Dangerous Liaisons creators Harriet Warner and Colin Callender have explained the significance behind the costume choices on the show.
Speaking exclusively to Digital Spy about their new series, which serves as a prequel to Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' 1782 novel, the pair explained how they believe the period dress reflected the "constraints" which women at the time lived under.
"You can’t run in those clothes. You can’t take a full breath. So you’re always slightly weakened," Warner said, adding that the clothes' restrictive nature was used as another tool to control women's lives.
"It was a way to just control women – to dress them beautifully.
"They’re great to look at for a male world. But one also that made them vulnerable in so many ways."
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Callender agreed, recalling how Alice Englert's (who plays Camille) experience wearing the tight costumes on set deepened with understanding of her character.
"This notion of constraint, and the way these women lived in a constrained way – there was a very interesting manifestation of that," he said. "So she [Englert] worked virtually every day. And she was wearing clothes of the period. And those include really tight corsets, tied really tight, to the point where sometimes they can’t breathe."
Callender continued: "Alice really felt – physically felt – the constraint. And in some sense, that physical feeling she had was a sort of way of her understanding the constraint that these women themselves lived under at the time."
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Warner added: "Alice really kind of inhabited that space by the end, which was fascinating, to see real history coming through.
"The way women looked and the clothes they wore. And how that’s political in its way."
New episodes of Dangerous Liaisons are available to stream every Sunday on STARZ in the US and Lionsgate+ in the UK.
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Brenna Cooper is a freelance journalist, who currently specialises in entertainment reporting. She joined Digital Spy in 2022, writing TV and movies stories for the site. After graduating with an NCTJ accredited Journalism Masters from the University of Sheffield in 2020 she has since embarked on a freelance career.
Brenna previously produced lifestyle content for Checklists.co.uk and has a specific interest in music, reviewing live acts and interviewing bands such as Confidence Man and Amyl and the Sniffers.
TV writer, Digital Spy Janet completed her Masters degree in Magazine Journalism in 2013 and has continued to grow professionally within the industry ever since. For six years she honed her analytical reviewing skills at the Good Housekeeping institute eventually becoming Acting Head of Food testing. She also freelanced in the field of film and TV journalism from 2013-2020, when she interviewed A-List stars such as Samuel L Jackson, Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. In 2021 she joined Digital Spy as TV writer where she gets to delve into more of what she loves, watching copious amounts of telly all in the name of work. Since taking on the role she has conducted red carpet interviews with the cast of Bridgerton, covered the BAFTAs and been interviewed by BBC Radio and London Live. In her spare time she also moonlights as a published author, the book Gothic Angel.
