Discover the chintz: the long floral dresses at the heart of Women Talking

Women Talking, Sarah Polley's film about women's responses to a serial rapist in a Mennonite community, is by no means a "fashion movie". Yet while the clothes are far from the main takeaway, the long, dark floral dresses worn by the cast - including Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley and Frances McDormand, all of whom are nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a movie this weekend The Screen Actors Guild Awards – seems to ring, incongruously, with fashion. Specifically, the "cottagecore" trend that has made long, flowery dresses and pastoral living a feature of Instagram feeds in recent years.

Traditional Mennonite communities often live in outside of society in general. The film's costume designer, Quita Alfred, thinks we're fascinated by these communities with "an out of place nostalgia." She adds: “There is a judgment, for sure. Que: 'Oh, we can do whatever we want. Aren't we modern? And aren't we smart? I certainly do not exclude myself from this judgment. I think maybe the good side of nostalgia is the longing for a simpler time. »

Alfred and Polley have known each other for over 30 years. The costume designer worked with the actor as a child in the early 90s, on the television series Road to Avonlea, based on the novels by LM Montgomery. The clothing that the characters wear in the show - long floral dresses - bears some similarities to those worn by women in traditional Mennonite communities.

Both women noticed this connection when they started working on the film, as well as how the aesthetic is having a moment in fashion, thanks to a genteel view of pastoral life via vintage Laura Ashley dresses and "tablescaping," which flourished during the pandemic.

"When we began ence, Sarah and I were in touch via email and I kept sending her pictures of Vogue and fr om She says "Have we started?"

Alfred points out that this isn't the first time that old-fashioned ruffles and florals have come into fashion. "When I was a kid in the mid-1970s, the Holly Hobbie, Little House on the Prairie thing was huge," she says. She remembers wearing floral summer dresses with her mother on vacation in the mid-'70s. "We were waiting for a coach and someone said, 'I don't know, maybe it's Mennonites or something. thing like that?", because we were in our matching calico dresses."

Alfred says the costumes in the movie "are 100% accurate. There was no need to take out a film license for us in this film. But also, it was out of respect… [during the research] I was brought into a world that, as a non-Mennonite, I wouldn't have had access to. »