Women Talking, Sarah Polley’s film about women’s responses to a serial rapist within a Mennonite community, is inn no way a “fashion film”. Yet, while the clothes are far from the principal takeaway, the long, dark floral dresses worn by the cast – including Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley and Frances McDormand,who are all nominated for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture at this weekend’s Screen Actors Guild awards – seem to chime, incongruously, with fashion.
Traditional Mennonite communities often live outside mainstream society. The film’s costume designer, Quita Alfred, thinks we are fascinated by these communities because of “a misplaced nostalgia”. She adds: “There’s a judgment, for sure. That: ‘Oh, we get to do whatever we want. Aren’t we modern? And aren’t we clever?’ I’m certainly not excluding myself from this judgment. I think maybe the good side of the nostalgia is a longing for a simpler time.”
