I want to talk about costume inspiration for some individual characters. Let’s start with Mrs. Harris. Her look is in stark contrast to the flashy world of Dior. Did you look a lot at what women wore during that time?
Well, she’s a cleaner, and she doesn’t have much money, but she hopes that her Eddie will come home. [from the war], so she will keep herself nice. Everyone did then. They take care of their clothes. They don’t have much. I love doing floral things, and both are vintage, aprons and skirts. They are just facts. So that first look when she held the dress and she was all floral became her signature look, and everything else emanated from that. When she went to Paris, she borrowed [André’s] sister’s clothes. Sandrine we call her sister. We decided to create a character entirely of this woman, André’s older sister, who works at Dior and is a bit boring but studious. I mean his job as an accountant was boring but clearly much more interesting in his existential life. The thing is always trying to make sure the story is true to the truth. But really, what’s interesting is that if we put Lesley Manville in the outfit from start to finish, she’d be like Sandrine. If we kept Lesley’s shoes and socks, she’d look like Mrs. Harris wearing Sandrine’s clothes, and that was super important to me, and I still love that moment.
Her floral hat is another signature. Where did that thing come from?
I think the hat is mentioned in the novel. Honestly, what I do with the hats, because they’re so personal to everyone… I think we had a great fit wearing Lesley’s wigs so we could really try on the ones. different hats, and we had to make two. I can’t remember why. Is that something we have to double down on? And again, getting the stuff to do it was hard at the time, so I searched all over the boxes of fake flowers. It’s a hat that fits Lesley and is the kind of hat you’ll most likely have and say again, like the ladies at Jane Austen who always trim their hats. With flowers, I instinctively do if that’s what the character likes.
