Dress To Repress

Wives, Aunts, Marthas, Handmaids and Unwomen – there’s a look for each of you in The Handmaid’s Tale.

Dystopian drama The Handmaid’s Tale (2017-current, season 1 can be streamed from Showmax) is like a terrible warning from the future, but it’s a future where they understand that there is nothing we love more than a great show! We witness through flashbacks how the United States became Gilead, a place where women are treated as men’s property and assigned demeaning social roles dictated by appearance and fertility. Head of wardrobe Ane Crabtree (who worked on sci-fi series Westworld, 2016-current) has dressed The Handmaid’s Tale characters in visually striking uniforms to demonstrate how Gilead denies women’s individuality and enforces its rules by stripping away women’s compassion for one another by eroding any common ground between them.

WIFE

Identified by: teal blue uniforms, a colour linked to the Virgin Mary.

Character: Serena (Yvonne Strahovski).