The novel is set in a small country town of Australia. It was only three weeks before I realised that this was the best 'accident' that had ever occurred to me.' Then you had to hand in 3,000 words, and then you had to hand in 10,000 words, and I had 30,000 words. In novel-writing class, she got an assignment of 'a 500-word synopsis of her book', which she recalled as 'I had an idea and started writing it. As she was leaving, novelist Antoni Jach advised her to take a novel course instead.

In 1996, she enrolled in the writing programme of RMIT University but on her arrival she found that it was already full. According to Ham, the novel is a product of serendipity. She sent the manuscript to four publishers and received rejections but on one of the readers' advice she sent her manuscript to Duffy & Snellgrove, who picked it up for publication. The novel is Rosalie Ham's first published novel, and was picked up for publication within a year after Ham finished writing it. The tie-in-edition of the book sold 90,000 hard copies and 20,000 ebooks. A special film tie-in edition of the novel, featuring a new book cover with Winslet as the titular character, was released worldwide from August to October 2015. Ī film adaptation of the book was released on October 29, 2015, with Kate Winslet as the protagonist Tilly Dunnage. Since its release the novel has sold over 75,000 copies and has been translated into a number of languages including German and French. The novel is divided into four sections, each named after a different fabric and representing different phases in the story: gingham, shantung, felt and brocade. The story is set in a 1950s fictional Australian country town, Dungatar, and explores love, hate and haute couture. It was first published by Duffy & Snellgrove on January 1, 2000. The Dressmaker is a Gothic novel written by the Australian author Rosalie Ham, and is Ham's debut novel.

The dressmaker ham