Of Moss & Malice: An Autumn Bog Witch Style Guide
Folklore-inspired fashion for wandering woods and weathering the cold
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Every village has a story about a mysterious woman who lives beyond its borders.
She inhabits the cottage at the edge of the woods, where the trees grow crooked and the ground never quite dries. Some say she can cure an illness. Others insist she caused it. Children are warned against wandering too close, though nobody can agree on what happens to those who do…
Meet the Bog Witch.
Inspired by the fearsome women of European folklore, from Baba Yaga's forest dwelling to the Puritan nightmares of VVitch, this darker interpretation of woodland dressing borrows from the wardrobes of women who lived and worked close to the land. Coarse linen, heavy wool, weathered leather and layers built to withstand the elements form the foundation, accompanied by the colours of peat, moss, stagnant water and decaying vegetation.
For late autumn, the Bog Witch emerges in substantial cloaks, long skirts, knitted hoods and boots made for difficult terrain. Her clothing carries the marks of practical use, with a few peculiar embellishments suggesting that the stories told about her might contain a grain of truth.
Dressing the Part: Costume Designer Sarah Runnalls on Yaga and the Visual Language of Character
Inside the creative process behind Yaga in anticipation of its TIFF 2026 premiere
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Before Sarah Runnalls was dressing characters for the screen, she was raiding her parents’ linen closet. As a teenager, no bedsheet was safe. Runnalls would take whatever fabric she could get her hands on and turn it into something she could wear, eventually making pieces for friends and selling her creations to local boutiques. She already understood fashion as a form of storytelling: each morning offered another opportunity to decide how you wanted to present yourself to the world.
That instinct would eventually take her from fashion school to Vancouver Fashion Week, where her Sarah Runnalls Collection earned her an Emerging Designer Award. Her work with iconic Canadian drag queen Jimbo introduced another dimension to her designs, beginning with costumes for local theatre before their creative paths led into film and television.
It was there that clothing took on a different responsibility. A beautiful garment became representative of a character’s history and storyline, revealing a world of information before a line of dialogue is uttered. Runnalls became fascinated by the precision of that process and the way a character could evolve visually from scene to scene.
Her latest project, Yaga, gave her particularly rich material to explore. Created by Kat Sandler, the series reimagines a folklore figure whose image has been shaped by centuries of storytelling. Rather than reaching for the familiar visual shorthand of the witch, Runnalls helped create modern women whose power and confidence are embedded in how they present themselves. The female gaze became an important creative guide, resulting in a visual identity that feels contemporary while leaving room for some cleverly placed cinematic references.
With Yaga premiering at TIFF 2026, we spoke with Runnalls about the creative process behind bringing its characters to life and the unexpected path that brought her from making one-of-a-kind fashion to designing entire identities for the screen.