The Ipcress File costumes bringing the 1960s drama to life
How class, history and the 1965 film inspired costume designs for the new series, writes
C‘Clothes back then moulded and shaped the figure in a way they simply don’t anymore’
ertain spy thrillers immerse you so deeply in an era that when you turn off the television, you feel somewhat disappointed to find yourself in Britain in 2022, rather than Cold War Berlin. ITV’S The Ipcress File is one of them, not least because of the sumptuous clothes; Lucy Boynton’s burgundy red skirt suits, turquoise floral evening dresses and baby blue roll-neck coats with a bow at the neck made me want to rewind time and swear off jeans and leggings forever.
The show is set in 1963, before the arrival of Mary Quant’s bottomskimming minis but after the trend for full-skirted, lightly corseted New Look dresses. It was a major turning point in fashion and arguably one of the most stylish periods of the last century. The Ipcress File costume designer Keith Madden – who describes this job as “just the most fun” – agrees, saying it was a rare era where both the male and female silhouettes were flattering, and where tailoring was elegant but no longer restrictive.
Madden used Audrey Hepburn and Jean Shrimpton as inspiration for the brittle but beautiful Jean Courtney, and had most of Boynton’s clothes made, using either his own designs or Vogue patterns from 1962. Vintage stores proved a treasure trove for hats and Madden found an array of tangerine orange and leopard print designs by Dior and Givenchy.
“I realised doing this show that a hat finished every outfit off,” he says, “and when it wasn’t there, the silhouette looked almost incomplete. I tried to use them in every scene I could, and we only ran into difficulty when Lucy was driving those low Sixties cars and couldn’t physically fit inside.”
The luminous Boynton is a bit of a scene stealer, although the men put up a good fight, and their clothes are also beautifully made, spanning the polonecks, tweed jackets and corduroy trousers worn by Joe Cole – who plays Harry Palmer – and the three-piece suits favoured by Tom Hollander’s upper-crust spymaster.
“When you’re designing clothes for this era, one of the first things you have to look at is class,” says Madden, who has also worked on The Courier and On Chesil Beach. “Because Jean is upper-middle class, I had free rein to dress her in the most beautiful designs I could find. She isn’t someone who scuttles in corners with her collar up. She is a spy in plain sight and she gets in the door of so many places purely because of the way she looks.
She’s not just beautiful for the sake of it, it fits the character, the class and the money.”
Conversely, Palmer’s working-class roots made him a more interesting character to dress than the rest of the male cast, who were largely made up of public school-educated spies and government ministers. “Harry’s father was a coal miner, and we wanted to tap into the look of a young man about town from a certain background,” says Madden. “Dalby [Hollander’s character] would never be seen in a poloneck or a pale blue suit – he was absolutely rooted in tradition and stiff tailoring, but with Harry we could play with the corduroy and tweed his working-class father would have worn.”
This was arguably one of the most rapidly evolving fashion periods of the last century (think about the contrast between how women dressed in 1957 and 1967) and Madden was careful to ensure not all the characters wore the latest trends. Anastasia Hille, who plays fellow spy Alice, is 56 and wears full Fifties skirts and neat cardigans. “Once you reach a certain age, you’re less of a slave to fashion and I felt it was important to keep older characters in designs from a few years earlier,” says Madden. “By the same token, I’m not sure the Jean Courtney of 1968 would be wearing miniskirts.”
This clever styling injects a degree of realism into the show that some period dramas can lack. The Ipcress File is, of course, an adaptation of the Len Deighton novel and the 1965 film starring Michael Caine and Sue Lloyd – and it is interesting to note how costumes differ between the two screen versions. To my mind, the silhouettes are very similar, and some of Jean’s outfits – right down to her leopard print hat – mirror each other. Overall, though, there is far more colour in this adaptation: Jean’s suits are burnt orange and deep red rather than brown, while Harry wears an array of pale blues and deep greens.
This is in keeping with Madden’s description of the show’s costumes being realistic, “but with a heightened glamour”. Mostly, though, it is the quality of the tailoring that seems so glamorous from a 2022 perspective. “Clothes back then moulded and shaped the figure in a way they simply don’t anymore,” says Madden. “And I think we should all take some notes from how our ancestors dressed...”