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In The Scenario, reporter Kirbie Johnson takes readers behind the scenes of the buzziest movies and TV shows to reveal how the best wigs, special effects makeup, and more are created. For this edition, Johnson spoke with Siân Miller, the hair and makeup designer for “Wuthering Heights,” who gave Allure an exclusive first look at the film’s biggest beauty moments.
Siân Miller knew this would not be a traditional take on Wuthering Heights, the classic dark romance novel by Emily Brontë, when she signed on to design the hair and makeup looks. Directed by Emerald Fennell and starring Margot Robbie as Cathy alongside Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, the film adaptation includes the same themes of love, revenge, and social class, but renders them through an entirely different lens.
“What [Emerald] was really clear about from the beginning is that this was to be seen through the imagination of a 14-year-old girl—this was Emerald’s imagination,” says Miller, who previously worked on Saltburn with Fennell, Elordi, and Robbie (who produced the film). “It was clear that it would be a kind of fever dream.”
A BBC costume drama this was not, nor was it a literal, by-the-book adaptation. “I can't say I'm making ‘Wuthering Heights.’ It's not possible,” Fennel said in a recent interview with Fandango; that’s why she decided to put those quotation marks in the movie’s title. “What I can say is I'm making a version of it. There's a version that I remembered reading that isn't quite real. And there's a version where I wanted stuff to happen that never happened. And so it is 'Wuthering Heights,' and it isn't."
While the film features some period-accurate wardrobe, hair, and makeup, it also incorporates imaginative elements, not unlike Sofia Coppola’s blend of modern and classical references in the 2006 Marie Antoinette film. Having seen “Wuthering Heights,” the best way I can describe it is a smorgasbord of visual decadence: surrealist art paired with dreary gothic fare. Prepared to be dazzled by the spectacle and overcome with jealousy over a myriad of things: the hair and the sex, for starters. Beauty connoisseurs will be in heaven.
Miller shared details on the hair and makeup exclusively with Allure: The film features between 35 and 40 different hairstyles on Robbie, including archival Chanel jewelry used as hair adornments and early-2000s Sienna Miller references. Miller researched and re-created historically faithful nail art originally made with eggshells and beetle blood (though no bugs were harmed in the making of these manicures). There’s an entire montage of makeup looks that you’ll miss if you blink, showcasing silver leaf on the eyes and black lips, and inspiration pulled from Pinterest alongside makeup artist Pat McGrath’s work with designers like John Galliano, Vivienne Westwood, and Alexander McQueen.
Miller describes the hair and makeup as a combination of 1950s mid-century melodrama and Victorian excess with fantastical elements. She worked closely with production designer Suzie Davies (Saltburn, Conclave) and costume designer Jacqueline Durran (Anna Karenina, Little Women, Barbie) to ensure every visual element felt cohesive to the audience.
Here’s a preview of some of the standout looks you should expect when the film hits theaters on February 13—and maybe some inspiration for your theatergoing outfit.
Cathy’s hair evolution
Photo: Warner Bro. Pictures
As a girl living on the farmstead of Wuthering Heights, Cathy is shown with untamed and unkempt hair—a symbol of her wildness and a depiction of her life growing up running across the moors. If you’ve read the book or have seen other adaptations, you know she inevitably leaves home for the Grange, where she lives with her husband and his family, the Lintons. In these scenes, her hair is noticeably more controlled and sculptural; even when her hair is down, its texture is smoother and more defined.
Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures
During a pivotal scene at the Grange in which she taunts Heathcliff after his unexpected return, Cathy wears victory rolls Miller referred to as “horns,” an allusion to her devilish behavior. But as a viewer, it reads almost like a crown, insinuating her role as an evil queen. “It's where she becomes tougher,” Miller says. “She becomes a bit more of a bitch, she becomes harder. It's a more severe profile.”
The veil-covered bridal hair
Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures
One of Miller’s favorite looks is in Cathy’s wedding scene, where you actually won’t see her hair at all. It’s tragically concealed beneath her veil as she marches across the moors to marry Edgar Linton despite being in love with Heathcliff.
Photo: Olivia Scott
But Miller shows us that beneath that veil is a grid-like lattice braid decorated with gemstones using a glue gun. “That lattice is symbolic of her being caged: She’s going to marry Edgar, but she doesn’t really want to,” Miller says. “It’s symbolic of her being trapped.”
The controlled lady-of-the-house look
After Cathy arrives at the Grange and adopts the role of housewife, her hairstyles evolve too, as Miller explains, to reflect Cathy’s emotional state: boredom. With little to do, Cathy and her sister-in-law, Isabella, experiment with Cathy’s look.
Some of the adornments she wears in her hair during these scenes are archival Chanel pieces sourced by costume designer Jacqueline Durran, while others are earrings and brooches repurposed for hairstyling during select scenes.
The “doll braids”
Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures
One of the most eye-catching hairstyles featured—which I predict will be replicated en masse—is a set of twin braids with a red ribbon woven between them and tied at the ends like a corset. Cathy wears these when she begins life at the Grange. In the movie, it’s Isabella who styles her hair this way; she sees Cathy as her own personal doll in more ways than one, hence Miller’s nickname for this style, the “doll braids.”
Photo: Olivia Scott
Finding the right shade of blonde and the right style of braids for this look was a challenge. Miller notes that the goal was to avoid veering into Game of Thrones or The Witcher territory, which featured icy white-blondes and warrior styling references. While the front pieces of Robbie’s own hair were blended with wig pieces and wefts for scenes at Cathy’s home of Wuthering Heights, she wore full wigs for these scenes at the Grange.
The sweat-inspired makeup for Heathcliff’s return
Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures
One of the film’s most modern looks took direct inspiration from the set design. In a tense dinner scene following Heathcliff’s return—now wealthy and in what Miller describes as his “Mr. Darcy era”—Cathy’s hair is adorned with pins and combs that Miller bedazzled by hand.
Photo: Olivia Scott
Her face is covered in gems inspired by the silver walls in the background, which are studded with clear stones (you’ll notice the walls speak metaphoric volumes in this film, so keep an eye on them). “It was almost supposed to look like sweat,” Miller says.
Everyone’s blush and flush
Flushed cheeks are their own character in the film—everyone sports some kind of blush, including the men. “We wanted this weather-beaten look for the characters at Wuthering Heights,” Miller says. “Jacob [Elordi] had it, the younger versions [of Cathy and Heathcliff] had it. With Cathy, I was inspired by the ‘pomegranate girl’ TikTok trend of 2024; that clean, flushed look.”
Rare Beauty Soft Pinch Liquid Blush in the shades Hope and Happy were applied for Cathy’s scenes at the Grange, as were Merit Flush Balm in Après and Postmodern and Pat McGrath Labs Divine Cream Blush. No.1 de Chanel Lip and Cheek Balm in Berry Boost was used for her looks at Wuthering Heights. Miller calls Kylie Cosmetics Hyrbid Blush in Winter Kissed, the shade used on Isabella, the “perfect baby doll pink.”
Cathy's lipstick oscillated between Burt’s Bees Tinted Lip Balm in Rose and a discontinued Kiehl’s Men’s Lip Balm to avoid any apparent lip lines. For some of the looks at the Grange, Robbie wore Charlotte Tilbury Matte Revolution Lipstick in Pillow Talk.
