charwoman

For this very fashion-focused film, in which a London charwoman travels to Paris in the late 1950s to buy a dreamed-of Christian Dior gown, Beavan carefully studied clothing of the time and visited the designer’s archives, where she could closely examine “exactly how Dior did his little inner corsets and boning,” Beavan told the Hollywood Reporter.

Watson, the woman in the image, was a so-called “charwoman” or janitor at the time.

Leah had been saying something I had not caught, and the charwoman remarked—

“She is a good hand, I daresay,” said the charwoman.

The charwoman was going on; but here Leah turned and perceived me, and she instantly gave her companion a nudge.