The countdown for Outlander’s second season has official started. Starz just announced the official premiere date for the show’s new season as well as an exciting new promo trailer. Among all the spoilers in the new clip, the trailer offered a first look at Claire’s (Caitriona Balfe) highly anticipated red dress appearance.
Along with the trailer, which can be viewed on Los Angeles Times , Starz revealed that Outlander will debut its new season on April 9. This means we are less than two months away from Claire and Jamie’s ( Sam Heughan ) return to television. Based on the new trailer, Outlander fans are certainly in for a wild ride this year.
The upcoming season is based on Diana Gabaldon’s book Dragonfly in Amber and will feature Jamie and Claire travelling to Paris. Along with mixing in with the elites of 18th-century France, the time travelling couple will face a number of political and physical challenges on their way to stopping the Jacobite rebellion.
Speaking of their new setting, Paris is a far cry from the Scottish backdrop of Season 1, especially in the wardrobe department. Instead of Jamie wearing his usual tartan kilt and Claire in her bodices and skirts, the new season will feature a more elegant line of clothing for the characters. This includes, most notably, Claire’s iconic red dress that she wore in the books when meeting up with King Louis XV.
Outlander’s head costume designer, Terry Dresbach, recently sat down with People Style News and discussed some of the finer details of Claire’s famous red dress. In the books, the garment is very low-cut and actually causes a little scene with Jamie, who does not approve of its scandalous and sensual nature.
Dresbach and her team remained true to the book and described the red dress as “scandalous, powerful and sensual.” The main challenge for Dresbach was finding the right red to really make the dress stand out.
“We looked at every red silk out there, from every manufacturer,” Dresbach shared. “…We were now looking for somebody who manufactured a silk in the same color that we’d come up with in our dye room just to make it even more difficult. But we did! It was remarkable, it’s a beautiful red, it’s a classic, classic red. It’s a Valentino red, it’s a Givenchy red, it’s a fashion red.”
Dresbach went on to reveal that they decided to go with a simplistic take on the dress. The reason they chose to go simple was because they wanted to stay true to 18th-century France and didn’t want the piece to appear too busy by adding more colors.
“We kept [the dress] absolutely dead simple — very clean and very modern in its design,” she explained. “In 18th century France, because there aren’t a ton of references for brilliant red dresses, we just played. The thing is, with red, it’s such a decoration in and of itself, then as you can see it’s a very simple design because if you put a lot of stuff on top of bright red it just becomes busy.”
Meanwhile, apart from the red dress and new trailer, E! Online is reporting that producers recently announced that Sophie Skelton has been cast to play the part of Claire’s daughter, Brianna, in the upcoming season. Skelton is among a number of new faces set to join the show this year, including Stanley Weber as Comte St. Germain, Richard Rankin as Roger, Frances De La Tour as Mother Hildegarde, Laurence Dobiesz as Alex, and Robert Cavanah as Jared Fraser.
The second season of Outlander is set to premiere April 9 on Starz.
Tell us! Will you be tuning in when Season 2 of Outlander premieres in April? Let us know in the comments, and check out the stunning new trailer below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3VtNOjrqeQ
[Image via Starz]