How a Winnipeg costume designer created might for the muted in adaptation of Miriam Toews's Women Talking

In many ways, Quita Alfred was designed to bring directorSarah Polley'svision to life on the big screen.

Theinternationally renowned costume designer says her various worlds collided when she was contacted in January 2021 about working on the film Women Talking, an adaptation of the novel by Manitoba-born Miriam Toews that's set for wide release this month in Canada, after screening at film festivals last year.

Alfred wasinitially contacted by filmproducer Lyn Lucibello, and "when I heard that Sarah was involved I really thought I was being pranked," she said.

A tearfully joyful reunion withPolleyon a Zoom call followed.

Alfred was an assistant costume designer on the CBCTVseries Road to Avonlea, which featured a young Polley in a leading role from 1990-94.

"I hadn't spoken to Sarah in many, many years but I had watched her from afar develop into a wonderful artist and human being," Alfred said. "Sarah is such a brilliant mind. I would follow her anywhere."

Alfredgrew up in Winnipeg but moved to Toronto in 1982 to study theatre production.She now splits her time between the two citiesto be around her parents, who still live in Winnipeg.

During the call with Polley, she found out the film was an adaptation of the novel by Steinbach-bornToews, another Manitoban turned Torontonian.

"Miriam's one of my favourite writers so I was even more intrigued,"Alfred said, notingWomen Talking was one of the only books byToews that she hadn't yet read something sheimmediately remedied.

The story follows a multi-generational group of eightwomen grapplingwith the aftermath of being repeatedly drugged and raped by men in their Mennonite colony. It'sloosely based on real-life events at the Manitoba Colony, an ultraconservative Mennonite communityinBolivia.

Alfred happened to be in Winnipeg during that call with Polley, who had no idea the designerwas from southern Manitoba an area with a large Mennonite population.

"I said, 'I'm looking out my front window at my Mennonite neighbours as we speak,'" said Alfred, who is not Mennonite herself.

"My teachers, my colleagues, my teammates, my friends and schoolmates [while growing up], many of them are Mennonites. The culture has a lot of history here."

'Graciousness'in Mennonite community

After accepting therole of principal costume designer, sheturned to Toews's backyardfor insight in dressing the actors, visiting Mennonite communities before eventually heading back to southern Ontario, where the film was shot.

"By doing that, I had a world open to me that I would never have had access to otherwise," Alfred said.

Through a few phone callsshe met Mary Anne Hildebrand, who lives inWinkler, a southern Manitoba city with a significant Mennonite population.

"My job was to go into the community and find people to connect with Quita people who were of either [of] Mexican Mennonite origin or Bolivian," saidHildebrand, a social worker by trade and Mennonite by birth.

"I didn't go into this without concerns, because I had wonderedtogether with Quitahow open people would be [wanting]to want to talk about this, knowing that a movie would be made about them, and how sensitive that would be.Would they even want to talk about theirculture to us?"

WATCH | Quita Alfred explains how she chose fabric to express character:

Quita Alfred talks about designing costumes for Women Talking film

2 years ago

Duration 4:49

Quita Alfred, the principle costume designer for the film Women Talking, relied on her Manitoba roots to research and design the dresses to be as culturally sensitive as possible, yet still express individual characters.

What they found, though, waspeople eager to share their heritage and knowledge, along with their sewingmethods and the reasons behind those methods,Alfred said.

"Everywhere I went, this happened in the community this graciousness, kindness and helpfulness."

One person was a fabric store owner who had authentic Mennonite clothing materials and patterns decades old and carefully stored in paper from which Alfred studied cuts, stitching, buttons and pockets.

She could have copied designsfrom pictures, and they would have looked similar, butthey would have lacked the accuracy that reflects the cultural significance,Alfred said.

The conservativeMennonite styleplain dress features modest designs of sturdy fabric, intended to show gender roles and communal identity. Alfred met with people familiar with plain dress, including somewho lived in conservative Mennonite communities.

'Almost subliminally represent character'

The challenge was to find the nuances within those strict and narrow parameters in order to establish unique identities for the characters.

"I had to choose fabric and textures and colours and scale of pattern to almost subliminally represent character," Alfred said.

Polley and the film's cinematographer wanted a look reminiscent of an old postcardnot quite sepia toned or black and white, "but as though the world in which these women lived was becoming something of the past, and that perhaps their choices could move them into something more contemporary," Alfred said, describing it as a "desaturated palette."

Alfred found her materials in Winnipeg's Marshall Fabrics, but more specifically, a back section known as the "colony wholesale." There, she decided how to divide the film's families into "moods" through colour.

The Friesens are defined by pure tones of purples and blues and repetitive patterns on a small scale, something Alfred describes as electric and implying forward motion.

For the Loewens, she was drawn to more natural colours like greens and browns, with more irregular and loose patterns of swirls "that spoke of murkiness, and perhapsdeep troubled waters," Alfred said.

"All of those Loewen women did have a lot of unexpressed emotions going on, whereas the Friesens were somewhat more outspoken."

For the film's Janzfamily the most conservativeAlfred turned to the colour of rust, implying "immovability or things that had died and not moved for a long time."

Then there wasthe body augmentation unseen by the audience, added to help the actors alter their physicality.

"None of those women have had 10 children and lived on a farm their entire lives and done backbreaking work. They wanted to experience living in bodies that weren't like their own," Alfred said.

Restrictive garments, like compression wraps, gavethe actors the sense they needed support after multiple births. For others, oversized clothes suggested poor health and that they had withered within the garment, Alfred said.

Jessie Buckley, who playsMariche, carried rocks in her pocket to remind herself of the character's need to defend herself.

"Little things like thathelped me help the actors get what they wanted out of these very simple dresses," Alfred said.

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