Fans of the ABC’s Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries can get up close and personal with sets, props and especially, the series’ gorgeous frocks, hats, coats and suits at a new exhibition open now in Melbourne, writes JANICE BREEN BURNS.
(Longform post; allow 8 minutes read time)
Photographs: Every Cloud Productions, The National Trust of Australia (Victoria), Style.com , and Monty Coles www.theloupe.org
There was a lushness about fashion in the late 1920s and early 1930s, a sense of drama rarely matched since. Fabrics were picked to flutter or sparkle, or suck light into their deep, velvety pile. They fell fluidly into folds, or were doubled or weighted with embellishments to sway glamourously as a woman walked, to slap elegantly around her stockinged calves and ankles. Sound familiar? In fact, the same aesthetic is cresting in fashion now: column and dropped-waist dresses with below-the-knee and mid-calf hemlines, wide-legged culottes and trousers, and gilets, knits and duster coats – fingertip length and longer – worn as outer layers, belted into the waist or flapping open to accentuate soft, vertical lines.
It’s a lush, sporty look with masculine undertones and, in truth, if award-winning costumier Marion Boyce were to design a contemporary fashion collection based on the Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries Costume exhibition opening at Rippon Lea tomorrow, she’d probably sell out in a flash.
“This is my favourite period,” Ms. Boyce says, “The coats, the afternoon tea frocks, the whole ensembles, the way people dressed up, made the effort for every occasion…” Ms. Boyce has worked on MFMM since production company, Every Cloud’s first 13-part series in 2012. It is based on Australian author Kerry Greenwood’s books chronicling the fabulous, crime-solving life of Phryne (pronounced “fry-nee”) Fisher, lady detective. The third MFMM series begins screening on ABC TV, 8.30 pm. Friday, May 8 but its costumes, including an extravagant gold showgirl playsuit worn by Phryne (Essie Davis) and poetically typical of the Art Deco period, are on display at The National Trust of Australia’s Rippon Lea House, supported by a dense programme of floor talks, walks, dinners, even a high tea until mid June.
Photo, Monty Coles
For Marion Boyce, the task of conjuring costumes for MFMM’s vast range of characters, triggered a deep research project into its post-Depression era. “We had to look at everything; the art, paintings, the galleries, the architecture, the way people lived,” she says. “Everything meant something: we walked differently then, we were smaller, our shapes were different, our social morays were quite different. Even colours were different, the composition of fabrics was different…” Fashion itself was different, even though parellels can be drawn, particularly with luxury collections, now. “Garments didn’t have the darts, the construction lines we have now,” Ms. Boyce says. “And, creating that swing; a lot of fabrics that were fine, diaphonous, had to have decoration to add that weight or, sometimes we get that heaviness by inserting godets, twin panels, or with bias cutting.”
Marion Boyce with Essie Davis as The Honorable Phryne Fisher, lady detective
Ms. Boyce saw leading lady Phryne Fisher; “like a hurricane, in perpetual motion” and designed her wardrobe to sway, swing and flutter. In one scene, her lavish, fur-trimmed stole (faux, to appease conservationists) becomes a dramatic prop as Phryne animates it with every gesture and finally, drops it nonchalantly on the ground. “That’s what I love about Phryne,” says Ms. Boyce, “She’s a woman of aplomb, there’s a nonchalance about her, a cool reserve….” These days the glossy-bobbed femme fatale might also be described as “hot”, but Ms. Boyce is careful how she conveys this by her clothing. Sex simmers, rather than pops in the frocks Ms. Boyce designs and makes for Phryne. “It (her ensembles) have to create a complete picture, very much a part of the time,” she says. “There’s her flamboyance, but also I have to reflect her social standing in the world. Her father was Lord Fisher remember.”
Accessories such as handbags, belts, jewellery and some robust coats and jackets, are the only original 1920s and 1930s wardrobe items Ms. Boyce sources for the series; the rest are made from scratch. The reason is simple expedience. “We make 90 per cent,” Ms. Boyce says, “Because the originals are nearly 100 years old now; often very delicate, damaged or tarnished, or just the wrong size.”
Photo, Monty Coles
She begins every costume very much in the manner of a couturier, by draping fabric on a mannequin, pinching and pinning it intuitively with what she knows of the character. Phryne’s Aunt Prudence, for example, is a matronly dowager played by Miriam Margoyles. Dorothy Williams is Phyrne’s courageous, but very prim and devoutly Catholic assistant, played by Ashleigh Cummings. “There’s a moral correctness about Dot that works beautifully with Phryne’s flamboyance,” Ms. Boyce says. The balance is crucial as she conjures the complete ensembles for for both. “That’s one of the best parts about this; designing ensembles,” she says, “Every single piece of that outfit, every feather dyed-to-match, shoes, hat, everything creates a complete picture of the character and the time…”
Miss Fisher’s Costume Exhibition, including props and sets from the series, opens to the public tomorrow at Rippon Lea House and Gardens, 192 Hotham Street, Elsternwick. Tickets $20, or $17 for National Trust Members. A Festival of Phryne including special events, a dinner and high tea, and talks with Marion Boyce, Kerrie Greenwood and producers and crew from the series, will also run until mid-June. Click here for details and here for the Miss Fisher’s online store.
