The Testament of Ann Lee (2025)

The Testament of Ann Lee (2025) has finally been released for streaming (on Hulu), and I’ve been waiting for it ever since being intrigued by the trailer (and of course, it’s set in the 18th century and I’m a completionist about that). Starring Amanda Seyfried and directed by Mona Fastvold (The World to Come), the film is a biopic about Ann Lee (1736-84), founding leader of the Shaker religious movement. It starts with her poverty-stricken childhood in Manchester, England, through her religious conversions/revelations and founding of the Shaker colony of upstate New York. And it’s really beautiful!

I feel like noting that I’m not the least bit religious, and only a little bit maybe spiritual, but the film really moved me, particularly in how it used actual Shaker songs and dance to both show how the Shakers worshipped but also to really get you inside of the concept of an ecstatic religion. It was also fascinating to see a real historical woman moving outside of her prescribed gender norms in an actually historical way, not an anachronistic feminist “Lady Preacher.”

The costumes were designed by Malgorzata Karpiuk (The Zone of Interest), made in only six weeks!! and on a very limited budget. She told the Motion Picture Association,

“My first thought, of course, was to draw inspiration mostly from the paintings. I didn’t want to watch other movies made by different costume designers and directors because I knew from the beginning that we would tell our own story. There’s a great book about Shakers that helped me understand this community. We had access to the museum as well, and the movie ended with the real museum, with its furniture and everything. In my opinion, it helped me understand how brilliant and modern they were. It was really important for me to understand their philosophy” (Shaker Style: Małgorzata Karpiuk on Designing Amanda Seyfried’s Dance-Ready Wardrobe for “The Testament of Ann Lee” in 6 Weeks).

Ann herself starts as a small child in 1750s Manchester, then a young woman joining the Shaker movement while marrying and having babies. As a working-class woman, she’s never shown wearing anything fancier than this white print dress:

She also wears a LOT of bodices, sometimes with obvious buttons for the presumably-removed sleeves:

She’s often in her stays in intimate moments with her husband, but also while in prison (where she has her big revelations) — annoyingly, without her shift (or, in prison, with her shift OVER her corset??):

After prison, when Ann becomes the main visionary and starts preaching for celibacy in particular, designer Karpiuk notes, “she wanted to be less attractive because she just started to figure out her future path. Slowly, her costumes were changing as she hid her chest. The bonnet got bigger, so we started covering her hair.”

The Shakers’ dancing was a key costume challenge for Karpiuk:

“My great cutter helped me design the dresses for the Shakers with this special sleeve cut that looks natural, but allows the actors to do everything. The dresses were made to be easy to put on the actors and very comfortable. We painted all the dresses to build this palette. For the men, most of the trousers were a bit longer and had a special elastic to hide the knee pads and make them feel comfortable.”

As the colony finds its feet in the soon-to-be United States, the characters find a more standardized religious dress. Karpiuk said,

“Ultimately, the final Shaker look proved to be the most challenging costume. I know the Shakers, I know their history, I know the colors from the book, but somehow we wanted to do our own vision of them. So we took some creative license to build this final look. To be 100% sure, we spent a couple of meetings together to decide on the sky palette and colors — almost like heaven.”

There were a couple more-upper-class-ish character. Jane Wardley is another female preacher in the movement. Most of her costumes were darkly lit, and I had my suspicions about some of them but I was never able to see them closely enough to officially confirm.

There’s also the American landlady of the New York City boardinghouse:

Some randos on the street in New York:

And a few guys, whose wigs I quite liked!

So, if you’re at all interested in a strong film about a real historical woman, I highly recommend The Testament of Ann Lee. It may surprise you how good it is!

 

Have you seen The Testament of Ann Lee? What did you think?

 

 

 

 

Find this frock flick at: