The thing I disliked most about this book was the malicious way the author portrayed her characters. Trained as a dressmaker at the couture houses of Paris, Tilly's beautiful gowns entice the prim and judgemental women of Dungatar and she becomes grudgingly accepted, until another accident causes the townspeople to turn on her. Returning brings up memories of her unhappy childhood and the tragic accident which resulted in her leaving Dungatar as a child. But as her dresses begin to arouse competition and envy in town, causing old resentments to surface, it becomes clear that Tilly’s mind is set on a darker design: exacting revenge on those who wronged her, in the most spectacular fashion.Īfter twenty years, Tilly Dunnage returns to Dungatar, the small Australian town she grew up in, to visit her ill mother. Through her fashion business, her friendship with Sergeant Farrat-the town’s only policeman, who harbors an unusual passion for fabrics-and a budding romance with Teddy, the local football star whose family is almost as reviled as hers, she finds a measure of grudging acceptance. But Tilly decides to stay, and though she is still an outcast, her lush, exquisite dresses prove irresistible to the prim women of Dungatar. She plans only to check on her ailing mother and leave.

This time, amid the ruins of Dungatar, things are resolved a little more satisfactorily.A darkly satirical novel of love, revenge, and 1950s haute couture-now a major motion picture starring Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth, and Hugo WeavingĪfter twenty years spent mastering the art of dressmaking at couture houses in Paris, Tilly Dunnage returns to the small Australian town she was banished from as a child.

It’s also about trying to progress when society and the authorities work against those who want to live truthfully. The Dressmaker’s Secret continues some of the same ideas on hypocrisy, bullying, transformation, ambition and lies. But the past is prologue, and it arrives in the form of Sergeant Farrat, the first of many. Tilly is hiding in plain sight, trying to conceal her past from her present, and she has new secrets she must keep from those she has left behind. It’s 1953, Coronation Year, and fashionable Melbourne is gearing up to the crowning of Princess Elizabeth. We meet her in Collins Street, Melbourne. We last saw Tilly Dunnage fleeing Dungatar in a blaze of justified vengeance. In The Dressmaker’s Secret, Tilly’s challenge is to move away from one-upmanship, vanity and the women of Dungatar, and to employ her talents for beauty, and for something beneficial.

In The Dressmaker, couture was a weapon, and used for disguise. The Dressmaker’s Secret, by Rosalie Ham, a sequel to The Dressmaker, publishing date, November 2020

The dressmaker by rosalie ham