As Disney keeps rolling out live-action versions of its classic animated movies, costume and production designers keep facing the challenge of making attractive animated images look equally good in the real world.
Consider the Disney Princess characters: They all have iconic dresses that look gorgeous in their original animated outings (except Aladdin’s Jasmine, who rocks a pants-and-crop-top combination). In animation, these gowns are all spectacular. But how do they match up in live action?
So far, seven princesses from the official Disney Princess lineup have gotten live-action remake movies. The latest, Snow White, gives its protagonist a deeply… disappointing wardrobe, which prompted us to look back and see which remake team did and didn’t understand the assignment.
- I only included theatrically released Disney live-action movies — sorry to the Descendants-verse and the Brandy Cinderella!
- I am only considering princesses from the official Disney Princess lineup. This means Jasmine makes the cut, even though she isn’t the titular character in Aladdin, but Mia Wasikowska as Alice in Tim Burton’s take on Alice in Wonderland doesn’t. Take it up with Disney!
- Some characters have more than one Defining Gown. I’ll be evaluating their wardrobes as a whole, in which case a passable extra outfit could make up for a terrible main dress. Or not!
- No sequel dresses included. Sorry, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil!
I’m also not necessarily looking for fidelity to the animated version. Sometimes that’s not a good thing (cough, Snow White, cough). The outfits should simply look good, even if they aren’t necessarily direct replicas.
In order from worst to best, here are all the live-action Disney Princesses and their wardrobes, ranked.
7. Snow White in Snow White (2025)
Image: Disney
Designer: Sandy Powell; Princess: Rachel Zegler
I’ve seen Halloween costumes that look better than this dress. I feel like I can tell exactly what sort of thick, foam-like material makes up the sleeves. I’m also zeroing in on the cheap vinyl stuff in the collar that’s suspended between some stiff wires. The skirt is this plastic-looking tulle monstrosity that’s a shade of yellow not even in the original animation.
Yes, the original Snow White dress does have some questionable color choices, but the live-action solution is not to crank the saturation up on the red, blue, and yellow. Snow White’s plot-relevant necklace — a gift from her father with four bland adjectives to ✨ inspire ✨ her — looks like something I could order off Etsy for $20. It’s just lazy! I don’t know where Snow White’s nearly $300 million budget went, but it certainly was not the wardrobe.
Snow’s other dresses in this movie are so briefly worn and so unremarkable that they can’t save the travesty of the main one.
6. Belle in Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Image: Disney
Costume designer: Jacqueline Durran; Princess: Emma Watson
Belle’s core wardrobe isn’t terrible. The blue-and-white dress she wears in the village actually looks like a nice updated version of her animated going-to-town outfit. And her red winter cloak has some lovely embroidery. But when it comes to her big showstopping gown, the one she wears during the romantic ballroom scene — woof.
For starters, unlike her other dresses, it looks so distinctly modern. And not even in a fun, anachronistic way! I don’t give a hoot about whether or not she wore a corset, but its tiering and silhouette just looks more like late-2010s prom dress than 18th-century French ballgown.
Her finale dress is thankfully a bit better, at least in terms of the shape, but the pattern looks like a tea towel I’d find in a grandma’s kitchen.
5. Jasmine in Aladdin (2019)
Image: Disney
Costume designer: Michael Wilkinson; Princess: Naomi Scott
I’m a bit torn about Jasmine’s outfits, which are so gaudy and over the top, they almost feel like a parody of the original movie. But then again, the entire movie plays into that aesthetic, so her looks do cohesively fit in. The turquoise ensemble that most directly imitates her animated counterpart is the best, since the others start to encroach on discordant color clashing. They might be splashy, but at least they don’t look cheap!
They do, however, look more like they belong in the Broadway show — bright and glittery, so even audiences in the cheap seats can appreciate them. But up close, they look a little too intense.
Image: Disney
Costume designer: Bina Daigeler; Princess: Liu Yifei
For the most part, Mulan’s wardrobe is understandably utilitarian. After all, she spends most of the movie in the military, wearing an official uniform. It works! She has one other dress — the gown she wears when her family hauls her off to see the matchmaker. It’s different from the animated version, but it still serves the purpose of showing that Mulan isn’t comfortable in a fancy dress.
3. Ariel in The Little Mermaid (2023)
Image: Disney
Costume designer: Colleen Atwood; Princess: Halle Bailey
Ariel basically gets two dresses when she’s in human form, and both of them are callbacks to her animated movie gowns, while still fitting in with the new movie’s visual aesthetic. One is the blue dress she wears while exploring the town with Eric, which in the movie looks like it’s made of a very light, breathable material that’s still super cute. It’s now a pretty seafoam green, and the beachy design feels right in line with the Caribbean-inspired setting!
The other is the pink ballgown she wears to dinner with Eric and Grimsby, the one where she uses a fork to comb her hair. Let’s be real: The original bright pink dress never really worked with Ariel’s ketchup-red hair. But the live action mutes the colors a bit, making it the softer pink of a conch shell. It’s definitely supposed to be inspired by that pink ballgown with the puffy sleeves, but it has its own distinct look, evoking seafaring pirate-y attire.
2. Aurora in Maleficent (2014)
Image: Disney
Costume designer: Ellen Mirojnick; Princess: Elle Fanning
Maleficent is told from the point of view of Angelina Jolie’s eponymous dark fairy, but the gowns her adopted daughter Aurora wears definitely give main-character energy. They really fit the movie’s dark medieval-fantasy aesthetic, with delicate embroidery and more muted (but still gorgeous) color palettes. The blue gown she’s wearing when she pricks her finger in the castle doesn’t look like the animated version, but it has a lovely, elegant silhouette, and it works better in this context, since the character isn’t dressed up for a ball.
She ends the movie in a particularly gorgeous gold gown with some intricate floral detailing, which really hammers home the whole “child raised by fairies in a magical forest” vibe!
1. Cinderella in Cinderella (2015)
Image: Disney
Costume designer: …also Sandy Powell; Princess: Lily James
I have this understandably ridiculous theory that every cent of the live-action-Disney-movie costume budget, past, future, and present, went to Cinderella, leaving nothing for any other Disney live-action redux. This has to be the case, because apparently the costume designer behind the travesty that is the 2025 Snow White is also responsible for Cinderella, and I genuinely cannot think of another explanation as to why the difference in quality between the two is so vast.
Every costume Cinderella wears — even her servant-girl outfit! — looks so ethereal. The pink dress her stepsisters destroy is beautiful, and the wedding dress she wears in the finale, with its gorgeous flower accents, is absolutely stunning.
But the pièce de résistance is her iconic ballgown. It’s clearly inspired by the animated movie, but Powell gave it an identity of its own. It looks like a watercolor painting come to life, and moves with such elegance that it’s hard not to gawk at Cinderella as she glides across the ballroom. No wonder everyone in the kingdom immediately falls in love with her, the prince included.
Perhaps Powell knew her Disney live-action remake career peaked in 2015, and she didn’t lift a finger for the 2025 Snow White? I get it. Why mess with perfection?
