@fantasia

The costume is kind of growing on me as well. The pictures we have now look closer to armor and chain mail and I like that look better. Maybe the costume will be longer and I would not mind that so much. I think I will grow to like this costume by the time of the movie but, I am hoping we will see the real costume on Emma Mackey soon. 

Posted by: @icarus

When she's in Charn, the costume will be more ornate.

Posted by: @cobalt-jade

I think Gerwig sees Jadis as more of a conqueror and General than a monarch who watches the battle from up on the parapet.

Bolding on Icarus's post is mine. I totally misinterpretted your post originally, but I just clued in, and I think you may be spot on. Cobalt-Jade's post helped me figure it out.

@Eustace, I'm glad I'm not alone.  

I'll have to wait and see the actual costume in the context of the movie before passing judgment, but something that is bugging me is the general look — short choppy hair cut, silvery armor and chain mail — almost has Joan of Arc vibes.

Which is completely the wrong vibe! 

It also reminds me of a Joan of Arc-inspired look at the Met Gala seven years ago (interestingly, Greta Gerwig was also in attendance that year).

My hope is that we're only seeing bits and pieces of the real costume here, but as it is, it definitely doesn't feel like something a witch-empress would wear. Usually the heroes are the ones in the bright shining outfits.  

@rose, you don't get more Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra vibes from the short hair and that smoky eye shadow?

Not to mention the scaly texture on the dress:

Posted by: @icarus

@rose, you don't get more Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra vibes from the short hair and that smoky eye shadow?

It's specifically the combination of the short choppy haircut and the silver armor look that's giving me the Joan of Arc vibes. If you change one of those elements, it wouldn't have the same effect, IMO.

Plus, the hair style on the stunt double is much more of a punk/rock look (yay, there's rock and roll again  )  than it is Cleopatra-inspired, I think, which is typically a blunt bob like Elizabeth Taylor has in the photo.

I wish I were kidding, but the hair and makeup basically looks exactly like Chrissie Hynde in the 1982 music video for Back on the Chain Gang by The Pretenders.

Hoping the look makes more sense in the context of the movie, because right now the visual cues feel pretty confusing.

Perhaps Jadis cut her hair when she came to earth? Like she wanted to fit in, or it kept getting caught in stuff, or there were no slaves to give her the hairdoes she wanted, so she chopped it off?

Hah, maybe she went to a beauty parlor and told the hairdresser to "make her beautiful" and they gave her a modern haircut... and she was horrified by it so she leapt out of the chair before it could be styled and set!

Posted by: @rose

Hoping the look makes more sense in the context of the movie, because right now the visual cues feel pretty confusing.

I'm concerned that so far, as a few of us here have said, it really does look like something from a really cheesy sci-fi production or pop music video from somewhere between the late 1960s and early '80s, or so. Or a parody of one of those. It definitely doesn't make Jadis look like someone we're meant to take seriously. Which raises even more questions about the whole tone of the movie in general. But, once again, we can only wait and see... 

I think the reason so many fans are disappointed by the costumes is that one of the first things C. S. Lewis emphasizes about the royalty of Charn is that they have cool clothes. 

This time Polly took the lead. There was something in this room which interested her more than it interested Digory: all the figures were wearing magnificent clothes. If you were interested in clothes at all, you could hardly help going in to see them closer. And the blaze of their colours made this room look, not exactly cheerful, but at any rate rich and majestic after all the dust and emptiness of the others. It had more windows, too, and was a good deal lighter.
I can hardly describe the clothes. The figures were all robed and had crowns on their heads. Their robes were of crimson and silvery grey and deep purple and vivid green: and there were patterns, and pictures of flowers and strange beasts, in needlework all over them. Precious stones of astonishing size and brightness stared from their crowns and hung in chains round their necks and peeped out from all the places where anything was fastened.

And Jadis is described as being "even more richly dressed than the others." When I read that and look at the stunt double's costume, it almost makes me angry.