Call the Midwife in 1969: Fashions and Sets

(soft bright music) - This year in terms of costumes, it's really exciting because we're in 69, so we are just starting to see the start of the seventies fashion.

We are really coming away from the higher hem lines, and we are going towards the flared trouser, the longer collars.

And so Trixie's wardrobe has really evolved this year as well because she's become a wife and because she's spending Matthew's money on her own clothes and she's got some really beautiful outfits.

But this year they're much more tailored and she's got fewer clothes, but the clothes she's got are beautifully designed and beautifully made.

So there's a real sort of a chicness to her wardrobe this year that I'm enjoying.

- So the difference with Trixie this season is that Trixie has married into aristocracy.

She's now Lady Aylward, so she needs to just kind of have that life.

She had the aunt from Portofino who would give her her clothing allowance before, and I think she was frivolous and spent it on things that were, you know, perhaps more cheap and you know, throwaway as the sixties had become, it had become much more about fast fashion.

But I think she's moved into a period where she is buying clothes to build a wardrobe.

And although she does have some cute things that come in, they're more expensive and less frivolous, but more gorgeous.

(soft whimsical music) So Nancy has changed quite a lot I think this year because she's gone from being a single mom with her daughter living away from her, to having her daughter living with her in the Nonnatus house.

So she's now a full-time mom, and she's working, and she's maturing, still keeping the fun because I think Nancy's never gonna give up that passion for fashion.

She's always going to want to put on something a bit colorful and crazy.

But we've just toned it down a little bit.

We've created a lovely Nancy look, a new look for Nancy.

(soft whimsical music) So Violet, we had a lot of fun with Violet because Annabel is just so much fun to be with and she really loves that character.

And she's got a very specific color palette, of course, violet and purples and pinks and greens.

So we've built up from her being shopkeeper.

So she's definitely got a more structured shopkeeper's look, there's a style to her.

We've done her in tunic dresses and blouses and she wears those quite consistently when she's in the shop.

So they're her shop look.

And then when she steps outside, she's definitely got that Violet hat suit, you know, very tailored look for Violet when she steps outside because she really, she was a milliner.

I mean, that was where she started her career.

And she opened those shops really off the back of her sewing and her millenary career.

So we wanted to maintain the hat thing for her, which is very important in her silhouette.

Annabel's a real collaborator.

So she, you know, she wants to talk about it, she wants to be involved, and it's been really a joy.

(soft wistful music) So we've got two new trainee midwives, this series, Joyce and Rosalind.

They're really lovely, lovely actors, Rene and Natalie.

And they're very, they've been very excitable right from the very beginning, very excitable.

We wanted to keep them in a sort of trainee mode and we just tweaked the colors.

So we made them a paler blue with white trim and we kept away from these sort of iconic colors and we just really tailored them to their figures because it's a lovely design, that design.

It's very, very pretty.

The puff sleeve, the waist, the bust line, the A-line of the skirt, the length, it's a very, very pretty dress.

(soft flowery music) - There's something new for Shelagh that is, I think, being long requested by some fans of the show.

- Mom, have you got new glasses?

- We wondered how long it would be before you noticed.

She's got a new pair of specs she'd had is her third pair of glasses that we've seen and she's had the last one for almost a decade.

So yeah, it was about time.

- I didn't realize for two days.

(soft whimsical music) - My favorite set is probably the kitchen in Matthew's apartment.

Jeffrey, I love you so very dearly, but this really will not do.

- But you know what I'm like around blood and meat.

It's not my fault you married a vampire.

- It's a really fun set for us and it, everything kind of just looks so sixties there, it just looks so, period.

You know, it is really great.

- It's got to be the Turner set because the Turner set is like a 1960s ideal home.

- When anybody else comes to our set, they just say, wow, you know, 'cause it's just so specious and it's really easy to film in actually just sort of home from home now.

- My favorite set at Long Cross is probably the house.

Realizing how many different places are in that house in that one building was so cool.

Like Dr. Turner's office and the parlor and the lounge, but also one of the hospital like bits, is crazy how big it is.

- My favorite set is Joyce and Rosalind's bedroom.

And I kind of wish that we could have a sleepover there, but Renee wasn't so keen on that idea.

- I love the parlor at Nonnatus.

I love it when we are all together there.

I love those scenes.

They take a long time to shoot because we have to move the camera around, everybody sitting around the table.

But it's quiet moments where nothing dramatic's happening.

But you see these women who all live together and annoy each other and love each other and make fun of each other.

And it's just nice little looks across the table and we often laugh a lot in between takes as well.

(soft wistful music)