Jenna Ortega Admits Wednesday Addams Influenced Her Personal Style

Those who have been following Jenna Ortega’s career for awhile may have noticed a slight shift in her wardrobe choices over the past few months. The Wednesday actress has seemingly let the role really permeate her style to the point where it has become hard to discern some of her own personal looks from Netflix’s costume choices, and Ortega has seen it too.

“I do think that Wednesday changed my taste a lot,” the actress recently told InStyle. “I have a hard time getting her off of me, at least clothing-wise.” It wasn’t long ago that Ortega was in head-to-toe Valentino pink at the Met Gala, or in a pastel floral Raisa Vanessa dress at the Emma. premiere. These days, one might not even recognize the actress in those looks, she has become so synonymous with black, edgy style.

Of course, the most obvious example of the change is the Versace spring 2023 dress the actress wore to the premiere of Wednesday last November. Ortega and her stylist, Enrique Melendez, fully embraced the show’s dark theme with the help of a black lace-adorned slip dress complete with a matching veil.

“The Versace dress was definitely something that we were planning in terms of, ‘OK, how do we make this gothic, but not doing too much or trying too hard?’” Ortega said of the look. “And the veil was perfectly teetering on the edge of that. So, it was really fun for me.”

Since then, the actress has continuously embraced the gothic aesthetic, and even when she doesn’t wear her now-signature color of black, that edginess is still prevalent. At the Golden Globes in January, Ortega wore a light brown pleated Gucci gown, the most romantic piece we’d seen her wear in quite awhile with its Grecian ruching and bodice cutouts. But still, there was a darkness to it, likely thanks to Ortega’s choppy cut, the minimalistic silver Tiffany & Co. jewelry, and the icy stare the actress has perfected.

It because of the way she carries these looks that the aesthetic change doesn’t feel forced, but like a natural progression in someone’s personal style. “It's also something that I've always wanted to do,” Ortega said of her new look. “I just never felt like I could. I feel like there were always a lot of voices and opinions that I used to place too much value in.” Ortega is, after all, only 20, and therefore likely still finding out what she likes to wear and what looks good on her. She’s just a rarity in the fact that we can track her style journey from her days wearing colorful, patterned rompers when she was 14 to now, but that doesn’t make her evolution any less authentic.