which within the film seems prefer it’s fabricated from a really gentle, breathable materials that’s nonetheless tremendous cute. It’s now a fairly seafoam inexperienced, and the beachy design feels proper according to the Caribbean-inspired setting!

The opposite is the pink ballgown she wears to dinner with Eric and Grimsby, the one the place she makes use of a fork to comb her hair. Let’s be actual: The unique vibrant pink gown by no means actually labored with Ariel’s ketchup-red hair. However the reside motion mutes the colours a bit, making it the softer pink of a conch shell. It’s undoubtedly speculated to be impressed by that pink ballgown with the puffy sleeves, but it surely has its personal distinct look, evoking seafaring pirate-y apparel.

2. Aurora in Maleficent (2014)

Costume designer: Ellen Mirojnick; Princess: Elle Fanning

Maleficent is advised from the standpoint of Angelina Jolie’s eponymous darkish fairy, however the robes her adopted daughter Aurora wears undoubtedly give main-character power. They actually match the film’s darkish medieval-fantasy aesthetic, with delicate embroidery and extra muted (however nonetheless attractive) colour palettes. The blue robe she’s carrying when she pricks her finger within the fortress doesn’t appear like the animated model, but it surely has a stunning, elegant silhouette, and it really works higher on this context, because the character isn’t dressed up for a ball.

She ends the film in a very attractive gold robe with some intricate floral detailing, which actually hammers dwelling the entire “youngster raised by fairies in a magical forest” vibe!

1. Cinderella in Cinderella (2015)

Costume designer: …additionally Sandy Powell; Princess: Lily James

I’ve this understandably ridiculous idea that each cent of the live-action-Disney-movie costume finances, previous, future, and current, went to Cinderella, leaving nothing for some other Disney live-action redux. This has to be the case, as a result of apparently the costume designer behind the travesty that’s the 2025 Snow White is additionally liable for Cinderella, and I genuinely can not consider one other rationalization as to why the distinction in high quality between the 2 is so huge.

Each costume Cinderella wears — even her servant-girl outfit! — seems so ethereal. The pink gown her stepsisters destroy is gorgeous, and the marriage gown she wears within the finale, with its attractive flower accents, is totally beautiful.

However the pièce de résistance is her iconic ballgown. It’s clearly impressed by the animated film, however Powell gave it an id of its personal. It seems like a watercolor portray come to life, and strikes with such class that it’s onerous to not gawk at Cinderella as she glides throughout the ballroom. No marvel everybody within the kingdom instantly falls in love together with her, the prince included.

Maybe Powell knew her Disney live-action remake profession peaked in 2015, and he or she didn’t elevate a finger for the 2025 Snow White? I get it. Why mess with perfection?