Why the Funeral Episode of "The Handmaid's Tale" Has the Most Significant Costumes

The Plums, introduced in season five, are the daughters of high-level commanders and their wives. Kavanagh's sketch shows how she incorporated different hues from the purple family into their looks, which are first introduced at Commander Waterford's funeral. In this moment, their outfits help to immediately convey their important status without giving anything else away. "The design of the look was to show they are not handmaids or wives but clearly fit into the conformity of Gilead. I specifically used a 1950s undertone to match much of the wives' silhouettes while still making them practical," she says.