Move over, Villanelle: Killing Eve's Dasha is the style hero we need now
When Sam Perry was pulling together costumes for season three of Killing Eve last year, she wasn’t to know that, come April, tens of millions of us would have watched a show called Tiger King about the big cats and bigger characters of the US’s exotic wildlife scene. But, even before Villanelle returned to our screens last month, many of us were seeing spots thanks to the gun-toting and sometime libertarian candidate for governor of Oklahoma, Joe Exotic.
Yet Dasha, a new character to Killing Eve in season three who occupies a senior role within The Twelve, is the Tiger King-adjacent dresser whose wardrobe feels particularly of the moment.
“It’s not just Villanelle,” says Perry, who admits to feeling the pressure of steering the wardrobe department of television’s most fashion-forward show. “I know she’s the fashion icon, but there are other characters as well.” Dasha, she says, was a “real treat” to dress.
Villanelle has worn several internetmelting dresses, from the pink froufrou Molly Goddard frock of season one to the Vampire’s Wife floral dress of this season. “It’s a wonderful cut,” says Perry of the latter, which Villanelle wears when embarking on her new life in Barcelona. “I just thought there was something Spanish and playful, with a slight reference to flamenco.” Perry could also not have known that, in the intervening months since filming, Kate Middleton would wear a Vampire’s Wife dress and, with her royal seal, take a cult indie label into the mainstream.
But it is Dasha, played by Harriet Walter, who sports devil-may-care clashing prints and brashness, with her layers of leopard on top of cheetah and zebra print. She is a trophy hunter’s dream and dresses like a mixture of
Carmela Soprano, Hunter S Thompson, Kate Moss and a pensioner headed for a weekend of slots and saltwater taffy in Atlantic City. And smokes cigarettes like it’s 1983. “I was really keen to work out who she was, how she managed to get to Barcelona and how that would be reflected in her clothes,” says Perry.
It is with a young Dasha, in 1970s Moscow, where the season starts. A gymnast, she has strong leotard, tracksuit and ribbons game even then. And a talent for merciless killing to rival Villanelle’s – it soon transpires that she was the younger woman’s trainer in killing, and fighting dirty, if not in style.
Dasha’s gold jewellery – thick chains and “D” pendants – would not have looked out of place clinking down many spring/summer 2020 catwalks, from Bottega Veneta to Sacai and Ellery. And her scrunchies, though decidedly practical – ideal for keeping hair out of eyes when teaching tumbling – speak to their recent resurgence. These are clothes in which to say lines such as “It’s good to have many lovers, it keeps you limber”, and drink vodka shots at lunch.
But it is also Dasha’s tracksuits, many with her name embroidered on them, that make her such an apt fashion icon for our lockdown world. “My lovely costume maker Anne Sparky was very, very busy with those,” says Perry. Dasha might not live an average life – which, as she sees it, consists of package holidays and date nights on the sofa – but she can share in the universal desire for an elasticated waist. “They did end up looking good on Harriet,” says Perry, “but we were trying to make them look not necessarily the most flattering.”
“She’s got pride in the way she dresses – she wears her clothes well,” says Perry, for whom Russian gymnasts, shapes from the late 80s and vintage style were all a big influence when designing Dasha’s costumes.
Her wardrobe will never rival the designers of Villanelle’s, who this season pulls out some very big guns in terms of designer names, including Gucci, Comme des Garçons, Halpern, Simone Rocha and Charlotte Knowles. And it is a far cry from the stylish threads worn by the head of MI6’s Russia desk, Carolyn, whose sharp-collared blazers, silky blouses, camel coats and cashmere loungewear create the kind of pared down look more traditionally thought of as aspirational. But Dasha’s is the kind of signature style that more of us can aspire to: unashamed, without concession to good taste, slightly ill-fitting and just a little too much.