Dorothy's shimmering red slippers have become synonymous with The Wizard of Oz, but fans shouldn't expect to see the character sporting the ruby footwear in Wicked: For Good. Viewers were given a glimpse of Dorothy from behind in 2024's Wicked, directed by Jon M. Chu, as she was seen walking along the Yellow Brick Road with her dog, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man. Noticeably missing from her feet were the sparkling red heels, which were also absent from the trailers for 2025's Wicked: For Good. But that wasn't the only bombshell revelation about Dorothy in the latest iteration of the franchise. Chu revealed before the Wicked sequel's release that fans would not be seeing Dorothy's face in the movie at all. "I didn't want to step on who you think Dorothy is in whatever story that you came into this with," Chu told People in April 2025, explaining that Wicked: For Good "is still Elphaba and Glinda's journey, and she is a pawn in the middle of all of it." How Do 'Wicked' and 'The Wizard of Oz' Connect? Us Explains Scroll below to find out why Dorothy's slippers aren't red in Wicked: What Color Are Dorothy's Shoes in 'Wicked'? Dorothy sports silver slippers in Wicked and Wicked: For Good. Why Dorothy's Slippers Aren't Red in 'Wicked' and the Sequel Dorothy's slippers originated more than 100 years ago and are rich in history. MGM produced 1939's groundbreaking musical fantasy, The Wizard of Oz, which was based on the 1900 L. Frank Baum novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Nearly a century after the book's release, Gregory Maguire wrote the first of his novels in The Wicked Years series in 1995, titled Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. In Baum's version of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy's slippers were silver. Similarly, in The Wicked Years, Dorothy's shoes were also silver. However, in MGM's The Wizard of Oz film, she famously donned ruby slippers "to take advantage of new Technicolor technology," according to the National Museum of American History. The movie was "recognized for its extensive use of Technicolor," which is the "motion-picture process using dye-transfer techniques to produce a color print," per Britannica. Simply put, the silver slippers in Wicked are a nod to the original book. When it came to the reimagining of Dorothy in Wicked, Chu was asked whether the lack of red slippers had anything to do with copyrights owned by MGM. "We had boundaries of what we could reference or not. We never use the ruby slippers," Chu told Variety in November 2024. "Nessa has on crystal slippers as in the Frank L. Baum book, Gregory Maguire book and the show." Chu pointed out another detail in Wicked that was different from The Wizard of Oz. "I don't think the phrase 'yellow brick road' is copywritten, but definitely the shape of the road is," he said. "We couldn't do the spiral. We had to do a circle that continues to show it's not where the road ends." Wicked's Costume Designer Weighed In on Dorothy's Shoe Color Paul Tazewell, the costume designer for Wicked, also wanted to stay true to the original novel when it came to choosing the color of Dorothy's footwear. "They're not ruby," Tazewell told People in November 2024 of the shoes. "In the book, they were these odd little silver boots." He added, "There's the idea of Cinderella and the glass slipper, and then it's like how we make shoes a myth and how we've indulged them into our fantasy fairy tale storytelling. In the book they were silver shoes, and then they became crystal and silver shoes." Chu further spoke about the design of Dorothy's shoes in Wicked in bonus commentary featured in the digital release of the movie. "If you look at the crystal shoes, it's designed to look like two tornadoes, or a tornado on each heel. And it's beautiful," he noted. Chu continued, "I don't even know how it fits or if it's even comfortable, because it doesn't look very comfortable. I've never tried it on, but it's beautiful."