Fit in Action: Gunslinger with a Singer

In the opening scene of The Dressmaker, Kate Winslet rolls into town like an outlaw or sheriff of old—in the best westerns such distinctions aren’t immediately clear. The modern-day stagecoach deposits her in the middle of the night in the middle of a dusty street, where her belongings and weaponry are deposited next to her as the bus disappears. We see battered luggage stir up the dust, followed quickly by a singer sewing machine. She chomps on a cigarette, scowling as she surveys the deserted platform, the dark clapboards surrounding it. As Tilly Dunnage, she has everything to prove, a long list of scores to settle, and a mystery to solve. Her weapon? Fashion. Tilly will bring the town to its knees with what she can do with her sewing machine.

It’s an odd movie in many ways, with sudden shifts in tone that left me scratching my head. That said, Tilly’s fictional and in my imho, very real opinion is that a dress can change your life. Those of us who got married in a wedding dress cannot entirely dismiss that idea. Prom dresses have served various purposes as well. And there are other outfits one can recall that started a conversation or served as armor during a battle we had to win. I still remember what I wore to divorce court.

But in this instance, she is getting at something deeper than memory: Tilly is the catalyst for transformation. When she starts making clothing for the local female population—and assisting the cross-dressing Sheriff with his sequin fix—what emerges are the selves they want to be and were maybe too confused, concerned, or cowed to become.

For instance, former schoolmate Gert has been uglified according to the Hollywood playbook, no discernable hairstyle other than “I woke up this way,” bad glasses, shapeless dun-colored dresses. She confronts Tilly after her first dress—a bias-cut red number—stopped play at the local rugby game.

“A dress can’t change anything,” she sniffs.

“Watch and learn, Gert,” Tilly says, as she adjusts the black wrap over her new outfit. “Watch and learn.” Game on—and over for the opposing rugby team who cannot take their eyes off of Tilly. She removes the black wrap to reveal her couture creation underneath—a black dress and gloves that call to mind the gown Rita Hayworth wore as she sang “Put the Blame on Mame” in the film Gilda (a style of dress, it should be noted, that cleverly enhanced both Hayworth and Winslet post-pregnancy).

Ever look at pictures from the 40s and 50s and wondered why everybody looked so crazy stylish? Black and white photography only gets part of the credit. The rest goes to the sewing skills of our forebears and the fact that many either made their own clothes or had them altered to fit them specifically.

For Tilly, that is the beginning: fit. And, as a designer, she has an uncanny ability to see straight into the souls of those who seek out her skill. They think they are getting a dress, but really they are getting a mirror to the person they want to be and see.

That’s what clothing can do. But fit is the first step to transformation. She takes the townspeople’s measurements as she takes the measure of their character, their dreams, their fears. The film makes clear that as much as her ability as a designer has transformed Kate, it started out as a skill—her mother had taught her to sew, and she had taken it from there. She trained her eye. She learned how to transform cloth into statement, how to weave perfection in an imperfect world full of troubled people.

In other words, transformation requires skill—and skills can be taught. Whether or not we can sew like Tilly, we can learn to see ourselves with her eyes, to see and be the person we want to show the world.