In the final episode of the first season of The Handmaid’s Tale, Elisabeth Moss, as the protagonist Offred, delivers a line that perfectly encapsulates the underlying themes of the series, as well as the potentially paradoxical psychological effects of its costumes:
“They should never have given us uniforms if they didn’t want us to be an army.”
That scene sprang to mind on Monday, walking into the SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film in Atlanta, where an exhibition opens this week dedicated to the powerful, message-laden costumes created for The Handmaid’s Tale by the fabulously gifted designer Ane Crabtree. “Dressing for Dystopia,” as the exhibition is called, faithfully recreates the color-defined class aesthetics of the series and details its adaptation from the 1985 Margaret Atwood novel. Darkly lit displays represent the uniforms of the Handmaids, the Marthas, the Unwomen, and the sinister Aunts (one mannequin comes complete with her wicked cruel taser-baton).
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