Lesley Manville stars in Mrs Harris Goes to Paris about a war widow who finds joy and adventure in a Dior gown

One day, one of the ladies she cleans for shows her a gorgeous haute couture Dior gown – a dress so powerfully beautiful, the lady says, that “when I put it on, nothing else matters” – and Mrs Harris falls in love, becoming determined to have a Dior dress of her own despite the hefty £500 price tag.

After working hard and saving as much as she can, Ada travels to Paris and strides into a Dior boutique, only to find her Cockney accent and basic clothes prompt derision from some of the fashionistas.

But Ada is nothing if not determined, and refuses to leave Paris without her dress.

What follows in Mrs Harris Goes to Paris, Anthony Fabian’s film adaptation of Paul Gallico’s 1958 novel Mrs ‘Arris Goes To Paris, is a fairy tale journey where an ordinary woman becomes entangled in the magical world of Parisian high fashion, proving that reaching middle-age doesn’t have to mean the end of beautiful clothes and big adventures.

“The story is the fairy tale,” says Lesley Manville, who plays Ada, “but what I think is interesting about the film, and what I think is the glue that holds it together, is that you have to have characters that are really grounded and rooted that people can relate to.

“There is a huge element of the film that is poignant, that is very much a picture of post-war Britain, and a woman grieving from having lost her husband to the war, and about a working woman who is trying to defy terrible, stereotypical attitudes of the time.”

Ada Harris is not someone who stands by and lets other people’s opinions of her change the way she lives her life. For a woman in 1950s England, that is quite radical, and it is her “unequivocal sense of self” that made Manville fall in love with her.

“She doesn’t feel beneath anybody, she knows her worth. And she’s blissfully candid and full of goodness, without being sickly and sweet and sugary,” she says of the character. “She’s a very good, wholesome, funny, bright, clever woman who has got such emotional intelligence that rubs off on other people in a way that she wasn’t expecting, in a way that those people weren’t expecting – people who were perhaps quick to judge her, quick to think that a woman like that shouldn’t be in their lives.”

Those with even a passing interest in fashion will know the power of a beautiful dress. The way it makes you walk a little taller, carry your head a little higher, and the sense of awe that comes from wearing a piece of art.

As a legendary fashion house is as much of a protagonist as the titular character herself, filmmaker Fabian knew the costume design had to be impeccable. He recruited Academy Award-winning costume designer Jenny Beavan who painstakingly scoured the Dior archives to pinpoint and replicate what makes the designs so special.

Dior loaned the production five outfits from its heritage collection, leaving Beavan and her team to recreate all of the other pieces for the film. They used masses of fabric, careful historical considerations, and an in-depth study of what made the luxury of Dior so appealing to – as Fabian describes it a “fashion-starved post-war Europe”, and to unassuming but passionate women like Ada.

Ada wants the dress because she adores the careful design and craftsmanship, and because she knows that she deserves to wear it just as much as a wealthier, upper-class woman. That is why her story is so powerful. This is a story of a woman who might feel forced into society’s shadows – she’s widowed, works with the utmost discretion in her job, and lives on the side-lines – but Ada knows her worth and is determined to live life to the fullest.

“That’s what we are, the invisible women,” she says in the film, a reflection on the realities of life for middle-aged women in the 1950s. “You could think: Well, it’s the end of the war. She’s become a widow. She’s a cleaner, she lives in a basement flat. You might as well throw in the towel now because you’re over 50, just, you know, live out your days. Don’t make a nuisance. Keep quiet,” says Manville. “And she’s not having any of that.”

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris is in UK cinemas on Friday, September 30.