Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018) Mrs Hester Appleyard's burgundy picnic costume

In the Valentine’s Day photo, we see Mrs Hester Appleyard exactly as she wishes to be seen: a proper lady, overseeing the social and intellectual development of her students. But even here, the ominous undertones of the narrative are foreshadowed. Mrs Appleyard’s dresses are meticulously structured, hinting at the strict control she exerts over the image she projects to the world, but she is also consistently dressed in darker colours than the other women in the narrative. If this was an attempt by the character to fade into the background as an unremarkable widow, it fails. If the girls in their white picnic dresses look ethereal, Mrs Appleyard’s silhouette and colour scheme is foreboding. Through her dress, the audience begins to see how the shadowy spectre of her past continuing to invade the present.