Sometimes all it takes to turn a girl into a princess is some good ol’-fashioned fairy godmother magic. 

In The Crown Season 6, Part 2, Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy) secures her royal future when she stuns a smitten Prince William (Ed McVey) in a daring shift dress and black lingerie. In the series, Kate’s transformation is thanks to a student designer and a charity fashion show, but on set, the true godmother magic came from the costume designers, hair and makeup artists, a movement coach — and a roll of sheer fabric. 

“It was so exciting and very surreal because it is such an iconic dress,” Bellamy told Netflix about the moment she slipped into her costume for the first time. “The day filming was really great, because you had music blasting and everyone’s cheering, so it was a really good atmosphere.” How did The Crown’s team reimagine this memorable catwalk moment for the screen? Well, it required traveling back to 2002, when bare midriffs and springy curls were all the rage.

Justin Downing/Netflix

While Kate is known for her sophisticated royal attire today, it’s easy to forget that the princess was once rocking your average university student Y2K looks. Using the original dress created by student designer Charlotte Todd as the source material, The Crown’s lead costume designer Amy Roberts and associate designer Sidonie Roberts put their own spin on the garment. To bring their version to life, the duo layered brown and gold net fabric, finishing it off with a blue band at the top, and blue ribbon woven just above the dress’ hemline to create a sleek silhouette. “That [dress] was deliberate,” says Amy Roberts. “She wore that to catch William’s attention — that dress is not hiding anything.” 

Stepping onto the runway in a revealing dress would be a daunting prospect for anyone, but could be particularly nerve-wracking for a newcomer actor. However, Bellamy says that seeing the design process made it all the less intimidating. “We did lots of fittings in stages [with] very intricate details from the costume department, like layering different levels of mesh and stuff like that,” she tells Tudum. “It was really interesting to see that behind-the-scenes part of it. Everyone makes sure you’re so comfortable and it’s so fun.”

Sidonie Roberts adds that it’s always interesting to watch an actor’s process as they adjust to the role. “The longer they inhabit a character, the more comfortable they become,” she tells Tudum. “[Meg] gained so much confidence in the character the way she wore it.”

But the dress is just one part of Kate’s memorable moment — no runway look is complete without hair and makeup. Cate Hall, The Crown’s head hair and makeup artist, also pulled inspiration from images of Kate’s original fashion show look. Hall says the key to creating Kate was nailing the eye makeup and that Emily Young, co-hair and makeup designer, knew exactly how to perfect it. 

“Emily is absolutely renowned for using about seven different eyeliners on every single human being in a very, very technical and creative way to very subtly change their eye shape,” says Hall. “It was a bit of a running joke in the department when you’d inherit an actor from Emily, and you’d be looking at the notes being like, ‘So, there’s another different eyeliner.’ ” 

Hall says they also relied heavily on mascara to alter Bellamy’s eye shape. “Meg has very feline eyes, and Kate’s are very round and doe-eyed,” she explains. “So it matters where you concentrate the mascara because what you’re trying not to do is to elongate the lashes at each end, but to try to concentrate on that round shape and shading underneath and in the middle.”

For Kate’s hair, the team had fun creating a “ladder piece,” weaving strips of hair together to make Bellamy’s natural hair appear bigger and longer. “What was kind of cool was that Kate Middleton’s hair in that fashion show wasn’t done by professionals,” says Hall, which gave them more freedom. With high-end hair tools, the hair and makeup artists played around with the early aughts hairstyle, landing on an updated look to Middleton’s original curls.

The student-led aspect of the fashion show also allowed movement coach Polly Bennett to experiment with the character’s runway walk. “None of the people in the catwalk needed to be professional models, let alone Meg,” Bennett tells Tudum. “Keeping that roughness speaks to the idea of a student catwalk. People didn’t have a huge amount of rehearsal and weren’t perhaps as aware as we are nowadays about what we look like online. There were no smartphones and there was less photography, so the way that you exist in those situations is different.” Smartphones might not have been a thing in 2002, but the image of Kate’s runway look has been seen far and wide and truly become part of the royal zeitgeist. On the show, it also kicks off Kate and William’s romance.

McVey didn’t get to see Bellamy in her runway look prior to filming the scene, which paid off when the cameras captured his authentic reaction in the moment. “Actually what you see was the first couple of takes of me just being wowed by her,” McVey tells Tudum. “She walked with such grace, and she killed it.”

Watch The Crown Season 6 now.