Becoming the first Black man to win an Oscar for costume design last year was a “pinch me moment” for wicked’s Paul Tazewell.

“To see how my work has touched audience’s hearts, how it fills another chapter of the overall Wizard of Oz culture, is life-changing,” he tells THR.

The costumer technically touched two chapters of the Oz legacy, as his designs are once again showcased in this year’s sequel, Wicked: For Good, which sees its heroine, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), resume her quest to restore animal rights and expose the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) as a fraud.

“We’re opening For Good with her in this amazing power silhouette,” tazewell says of the coat, trousers and “kick-ass boots” that become Elphaba’s uniform. “The cape that she’s wearing is supposed to be the same cape that she jumped out of the window in in the first Wicked, but it’s grown,” he explains. “It’s become more dramatic. It’s also showing wear and tear as she’s now living in exile in the forest.”

Elphaba’s signature hat has expanded in size and now more closely resembles the accessory worn by the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film,adds Tazewell.”[Elphaba] adopts it as her power source, and then it’s married with the broom that she rides around, so those become two defining elements to her superhero persona,” he says.

For Good also called for the creation of a wedding dress for Glinda,who informs Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) that the two are to marry.”That was a collaboration with Ariana, just thinking about where she wanted Glinda to be emotionally for this wedding,” says Tazewell of the final design. “It’s simplified some, so that it gave her more vulnerability with bare shoulders and arms.”

A Deep Dive into the costumes of Wicked

“What is a heroic wool and gold braid turns into sackcloth, and then the gold braid transforms to straw embroidery,” Tazewell explains of Fiyero’s uniform, which is originally adorned with bullion banding and embroidery and based on the clothing worn by Hungarian hussar cavalrymen in the 15th and 16th centuries.

“The intent was to have this world of Oz feel as original as possible,” says Tazewell of his Wicked wardrobe reimaginings, “like a world we’ve never seen before.”