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Behind the seams of the ‘Dressmaker’ hit film

Kate Winslet as “Tilly” in the striking red dress she wears to distract a rival footy team with her glamour.

WHEN Kate Winslet first steps on camera in Jocelyn Moorhouse’s film, “The Dressmaker”, she’s in the outback town of Dungatar dressed immaculately in the Dior “New Look”, a black dress and coat, with a broad-brimmed hat and white gloves.

That’s what film producer Sue Maslin calls “visual irony” and it becomes a running joke in the wacky revenge-comedy based on Rosalie Ham’s 2000 book of the same name, where at one silly point, most of the town’s women are draped in Paris fashion of the 1950s.

“The idea was for me to create something contrasting or out of place, like the black dress of the opening scene – Jocelyn wanted that emphasis,” says AFI-winning costume designer Margot Wilson, who created Winslet’s elegant look.

Now the National Film and Sound Archive is turning the spotlight on the costumes from the hit film in a glimpse “behind the seams” at haute couture fashions worn by actors Kate Winslet, Sarah Snook, Judy Davis, Rebecca Gibney and even Hugo Weaving, who plays a cross-dressing policeman.

Couture as a weapon is the key image adopted by director Moorhouse who, on first reading Ham’s book, was struck by the notion of the Singer sewing machine as a weapon of revenge.

The film hit the spot with Australian audiences, becoming the second highest-grossing Australian film of 2015 and eleventh highest-grossing film of all time at the Australian box office. This show has already been seen in many parts of regional Australia, where it has been packed out, mostly by women.

“It’s not a straight comedy, people don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” Maslin tells “CityNews”, describing it as “a kind of cross between a Sergio Leone western and [the Mexican magic-realist film] ‘Like Water for Chocolate’.”

With dress as such a powerful metaphor, it was essential to get exactly the right look for the central “outsider” character, Myrtle “Tilly” Dunnage. So while the rest of the costumes were designed by Boyce, Maslin headhunted Wilson to create Winslet’s frocks.

Wilson had already enjoyed a brilliant international career in film and TV, working with director John Hillcoat on “The Proposition”, “The Road” and “Triple Nine”, which also starred Winslet.

“The best dress designers have their own distinctive style, so it made sense to have a separate costume designer for her character,” Maslin says.

“We wanted it to be visually clear,” Wilson agrees. “It’s so hilarious and so ridiculous what Tilly brings to that town.”

It was easy for Wilson to put herself into the shoes of “Tilly”, who learns her trade in Paris, spending time in the great fashion houses.

Raised in suburban Frenchs Forest, Wilson would follow her mother into Farmer’s store and lose herself smelling the fabrics, then make her own clothes, causing her father to ask: “God, you’re not going to let her go out like that, are you?”

Later she was to discover that her grandmother had been on stage and that her great grandmother had made the costumes.

“I left school at 16 because I knew exactly what I wanted to do,” she says. She enrolled in a four-year TAFE fashion course at East Sydney Tech, later teaching part-time fashion and history of costume. She won a scholarship to go to Paris where she was able to work in the houses of Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and Kenzo and, while there, was determined to make a move on the film industry.

Easier said than done. She sent out 150 resumes to different companies, getting just four negative replies saying she was overqualified.

Eventually Australian TV producer Camilla Rountree came good, offering her a job designing a skirt and blouse for a washing machine advertisement. It snowballed from there and by working with seasoned costume designers such as Jennie Tate, she learnt the trade.

Wilson initiates “CityNews” into the secrets of creating costumes. She uses a specialist cutter in Sydney and also a draper. The former uses a flat pattern, the other drapes on to a dummy, both take measurements, but in a different way. With the voluptuous figure of Winslet to dress, both approaches are essential. As for cut, while creating costumes for the athletic Essie Davis in “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries”, Wilson devised a 1930s costume with 45 seams.

She and Moorhouse agreed on basic aesthetics.

“The landscape was so parched and dry, so beautiful, that my costumes would contrast with the browns of the site,” she says. The decision was made not to put Tilly into patterns, but to use rich, jewel-like colours where possible for the 15 or so costumes she made.

Wilson rummaged around and she found a vintage red silk moire taffeta yardage she’d bought in Milan 25 years ago. That became the striking red dress Tilly wears when she walks into a footie match where she distracts the rival team with her glamour, soon changing into an even slinkier long, black gown.

“Those dresses had a certain amount of humour within them,” she says.

Curated by designer Marion Boyce, who was responsible for the non-Winslet costumes, the exhibition at the NFSA is expected to pack out, at least with women, who will relate to both the magic of fashion and the sad recognition that even in 2019, haute couture would cause a sensation in any Aussie country town.

“The Dressmaker” Costume Exhibition, National Film and Sound Archive, April 18-August 18. Bookings at nfsa.gov.au

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