Tune in for sex, scandal and high fashion stakes
SHE WAS THE woman who once stopped traffic – literally – as crowds gathered just to get a glimpse of her wedding dress. Thirty years after that, in 1963, it was her sex life dominating headlines as she endured a very public (and scandalous) divorce trial. Now, Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, is the subject of BBC One’s Boxing Day drama, A Very British Scandal, which revolves around said trial and the media circus that went with it. Claire Foy plays the duchess, Paul Bettany her duke and, while they both give stellar performances, they’re almost upstaged by their incredible costumes.
For Ian Fulcher, the show’s costume designer, it was never his intention to simply replicate Margaret’s outfits. Instead, he says he was looking for the ‘essence’ of her, seen in the fitted silhouettes, smattering of animal prints and sumptuous fabrics of silk and Venetian wool. ‘I kept the silhouette figure-hugging because it was about her being empowered in her sexuality,’ Fulcher says. If that sounds very modern, that’s because this story is one for our time.
The climax of the drama involves the Duke of Argyll initiating divorce proceedings after stealing his wife’s private diaries, letters and explicit photographs, including one in which she was having sex with an unknown man. This led to a national scandal, predictably dominated by sexist attitudes towards female sexuality – attitudes that haven’t entirely vanished from contemporary society. In fact, this case is now considered one of the first examples of revenge porn, something increasingly prevalent today. Last year, the UK’S revenge porn helpline saw its busiest year on record, with the amount of images it deals with increasing by as much as 60%.
‘You could go from being the most beautiful woman stopping traffic to dying penniless in a nursing home and people will still call you “the blow-job duchess”,’ says Sarah Phelps, writer of the show. ‘Women are held to a different standard all the time. I also thought a lot about Meghan Markle, just in terms of how much the modern press goes for her all the time and compares her with Kate. Why are [they] considered fair game because they’re in the public eye?’
The duchess’s defiance in the face of such scandal is reflected in what she wears. Throughout, it is clear that her clothes – from her high-waisted trousers worn with silk blouses to her impeccably tailored suits – are her armour, protecting her against the outside forces she fights so hard to control. During the six-week shoot, Fulcher says there were 85 costume changes for Claire alone, all of which – with the exception of the knitwear, which was sourced from vintage stores – were made especially for her. ‘The duchess stuck two fingers up to the world,’ says Fulcher. ‘She’s sexy and sometimes that is looked down on. But why? We should embrace sex.’